Hello,
Youtube is really hitting the users with the ads/premium sub road recently.
I use Chrome Browser (I have everything setup in there) on my laptops with uBlock Origin extension to block ads from running.
It worked fine but in the past weeks YT detects the adblocker and acts up.
I'm setting up Firefox (I used it in past) to see if I can escape the YT ads inferno.
Question: What's your setup to avoid YT ads at all with your Google account log in?
Browser & Extensions
Thanks
Unfortunately, YT is wise to ad blockers and this is their way of dealing with it. Since ad revenue is basically how YT operates, they require you to watch them unless you prem subscribe to the channel.
As far as I know, there are no ways to mitigate this at this time, in any browser.
I would prefer banners to the full screen obnoxiousness that we must currently endure, as they are easier to ignore.
There is a little app that will change your browsers user agent to look like you're using Windows phone, which YouTube has always just ignored. It still does. I can't recall the name but a quick search should find it. But it may be a windows app not sure.
These are extensions for many browsers but might not be what I read about before.
Chameleon is one of such extensions, but I'm not sure if it'll work on Chromium browsers.
Regardless, blocking ads while logged in to Google account kinda misses the point... I understand the convenience but they are not going to stop here. I would suggest using alternative front-ends and avoid the main site altogether.
I use this extension called Improve YouTube for YouTube. It has lots of features including ad blocker. I haven't faced any issue so far.
Even most Youtube videos are actually ads, aren't they? 
I'm not sure what I'm doing 'wrong', but I still don't see ads on YT. Is it just on certain videos? I'm watching the movie Evolution right now as a test, no ads.
SRWare Iron browser
uBlock Origin ad blocker
TabActivate extension
User Agent Switcher (set to show UA as Chrome under Win11)
I'm using "Adblock for Youtube - ad blocker tool" also "AdAway - Free ad blocker" and it seems to work so far? this is in Chrome.
I watch youtube on a 3rd party android app that has an adblocker built-in. As for the google account login, I dont login and I dont need to, as the app saves the subscriptions internally on the device so i dont need to log in to have those channels accessible
Maybe is a country specific thing?
I use YT mainly for music.
I have laptop plugged to Hifi and set Dark Ambient music playlists (and other alternative styles).
I also use it for white noise videos/audio as a sleeping aid during the night.
don't worry, all adblock extensions will update it's behavior to overcome that, u may try other extesions, i'm sure u will find one of them has update it's behavior, i do that, i tried more than one , until find the the extension that i'm used to use it,has update it's behavior
Was just looking at a Video Bourne posted in another thread, opened it and spotted a link to Chris Titus Tech. Just watched this video,
(https://youtu.be/TvzVTRK1nOY?feature=shared)
in Thorium Browser and no ads - but is this because it is on VEVO channel?
uBlock updated last night.
Yesterday I watched 3/5 videos and the stupid YT ad banner showed in front of video saying ad blockers not allowed.
After that a new banner showed up saying I could watched 3 videos (with ad blocker) and then it would cut off video/audio.
Right now I watching videos in Chrome and no banners whatsoever...
Also checked this video:
I think pretty much all of the alternative YouTube front-ends have the option to load only the audio to make things more efficient and save on bandwidth. On Android, you can switch to another app and even turn off your screen entirely without issues... and bookmarks to playlists are a click away.
My setup is just using piped + LibRedirect running the LibreWolf Browser, not only to preserve my privacy but also to prevent ads and use sponsorblock without an extension.
To elaborate a little bit, LibreWolf is a fork of Firefox that ships with some more privacy-focused settings.
If you wanna use the official site, be sure to update uBlock Origin, head over to the settings > Filter Lists > Purge All Caches and then Update Lists.
Although this is somewhat offtopic to your question, I'd recommend you stick with Firefox as uBlock Origin works best on Firefox. (and also because I advocate for Privacy, and Firefox is pretty good at giving tools to preserve said privacy on the web)
i Use a pi-hole with several filter lists but this is the main one for youtube. since its txt file, you could always add these entries to your firewall or other blocking agent like ublock.
I watched that same video and installed it. Ended up with 3 extensions including Google Hangouts that I could neither uninstall or disable. If I wanted Hangouts I would install it myself. Once I got a ways I realized I was still using chrome but with weird unwanted extensions. I think Chris made a buck or two on that long commercial disguised as a ligit video.
Well I guess it was telling in the video that he said he still used Google. I have replaced Google with Mojeek in the search engine. Hadn't delved too far - time to say bye bye to Thorium. Well spotted!
Both Brave Browser and Firefox with uBlock extension work perfect for me. I haven't received any annoying warning from YouTube yet. But maybe I just got lucky.