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YouTube is not usable in Orion 0.99.130.1-beta (WebKit 619.1.11.111.2) under MacOS 12.7.6 ("Monterey") on an Intel MacBook Pro. There is only one extension installed, and it's not relevant to this situation (1Password).

In the attached movie we see a typical attempt to watch a YouTube video: first we see a still from an ad, then we get blocked with YouTube's bogus "Ad blockers violate the terms of use" (no, they don't; there's nothing in YouTube's terms that mentions ad blockers, but that's beside the point).

I change the user agent to Chrome, the page reloads, then after awhile an ad loads. It eventually fast-forwards, then there are multiple seconds of black, then another ad loads, it eventually fast-forwards like the first one, then another multiple seconds of black (etc) then the video eventually loads—but only the first short bit of it. We only get to see 17 seconds of the video before it hits the end of the part that loaded, and no further loading will happen. It will sit there with the loading-circle animating forever, if I let it.

This second movie is Firefox 133.0.3 running on the same machine, with many extensions installed. Potentially-relevant ones include AdGuard Browser Assistant, Disconnect, Ghostery, Privacy Badger, and uBlock Origin. I'm not sure which one(s) are doing the heavy lifting, but whatever their division of labour, I see not even a trace of a YouTube ad, nor any black-screen placeholder. Here's that same YouTube video in Firefox: load, play, and it just…does it, progressively preloading more of the vid as it plays along:

0.99.130.1-beta (WebKit 619.1.11.111.2)

Monterey (12)

    YouTube is deliberately making their website non-functional with ad-blockers. I tried on Orion (0.99.130.1-beta) to watch a video logged in to my premium account, and it worked, after crashing Orion once. Then I tried watching a video logged out, and it skipped the ad and continued to the video.

    Using the following settings:

    • JavaScript ON
    • Page tweaks OFF
    • Content blockers OFF
    • User agent: Automatic
    • Cookies: Enabled
    • Intelligent tracking prevention: Enabled

    @carl , thank you! I duplicated your settings and EwTube started behaving, in that I could watch vids all the way through. Still with initial and interstitial ads, though. I reinstalled the Enhancer For YouTube extension—the Chrome version, apparently updated more recently and frequently. It hadn't worked for me before with my previous YT site-specific configs, but now it does. Vids work properly, and no more ads.

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