How to stop YouTube from asking me to sign in

I work with a guy exactly like this. It's pointless asking him to sign in even with a throwaway address, he won't do it. Stubborn as heck.
 
mrochester said:
It’s not a fight, it’s just an inconvenience. I’ll either block the pop up, keep clicking ‘nope’ or use a difference service.
Click to expand...

There is a solution to the "inconvenience" that you just refuse to use, ergo, a fight.

Plus, it's not a bad design, it's a great design, it is designed to do EXACTLY what it sets out to do, which is to get users to sign in (so they can track your viewing habit, yes, i am fully aware before you even go there), but you are fighting it, yes you are fighting it because you don't want that. You want to stay anonymous, which is fine. So, use a fake email address.

Truth is, nobody cares that you love watching cat videos.
 
Raymond Lin said:
There is a solution to the "inconvenience" that you just refuse to use, ergo, a fight.

Plus, it's not a bad design, it's a great design, it is designed to do EXACTLY what it sets out to do, which is to get users to sign in (so they can track your viewing habit, yes, i am fully aware before you even go there), but you are fighting it, yes you are fighting it because you don't want that. You want to stay anonymous, which is fine. So, use a fake email address.

Truth is, nobody cares that you love watching cat videos.
Click to expand...
Or YouTube could honour my decision that I don’t want to sign in

Anyway, it’s by the by as the pop up is now blocked.

Thanks to those who provided some useful responses.
 
Raymond Lin said:
It's a strange thing to pick a fight with, really really strange.
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I'm not going to disagree there, we all know the OP is a bit of a looney when it comes to these things.

Not happy to use any service owned by Google, but still happy to use the rest of the internet with all those big juicy tracking cookies.
 
I've taken to watching and using youtube far far less that in than the past. There's too many adverts pop ups, and manipulation. and most of it is absolute tosh. I value my time more and more these days.

**link and details removed**

Anyone around in the 'early' days of the interwebs/internets will recognise this as classic offline reading behaviour. Like when you used to dial up, download emails, news, and even web pages, disconnect, read them all, compose replies and then reconnect and send again. It's like that.

Take back control!
 
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Semple said:
I'm not going to disagree there, we all know the OP is a bit of a looney when it comes to these things.

Not happy to use any service owned by Google, but still happy to use the rest of the internet with all those big juicy tracking cookies.
Click to expand...

He is perfectly happy to use it, he thinks by not signing in it means they are not getting anything out of him. The truth is every video he watches, signed in or not, will result in revenue for Google as it counts towards the view.

Block that!
 
whitecrook said:
I've taken to watching and using youtube far far less that in than the past. There's too many adverts pop ups, and manipulation. and most of it is absolute tosh. I value my time more and more these days.

**link and details removed**

Anyone around in the 'early' days of the interwebs/internets will recognise this as classic offline reading behaviour. Like when you used to dial up, download emails, news, and even web pages, disconnect, read them all, compose replies and then reconnect and send again. It's like that.

Take back control!
Click to expand...

Nice, thanks for that :)
 
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whitecrook said:
I've taken to watching and using youtube far far less that in than the past. There's too many adverts pop ups, and manipulation. and most of it is absolute tosh. I value my time more and more these days.
Click to expand...

I find it immensely useful when making the decisions such as which car to get, which phone to get etc.

For politics it's like cancer.
 
whitecrook said:
I've taken to watching and using youtube far far less that in than the past. There's too many adverts pop ups, and manipulation. and most of it is absolute tosh. I value my time more and more these days.

**link and details removed**

Anyone around in the 'early' days of the interwebs/internets will recognise this as classic offline reading behaviour. Like when you used to dial up, download emails, news, and even web pages, disconnect, read them all, compose replies and then reconnect and send again. It's like that.

Take back control!
Click to expand...

Surely...to use this you still need to navigate to the website in question?

Then wait to download it, let it complete before watching. Then load it on VLC or whatever, then delete it.

Are you sure you are saving time vs click Skip Ad?

I personally watch YouTube on my TV via Amazon Firestick so I too just skip the ads, sometimes I can't, it's about 15s, but if I say do what you do....I don't think I can..

