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The 5 best ways to watch YouTube without ads and interruptions

Posted on November 29, 2025 by faz_business

Joe Maring / Android Authority

Don’t let Google know, but I’d be quite lost without YouTube. I use the video platform daily for background noise during the workday and for enjoying my favorite creators’ content in the evenings.

The platform doesn’t offer the best user experience, at least not one that prioritizes the content. Constant interruptions and visual clutter within the app have prompted me to seek alternative ways to watch YouTube. And you don’t need to put up with them, either.

There are various ways to use YouTube interruption-free. What follows are your options.

How do you watch YouTube interruption-free on Android?

191 votes

Use a browser with dedicated video controls

Andy Walker / Android Authority

You don’t necessarily need to use an app to view YouTube content; Android browsers will serve just as well. Some browsers are more adept at displaying and controlling video than others, though, and while the likes of Google Chrome seem like an excellent fit for a fellow YouTube product, there are better options.

Personally, I’ve gravitated towards Banana Browser as my preferred video web browser. It packs a dedicated video player that supports numerous content sources, including YouTube and TikTok. It also includes ad-blocking smarts and SponsorBlock support — a tool that skips past sponsor slots and other interruptions — while background play and picture-in-picture modes are also available.

As far as user-friendliness is concerned, Brave is perhaps the best option on Android for casual users. It supports background playback for audio tracks, picture-in-picture mode, and dedicated settings to block recommended content, “distracting elements,” and YouTube Shorts.

Use one of the many Android YouTube apps available

Andy Walker / Android Authority

There are many apps that present YouTube content in a more user-friendly manner, free from annoying content. My current favorite example is Tubular, a fork of NewPipe. What makes Tubular better is its inclusion of SponsorBlock, which skips video sections based on crowdsourced info, and ReturnYouTubeDislike, which does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s also extremely easy to use, so even non-techies can easily adopt it.

Notably, NewPipe remains a pretty great alternative, especially if you’re running an older Android smartphone.

Tubular and NewPipe are excellent open source Android YouTube alternatives.

PipePipe is a hard fork of NewPipe, featuring a nifty keyword filter system and support for other platforms, including Bilibili.

For something more democratic, Grayjay is not simply a YouTube alternative. It’s effectively a content aggregator and supports a host of big-name platforms serving audio and video. It’s also built with privacy in mind, keeping subscription information locally.

Desktop user? FreeTube does the trick

freetube windows macos linux youtube app 1

You can use a web browser for your YouTube needs on Windows, but I’ve found a standalone app to be a far better solution. As Google doesn’t offer a dedicated Windows app, I have to look elsewhere. For the most part, FreeTube covers pretty much all of my bases.

FreeTube is a free and open source program that bills itself as a privacy-first client. It keeps all your subscription, playlist, and history data on your local machine, doesn’t display ads, and uses a UI consistent with YouTube itself. The most significant appeal is its support for macOS and Linux as well.

As an unofficial product, FreeTube occasionally breaks due to YouTube’s changes to its backend. But, thanks to the power of open source collaboration, these problems are usually remedied in a day or a few.

Use this popular Google TV app

Most of my YouTube viewing takes place on my TV via my Chromecast with Google TV. While I could use the official YouTube app for the platform, I find it somewhat lacking in customization, video controls, and quality adjustments. It’s why SmartTube is one of my essential Google TV apps.

SmartTube is a brilliant piece of free and open source software that’s updated regularly and supported by a thriving community. The app itself feels quicker, offers more UI options to enhance accessibility, and boasts numerous advanced features compared to YouTube’s official production. It just so happens to support SponsorBlock, ad suppression, and gives me complete control over the types of videos I want recommended to me. It’s a far more personal way to consume YouTube.

SmartTube offers more accessibility and video quality options than YouTube on Google TV.

Of course, being a third-party app that’s not directly available from the Play Store on Google TV, installation is a bit of a chore. It requires installing a prelude app before you can access SmartTube itself. Nevertheless, jumping through this hoop is well worth it.

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Actually pay for YouTube Premium

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority

Look, as much as thrifty consumers hate to admit it, paying for YouTube Premium may actually be the best solution for watching YouTube without ads. While parting with cash monthly is a painful prospect, Premium is the only solution if you want to access YouTube unabated on every supported device.

Premium also offers a few valuable perks, including YouTube Music Premium access, offline viewing, additional playback options, and the super helpful skip-ahead smarts. And, of course, paying for Premium is one way to support the creators you watch every day.

