Why are ads on youtube not being blocked?!

Hi Jessieb,

Check out the link below:

https://community.sophos.com/products/unified-threat-management/f/web-protection-web-filtering-application-visibility-control/46207/speeding-up-webbrowsing-by-blocking-advertisers-and-trackers

We only went as far as steps 1 & 2. However, the result was that we now get very few (if any) ads at the start of any YouTube videos.

Hope this helps,

JP

Did all that initially when I setup the UTM. YouTube ads still got through. 

Today, I finally decided to spend time actually looking into this and figuring out why ads were still not being blocked. It looks like Google cleverly integrated them into Youtube as normal videos, only, including a specific query in the URL which classifies it as a specific type of ad or ad-video.

I've compiled a RegEx that works wonderfully and actually filters out YouTube ads while allowing normal non-ad videos to play just fine.

(([A-Za-z0-9.-\/]+)?)pageid\=[0-9]{1,30}

I've spent the last hour and a half making sure it works and videos work normally, while ads remain blocked. And sure enough, even VEVO videos shut out ads. :)

Here's an example URL I got this from, if you're interested : 

[code]https://www.youtube.com/get_video_metadata?video_id=ufkgkH7O4QA&html5=1&page_subscribe=0&authuser=0&pageid=108398601314690181974[/code]

Do you mind sharing where and how you setup this regex in Sophos?

I've noticed that Sophos has become pretty useless at blocking nearly any ads so I've resorted to setting up and using Pi-Hole instead. So far, that is working like a charm but the YouTube ad blocking isn't really working well in Pi-Hole. Would love to implement this to close the gap on blocking as many ads as I can.

Here you go!  [:D]

I don't know if I missed something or Youtube changed the way they serve the ads but for some reason I see the ads after applying the block. Is this method still working for you?

It's a possibility.  I'll investigate and see what I can find.

UTM blocks lots of ads for us, so  I have no complaints.  However, our usage is for business.  Home activities like gaming and video provide web developers with more tricks for inserting ads.

Great, thanks!

I’d like to block youtube ads in my home network because of my 7 years old son who likes to watch cartoons on our smart TV. One problem is that in a 20 minutes long episode of Johnny Test there are about 10-15 ads on the average, but the bigger problem is that there are also inappropriate ones, a few weeks ago I saw myself an ad for the horror movie The Nun 2 o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of cartoon for children.

I think something may have changed on Youtube's ad thing, because I have this same solution going, and I am STILL getting ads from Youtube through the UTM (9.602-3).

The ads may be annoying, but do they represent an incremental security risk?

The answer to that is subjective, and potentially in the future?  Possibly so.  We've seen a lot of changes on how people use ads to get malware and whatnot into systems in very clever ways.

My main point wasn't about that though - mine was the applied filter listed above no longer works.

The answer to that is subjective, and potentially in the future?  Possibly so.  We've seen a lot of changes on how people use ads to get malware and whatnot into systems in very clever ways.

My main point wasn't about that though - mine was the applied filter listed above no longer works.

YouTube wants you to see ads.
Ad blockers want you no to see ads.
The two are at war.
YouTube will occasionally change how they do things to render the blockers inoperative.
Sophos is not part of this war.  You can use the UTM to do things, but that it not its primary purpose.  User shared tips are fine.
If you really want to prevent ads, you should use one of the several different youtube ad blockers out there, most of which are browser plugins/extension - the best place to do blocking.
Then there is always paying for YouTube Premium.

Amodin,

Did you look at the Web Filtering log to see what category the ads were thought to be in?

Cheers - Bob

No, and that's a good idea I will look at, but since a Sophos Staff member seems to be discouraging this even though it could be a potential way for malware to be introduced and/or abused(as factual occurrences with ads have been utilized before), I will explore other means and discontinue this topic here.