1 - head over to my pc
2 - open browser
3 - find video
4 - download
5 - move to NAS
6 - Go back to Firestick
7 - browse to video just downloaded
8 - click play.

I need to do all that inside 15 seconds, every single time. I value my time, hence I don't download every single video. That's a total waste of time.

Who has time for that? And those days with dial-up is long gone, I don't want to live in the past. lol
 
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mrochester said:
Nice, thanks for that :)
Click to expand...
Raymond Lin said:
Surely...to use this you still need to navigate to the website in question?

Then wait to download it, let it complete before watching. Then load it on VLC or whatever, then delete it.

Are you sure you are saving time vs click Skip Ad?

I personally watch YouTube on my TV via Amazon Firestick so I too just skip the ads, sometimes I can't, it's about 15s, but if I say do what you do....I don't think I can..

1 - head over to my pc
2 - open browser
3 - find video
4 - download
5 - move to NAS
6 - Go back to Firestick
7 - browse to video just downloaded
8 - click play.

I need to do all that inside 15 seconds, every single time.

Who has time for that? And those days with dial up is long gone, I don't want to live in the past. lol
Click to expand...


it's more of a mindful/philosophical approach. decouple yourself. either you get it or don't no offense. I predict a massive phase shift in peoples attitudes to ward this sort of thing coming in the next while. If I watch a vid on you tube and an ad comes up I X out the video. everytime. No video on youtube is worth me watching as ad no matter how small. I'm finding in the last few months that I X out of about 50% or more of anything i try to watch. I have a browser plugin that disables the first ad so I can click right through but mid roll ads are death.

as for saving time ? Well yes it does save time. I don't click recommended videos or get distracted into a youtube wormhole. That alone saves hours! And I watch far less than i would otherwise because I'm not just mindlessly 'watching youtube'

also i don't watch any adverts so I save all that time. You don't need a browser to use clipgrab. I can find what ever video I want directly. I can paste a link right in (in fact it detects copied links) and it downloads to a predefined directory. I don't have to wait for buffering. I don't get any mid roll ads (somtimes there's like 8 ads in a 15 min video and I have to wait a few secs then click past etc. It's just terrible.

What you describe above is like if you use sky plus to watch say corrie and you wait till 7pm then start the sky plus then wait till the end and watch it it. I'm describing creating a bunch of downloads that I can go back to and watch in my own time. The same way I don't watch Live TV anymore for the last 10 years, I am very surely just not going to ever watch 'live youtube' any more. I 'prerecord' and watch later.

the other thing to note is that i used to follow a bunch of youtubers and they'd put out a weekly video maybe 2. But tubers these days pump out constant content far to much to watch. the quality is down., its all just churn and numbers. not for me anymore
 
VincentHanna said:
I find it immensely useful when making the decisions such as which car to get, which phone to get etc.

For politics it's like cancer.
Click to expand...
sure, in clipgrab you type in the <model of phone> it brings up videos you click on each one. In about 5 mins you will have a list of named, tagged, no ads videos you can save, reference, watch at your leisure.
 
whitecrook said:
it's more of a mindful/philosophical approach. decouple yourself. either you get it or don't no offense. I predict a massive phase shift in peoples attitudes to ward this sort of thing coming in the next while. If I watch a vid on you tube and an ad comes up I X out the video. everytime. No video on youtube is worth me watching as ad no matter how small. I'm finding in the last few months that I X out of about 50% or more of anything i try to watch. I have a browser plugin that disables the first ad so I can click right through but mid roll ads are death.

as for saving time ? Well yes it does save time. I don't click recommended videos or get distracted into a youtube wormhole. That alone saves hours! And I watch far less than i would otherwise because I'm not just mindlessly 'watching youtube'

also i don't watch any adverts so I save all that time. You don't need a browser to use clipgrab. I can find what ever video I want directly. I can paste a link right in (in fact it detects copied links) and it downloads to a predefined directory. I don't have to wait for buffering. I don't get any mid roll ads (somtimes there's like 8 ads in a 15 min video and I have to wait a few secs then click past etc. It's just terrible.

