Khamosh Pathak
Credit: Dzmitrock - Shutterstock
YouTube is great, except for the annoying, unskippable ads. And, after the introduction of YouTube Premium, it seems like the number of unskippable ads for free accounts keeps going up. If you don’t want to sit through three ads just so you can watch your video, it might be time to try a different approach.
There is still a universe of third-party YouTube apps and tools that will give you a great ad-free YouTube experience, and they’ll do it for free.
YouTube Premium
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first. YouTube Premium is the best and only way to remove all ads from YouTube videos on all the platforms that you use (including smart TVs). No other tool will offer that.
But it does come at a cost, and that cost keeps rising. As of writing, you can snag a subscription for $13.99 per month or $119.99 per year. If your household would all benefit from a subscription, you could consider a YouTube Premium Family plan for $22.99 a month, which lets six users share the same ad-free experience. But, just like Netflix, YouTube Premium also deters password sharing, and it only works if all the members live at the same residential address as the account manager.
You can also try subscribing to YouTube Premium from a country where the rates are low. In countries like Argentina, India, and Turkey, YouTube Premium costs less than $2 per month. Install a VPN, change the location, and try your luck subscribing to the cheaper plans.
NewPipe
NewPipe is perhaps the best way to watch YouTube ad-free on Android. This is not a modded YouTube app. Instead, it’s a separate, free, and open-source player for YouTube. NewPipe is lightweight, but offers the features you care most about: background playback; picture-in-picture; and, of course, no ads.
While the app isn’t available in the Play Store, you can directly download the APK installer from their website, or you can find the app on the F-Droid app store—an alternate to Google Play Store that hosts free and open-source apps.
The app has an option to import your subscriptions, but you can’t sign in using your YouTube account.
SkyTube
SkyTube is another free and open-source third-party YouTube app for Android, just like NewPipe. It also offers the basic features you’ll want, including ad-blocking and background payback.
The only downside is that SkyTube is a view-only app. You can’t sign into your YouTube account, so there’s no sync feature. The app does have its own feature for channel subscriptions and bookmarks. On the other hand, there’s a version of SkyTube called SkyTube Extra, which is also free, and supports the official YouTube player and casting features.
LibreTube
You can think of LibreTube (also Android only) as a NewPipe app but with a modern interface. It has a bottom tab bar, updated icons, and an overall smooth operation. This level of fit and finish is something that’s usually lacking in other popular YouTube apps. It supports SponsorBlock, so sponsored sections can be skipped as well. Plus, it has extra features like chapter selection.
This, too, is a free and open-source client. That said, the app is still in beta testing. Though it’s fully functional, you might encounter some bugs here and there.
Firefox Browser with uBlock Origin
Unlike Chrome on Android, Firefox actually supports extensions, and a single extension can change your entire YouTube experience. If you don’t mind using YouTube on the web (you can’t access it offline), you can install the popular ad-blocker uBlock Origin to automatically block all ads on YouTube.
Download the uBlock Origin add-on, then go to Menu > Add-ons > and enable uBlock Origin.
Brave Browser
If you don’t want to use an extension, you can use a browser that has a built-in ad-blocker. Now, you’ll find many browsers that do this on the Play Store and App Store, but it would be best to use a trusted browser here. Brave Browser is a highly regarded privacy browser that also comes with a great ad-block feature that works on Android, iPhone, and PC. As long as you have the Shields Up feature enabled for YouTube, you won’t see ads in your videos anymore.
AdGuard for iPhone
Thanks to the way iOS is set up, there’s no easy way to install an unofficial YouTube app like you can on Android. (Although, if you’re the adventurous kind, you can try installing the modded uYouPlus YouTube app using the AltStore Xcode sideloading method. This works on non-jailbroken iPhones, but requires a lengthy setup using a Mac.)
But if you’re okay using YouTube in Safari, you can remove ads using Safari extensions. Here too, you’ll find multiple trusted apps that do the job. AdGuard is a good option, as they have a specific feature built-in for removing all YouTube ads. After the extension is set up, go to YouTube.com, tap the Share button, and choose the Block YouTube Ads (by AdGuard) option.
SmartTube for Smart TVs
As we’ve covered before, long unskippable ads are coming to the YouTube app on TVs. Thankfully, there is a workaround here. If you have an Android-based smart TV or streaming box (including Amazon Fire TV), you can simply install the SmartTube app (previously called SmartTubeNext) to act as a YouTube replacement. You will have to manually sideload the app, but once that’s done, you can say goodbye to all the ads.
SponsorBlock
SponsorBlock is both a browser extension and a service embedded in a couple of YouTube replacement apps we’ve covered above (like LibreTube). It does one thing, and one thing only: crowdsources data for sponsor segments in videos, and lets you automatically skip through those sections. Chances are, if you’re watching a remotely popular channel, SposorBlock will recognize the sponsor segment. If you can’t stand watching another 45-second ad for Squarespace, this is the extension for you.
