YouTube has found a new way to bypass ad blockers by integrating ads directly into video content via "server-side ad insertion," complicating the detection and blocking of ads. How will ad blockers respond?
Why would that be the case? The player can simply be locked into ad mode till it gets the cue from the server all of the ads have been streamed. Only then will the player unlock. When watching what amounts to a video stream, this doesn’t have to be handled clientside.
I’m not talking about the player or the controls being server-side. I’m talking about the player being locked into a streaming mode where it does nothing but stream the ads. After the ads are streamed, the player returns to normal video mode and the server sends the actual video data.
This means no metadata about the ads are required on the player side about the ads.
Sure you can hack the player into not being locked during the streaming of the ads. But that won’t get you very far, since it’s a live stream. You can’t skip forward, because the data isn’t sent yet. You can skip backwards if you’d like, with what’s in the current buffer, but why would you want to? You can have the player not display the ads, but that means staring at a blank screen till the ads are over. And that’s always the case, one can simply walk away during the ads, that’s always been the case.
Technically I can think of several ways to implement this, without the client having meta data about the ads. And with little to none ways of getting around the ads. Once the video starts it’s business as usual, so it doesn’t impact regular viewing.
and making them server site, while possible would introduce tremendous amounts of lag, and put that much more load on the servers. Imagine a server that has to handle playback of billions of users all at once. That’s probably quite a bit worse than most average, or even high-level DDoS attacks.
Why would that be the case? The player can simply be locked into ad mode till it gets the cue from the server all of the ads have been streamed. Only then will the player unlock. When watching what amounts to a video stream, this doesn’t have to be handled clientside.
Well the player and its controls are client side.
I’m not talking about the player or the controls being server-side. I’m talking about the player being locked into a streaming mode where it does nothing but stream the ads. After the ads are streamed, the player returns to normal video mode and the server sends the actual video data.
This means no metadata about the ads are required on the player side about the ads.
Sure you can hack the player into not being locked during the streaming of the ads. But that won’t get you very far, since it’s a live stream. You can’t skip forward, because the data isn’t sent yet. You can skip backwards if you’d like, with what’s in the current buffer, but why would you want to? You can have the player not display the ads, but that means staring at a blank screen till the ads are over. And that’s always the case, one can simply walk away during the ads, that’s always been the case.
Technically I can think of several ways to implement this, without the client having meta data about the ads. And with little to none ways of getting around the ads. Once the video starts it’s business as usual, so it doesn’t impact regular viewing.
and making them server site, while possible would introduce tremendous amounts of lag, and put that much more load on the servers. Imagine a server that has to handle playback of billions of users all at once. That’s probably quite a bit worse than most average, or even high-level DDoS attacks.