Paying for YouTube is the only way you’ll get Premium features across all supported devices.

My primary concern with this approach is the YouTube experience itself. As I mentioned in the SmartTube section, YouTube is overly rigid in its UI and controls on its supported platforms. Although most consumers won’t need options to increase the scale of thumbnails on TV or hide Shorts from view, many power users do. Paying for YouTube won’t magically produce these features.

At $13.99 monthly, Premium isn’t what I’d call cheap. And, arguably, you could access the lion’s share of its features with one of the solutions outlined above. Nevertheless, I did want to mention purchasing YouTube as an option because it genuinely is.

How do you watch YouTube interruption-free? Let me know your solution in the comments below.

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YouTuber Mark Rober is bringing his experiments to Netflix

Posted on August 18, 2025 by faz_business

Mark Rober will bring his scientific talents to Netflix with two upcoming projects. Rober is a former NASA engineer who parlayed his skills into an entertaining and educational YouTube career. In past years, we’ve seen him develop , but stinky glitter bombs to fend off porch package thieves, as well as leading work on a Guinness World Record-holding .

According to an from Netflix, Rober “will bring some of his most beloved, ambitious, and informative experiments” to the streaming platform later this year. Then in 2026, he’ll also host a competition series aimed at kids and family viewers. Rober’s CrunchLabs business and Kimmelot, late night host Jimmy Kimmel’s production company, will be producing.

Netflix has been adding several YouTube creators to its content lineup, with a particular angle toward family-friendly science programs. Earlier this year, it brought some content from , with educational topics for very young children, to the platform.

Never fear, reaction videos are still allowed under YouTube’s new ‘inauthentic content’ policy

Posted on July 15, 2025 by faz_business

YouTube has clarified its rules about repetitious content and your favorite reaction video channel won’t be impacted. Earlier this month, the platform said it would be changing its rules for monetization in an effort to address AI-generated materials, but didn’t include many specifics, which led many to sound the alarm that reaction videos might get swept up in the new rules. The company has now provided a few tweaks and more clear delineations in its guidelines about channel monetization policies.

For starters, the rule is being renamed to the inauthentic content policy. “This type of content has always been ineligible for monetization under our existing policies, where creators are rewarded for original and authentic content,” a note appended to the states. “There is no change to our reused content policy which reviews content like commentary, clips, compilations and reaction videos.”

YouTube provided a few examples of material that it would deem to be mass-produced or overly repetitive, and thus ineligible to be monetized. Inauthentic content includes video “that exclusively features readings of other materials you did not originally create, like text from websites or news feeds” or “image slideshows or scrolling text with minimal or no narrative, commentary, or educational value.” The company also shared examples of reused content. YouTube said those beloved reaction channels, as well as videos that contain clips for analysis, review or commentary, are unaffected by the new rules. The no-nos for reused content rules might include “Content uploaded many times by other creators” or “Content downloaded or copied from another online source without any substantive modifications.”

I want the YouTube algorithm to stop doing this one annoying thing

Posted on May 12, 2025 by faz_business

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

Over the years, the YouTube suggestion algorithm has become pretty complex. I’ve noticed that it can extrapolate my tastes very well based on my watch history, continuously tempting me to consume more videos. For example, I recently watched a live clip of The Prodigy at Coachella. My home screen feed then filled up with not only concert clips from other shows by The Prodigy, but also other artists that I enjoy, such as Nine Inch Nails, St. Vincent, Air, and more. Notably, these artists sound nothing like The Prodigy, but the algorithm is smart enough to assume that my tastes will align with them based on my watch history. I’m not going to lie: I had to stop myself from spending all day watching live concert clips.

This is impressive and something Google has probably spent millions of dollars refining, as it keeps people glued to YouTube and fueling the money-printing machine that it’s become. Curiously, while the algorithm is intelligent enough to do that, it is still completely inept at something else: understanding when I search for a video not because I’m deeply interested in the topic, but because I need help doing a specific task. Even now, in 2025, this still seems to throw the algorithm for a loop.

The YouTube algorithm and one-time tasks

C. Scott Brown / Android Authority

Let me give you a real-world example of the algorithm’s deficiency. I have a pair of expensive German leather boots that I wear nearly every day and love with all my heart. Since I wear them so much, they undergo quite a bit of wear and tear. In the past, I’ve taken them to a cobbler for a refresh every few years, but here in California, that is expensive — and not getting any cheaper. I figured it can’t be that difficult to do annual maintenance on my boots by myself, and doing so would certainly save me money.