What you describe above is like if you use sky plus to watch say corrie and you wait till 7pm then start the sky plus then wait till the end and watch it it. I'm describing creating a bunch of downloads that I can go back to and watch in my own time. The same way I don't watch Live TV anymore for the last 10 years, I am very surely just not going to ever watch 'live youtube' any more. I 'prerecord' and watch later.

the other thing to note is that i used to follow a bunch of youtubers and they'd put out a weekly video maybe 2. But tubers these days pump out constant content far to much to watch. the quality is down., its all just churn and numbers. not for me anymore
Click to expand...

Clip Grab works amazingly well, thank you!
 
Raymond Lin said:
Plus, it's not a bad design, it's a great design...
Click to expand...

It's terrible design for user experience as it either causes disengagement with the site and users leave or forces users to deploy Ad Blockers to block the popup whilst also blocking adverts, the very thing that monetises the platform.

As said, a "better" solution would be "nag" after an extended period of time.

Either way, there's multiple ways of "skinning the cat" - either faff with a throw away email and sign-in or block the popup with a few clicks.
 
whitecrook said:
it's more of a mindful/philosophical approach. decouple yourself. either you get it or don't no offense. I predict a massive phase shift in peoples attitudes to ward this sort of thing coming in the next while. If I watch a vid on you tube and an ad comes up I X out the video. everytime. No video on youtube is worth me watching as ad no matter how small. I'm finding in the last few months that I X out of about 50% or more of anything i try to watch. I have a browser plugin that disables the first ad so I can click right through but mid roll ads are death.

as for saving time ? Well yes it does save time. I don't click recommended videos or get distracted into a youtube wormhole. That alone saves hours! And I watch far less than i would otherwise because I'm not just mindlessly 'watching youtube'

also i don't watch any adverts so I save all that time. You don't need a browser to use clipgrab. I can find what ever video I want directly. I can paste a link right in (in fact it detects copied links) and it downloads to a predefined directory. I don't have to wait for buffering. I don't get any mid roll ads (somtimes there's like 8 ads in a 15 min video and I have to wait a few secs then click past etc. It's just terrible.

What you describe above is like if you use sky plus to watch say corrie and you wait till 7pm then start the sky plus then wait till the end and watch it it. I'm describing creating a bunch of downloads that I can go back to and watch in my own time. The same way I don't watch Live TV anymore for the last 10 years, I am very surely just not going to ever watch 'live youtube' any more. I 'prerecord' and watch later.

the other thing to note is that i used to follow a bunch of youtubers and they'd put out a weekly video maybe 2. But tubers these days pump out constant content far to much to watch. the quality is down., its all just churn and numbers. not for me anymore
Click to expand...

How do you find a video directly? You have Google inside your head? How do you know the URL without a browser?

I totally get it, it goes a bit into the loony side for me. It's a lot of work in an illusion to save time. But in actual fact, you have spent hours looking for how to get around the system.

I just click on videos that I am interested in, that's why I subscribe to them, but it doesn't mean I watch them. I only watch those that topics interest me. Who has time to download them to watch it offline? It's getting very tinfoil territory.
 
each to their own but I don't see a single benefit of downloading videos you can watch on Youtube, except no ads or if you want to edit them/use them on some offline device


I used to download music videos to slow them down etc but now Firefox has Video Speed Controller plug in with even better shortcut keys than the program I was using I don't even do that
 
visibleman said:
It's terrible design for user experience as it either causes disengagement with the site and users leave or forces users to deploy Ad Blockers to block the popup whilst also blocking adverts, the very thing that monetises the platform.

As said, a "better" solution would be "nag" after an extended period of time.

Either way, there's multiple ways of "skinning the cat" - either faff with a throw away email and sign-in or block the popup with a few clicks.
Click to expand...

I suspect those that leave or deploy ad blockers or do what the OP does with scripts to disable it is like 0.1% of the user base or something small, which means too small a statistic for them to care. And they probably will never change it to accommodate the minority because they are the minority.
 
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