I went straight to YouTube with this thought. I searched for “leather boot refresh” and found dozens of high-quality videos going over the tools, polishes, conditioners, and other materials needed for this task, as well as step-by-step instructions. I watched one video — just one! — and knew I could do this myself. I bought the products the video suggested, and when they had all arrived, I re-watched the same video several times as I followed its instructions. My boots look great now — they’re like new!

Watching one ‘How To’ video about a particular topic should not be enough for the algorithm to flood your feed with other ‘How To’ videos on that topic.

One would think that the YouTube algorithm would understand that this process I went through is not at all similar to watching a live concert clip. I am not interested in buying leather boots. I am not looking for other tips on fixing my boots. I am not going to open a cobbler shop. I had a one-time problem — refreshing my boots — and used one YouTube video to solve that problem. If I ever need help again, I’ll search for it (or just watch the same video once more).

Despite how obvious this would seem, this didn’t stop the algorithm from filling my home page with other videos about refreshing leather boots. Seriously, for a few days after I did the refresh, roughly half of my home page was videos related to leather, boots, or cobbler things. Shouldn’t we be beyond this by now? Shouldn’t the algorithm be able to tell the difference between video hours spent watching stuff I enjoy and hours spent using YouTube as a tool?

This makes me want to use YouTube less, not more

YouTube premium app on smartphone stock photo (2)

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

Remember how I had to hold myself back from bingeing entire concerts after watching just one Coachella clip? That’s what has made YouTube so successful. Unfortunately, this problem — its inability to prevent itself from suggesting irrelevant content based on one-time needs — actively makes the home page worse, working against its success. In other words, my feed being covered with boot videos makes me want to navigate away from YouTube. It’s the exact opposite of Google’s intentions!

Has the YouTube algorithm filled your feed with ‘How To’ content before?

96 votes

Based on this, one would think that Google would prioritize preventing this issue. However, given that YouTube has been around for 20 years (man, I’m old) and this problem still exists, it clearly isn’t as much of a priority for Google as I would think.

You’d think Google would want to fix this, considering it makes my home feed less addicting.

To Google’s credit, a little more than a week after this happened, my feed cleared all references to boots and leather. It seems the algorithm is smart enough now to understand that I didn’t click on any of its suggestions, so I’m not really interested in more boot videos. But what if this wasn’t something related to boot repair, and instead something more sensitive? What if I went to YouTube for a solution to a health-related issue, and suddenly my feed was a beacon to anyone who wants to know about my medical condition? What if I watched a video about how to solve a marital problem, and my feed became filled with other videos about marital problems I am not having? YouTube should be working for us, not against us.

Have you faced a similar problem? What did you search for that the algorithm then pummelled you with other related videos? Let me know in the comments, and be sure to pick something in the poll above, too!

This mini documentary about the coldest town on Earth is stunning

Posted on December 29, 2024 by faz_business

Kiun B’s YouTube videos are mini documentaries about her life and the lives of the 800 people who live in her hometown of Yakutia, Siberia, aka the coldest town on Earth. The creator, who narrates the videos, says she and her community are native to the region. The enchanting mini docs showcase their customs, culture, and day-to-day life — which looks quite different when it’s 95 degrees Fahrenheit below zero outside.

This installment follows a family through their day, including waking up before the sun to feed the furnace fire and melt ice for drinking water. They don layers and layers of insulated clothing just to walk short distances outside — or long distances, in the case of the schoolkids who bundle up each day to commute to class. The stories are humbling, especially as you sit in your cozy home and watch the Yakutians do such hard, backbreaking work just to keep their homes running through the winter. (Don’t worry, it gets warm in the summer — and there’s a video about that, too!)

This documentary has that easy, informative Nat Geo vibe that makes it an unchallenging watch with family over the holidays, for instance. But the creator and narrator being from Yakutia herself gives it a more grounded tone and, of course, better insight about life in the town.

While it’s never a good idea to chalk an entire culture up to one YouTube channel, I didn’t know anything about Yakutia or the contemporary lives of the Indigenous people of Siberia before watching these videos, and they exposed me to something I might’ve never learned about otherwise. And who hasn’t wondered how the people who live in the harsh climate of Siberia make it all work? To have that question answered — and to learn how those people thrive in a cold I can’t even conceive of — is a great way to spend 20 minutes.

YouTube upgrades its ‘erase song’ tool to remove copyrighted music only

Posted on July 5, 2024 by faz_business

YouTube is trying to make it easy for its creators to remove songs from their videos and resolve copyright claims. In a new Creator Insider video, the website has announced that it has released an upgraded “erase song” tool that has the capability to remove music from video segments without deleting other audio, such as conversations, as well.

When creators get a copyright claim for music, YouTube gives them the option to trim out the affected segment or to replace the song with an approved one in its audio library. Creators can’t monetize that particular video until they resolve the claim. The website has been testing its “erase song” tool for a while, but in the video, the company says it hasn’t been as accurate as it would like. To solve that problem, it redesigned the tool so that it now uses an AI-powered algorithm to accurately detect and remove copyrighted music from videos.

Still, YouTube admits that the tool might not always work. If a song is particularly hard to remove, presumably due to audio quality or the presence of other sounds while it’s playing, creators may have to resort to other options. In addition to being able to trim out the offending segment or to replace its song, creators will also be able to mute that part of their video through the new erase tool.

The website’s upgraded erase song tool will be available in YouTube Studio in the coming weeks.

Here’s what YouTube has to say about its NSFW ad issue (again)

Posted on July 2, 2024 by faz_business

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

TL;DR

YouTube has responded after a Redditor encountered more NSFW ads on the platform.
The company said it had removed these ads and taken action against the offending account.
The service noted that it had blocked or removed almost 95 million ads featuring adult content last year.

YouTube is no stranger to NSFW ads, and a Redditor recently reported encountering porn ads on the streaming service. Now, YouTube has responded following these latest ads.

Redditor Academic_Yak2513 spotted two NSFW advertisements for a video game, featuring cropped porn. These ads also come after we spotted pornographic ads on YouTube back in December 2023.

“We have strict policies against ads with sexually explicit content. If we find any ads that violate this policy, we remove them,” a YouTube spokesperson told Android Authority.

The company also told us that it removed the most recent offending ads and that action was taken against the account.

YouTube’s ad crackdown so far

The streaming service pointed to the sheer number of ads it blocked or removed last year:

In 2023, we blocked or removed over 5.5 billion ads, slightly up from the prior year, and suspended 12.7 million advertiser accounts, nearly double from the previous year.

YouTube added that it had blocked or removed 94.6 million ads with adult content in 2023.

The company also insisted that large language models (LLM) were helping in the fight against sketchy ads.

“In 2023, in the first policies where we deployed LLMs, we blocked or removed 35 million ads in financial services advertising, sexual content, misrepresentation, and gambling,” it explained.

In any event, fighting sketchy ads is a cat-and-mouse game. But between these most recent NSFW ads and porn bots leaving comments, there’s still plenty of room for YouTube to improve.

Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at news@androidauthority.com. You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it’s your choice.

Google Wants to Show You More YouTube Ads When You Pause Videos

Posted on April 27, 2024 by faz_business

If you already hate ads on YouTube, then you’re going to have a bad time with Pause Ads. During its earnings calls on Thursday, Google crowed about the success of the tests it’s run on the ads, which could indicate the “feature” will roll out to even more watchers.

No Google AI Search, I Don’t Need to Learn About the “Benefits of Slavery”

As the name implies, Pause Ads are unskippable advertisements that play when you hit pause on a video. Google is trialing Pause Ads on TVs playing YouTube videos, and according to yesterday’s call, the company is happy with the results.

“In Q1, we saw strong traction from the introduction of a Pause Ads pilot on connected TVs, a new non-interruptive ad format that appears when users pause their organic content,” Philipp Schindler, senior vice president and chief business officer at Google, said in Thursday’s earnings call. “Initial results show that Pause ads are driving strong Brand Lift results and are commanding premium pricing from advertisers.”

Schindler didn’t say if Pause Ads will roll out to more YouTube users or if these unwanted advertisements will find their way to smaller screens like phones and desktops. YouTube first highlighted the feature last year in its Upfronts post saying how these ads were a great opportunity for brands to “drive awareness or action by owning that unique interactive moment when people pause a video.”

It’s no surprise that YouTube wants people to watch more of their ads because that’s where it gets a lot of its money. That and people who pay for YouTube Premium because they’re sick of the ads.

The video platform has been cracking down on ad blockers for the past year. This move appears to be helping Google’s bottom line as the company said in its earnings call that YouTube Ads revenue was up 21% over the same time last year.