There have never been more ads on YouTube. YouTube advertising, for its part, earned Alphabet upward of $31B last year, and the company has been strengthening ad‑blocker detection while also expanding 30‑second unskippable slots on televisions. For those who just want what they want without all the junk, there are dependable, legal, safer ways to get that material — as long as you know where to look.
Here are the five best ways to watch YouTube without ads and with fewer distractions, along with a few trade‑offs explained. Every option mirrors how people generally watch online: on phones, on laptops, and in living‑room viewing situations — so you can pick the form that suits your setup and comfort.
One quick caveat: third‑party tools, more than once, have been rendered obsolete when YouTube changes its backend, and some methods may be infringing on YouTube’s Terms of Service. Maintain a thoughtful pace, and think about how you want to spend to support creatives.
Paying for YouTube Premium to remove ads and distractions
The easiest and most straightforward solution is also the most direct: YouTube Premium gets rid of ads across all devices, providing background play and downloads as bonuses, plus a bonus subscription to YouTube Music.
It is the only one that consistently works across all official apps, including smart TVs and game consoles.
In the US, a single account costs from $13.99 per month, with family and student options also available.
In 2024, YouTube said that Premium and Music added up to more than 100M paid subscribers globally — a clear indication that there are many viewers who would prefer a frictionless experience. A plus: Premium revenue shares with creators, which is important if you want to support channels that you watch every day.
Downsides? Premium does not overhaul YouTube’s interface, so if you crave granular control over recommendations or layout, you might still want a third‑party client on some devices.
Ad-blocking browsers that support SponsorBlock
If you use mobile or desktop browsers, a privacy‑focused browser with some kind of well‑respected content blocker is the quickest free path to extracting the spying unpleasantries from your life. Brave has blocking and background playback on Android. Firefox or a Chromium‑based browser with uBlock Origin gives you fine‑grained control without the bloat.
Install SponsorBlock and the experience gets better still. This crowdsourced project navigates around sponsor segments, intros and outros by millions of user‑submitted timestamps. It doesn’t merely mute ads — it also snips out other non‑content interruptions creators frequently bring to the table to get paid.
Warning: YouTube has been getting aggressive with anti‑ad‑blocker messages. You may have to make sure your extensions are updated and whitelist YouTube at times. Also, keep in mind that the solutions below do not work within the official YouTube mobile app.
Third-party mobile clients for a cleaner YouTube
On Android, privacy‑first front‑ends like NewPipe, Tubular, LibreTube, and Grayjay package YouTube in a much cleaner interface and strip away ads by design. Some have functionalities including background audio, downloads, and SponsorBlock, while others, such as Tubular, support the community‑driven Return YouTube Dislike for bringing back visibility of feedback on videos.
Such apps often keep subscriptions locally, as opposed to in a Google account, which is somewhat of a positive for privacy. They’re also lightweight, which is good for older phones that may struggle with the overhead of the official app.
Those trade‑offs are real: features can break if YouTube updates its API and sign‑in is restricted or unavailable, plus you have to trust the open‑source community to maintain them. Only invest in well‑known projects with active development and open‑source code.
Desktop apps made for your YouTube experience
FreeTube applies a similar, familiar layout to Windows, macOS, and Linux users with its clients designed for the platforms. FreeTube keeps your subscriptions and history on your local machine, plays nice with multiple player backends, and works in tandem with SponsorBlock — letting power users implement quick controls while staying free of web distractions.
Because these apps are unofficial, they can sometimes break; the good part of open source is that fixes tend to come fast, however. As usual, grab a fresh build at the project HQ and leave the auto‑updater on.
A better TV experience with SmartTube on Android TV
TV screens are where interruptions bite hardest and also where YouTube has leaned into longer ads. SmartTube is a popular open‑source app for Android TV and Google TV that trims down ads and tacks on deep controls for codecs, HDR, bitrates, captions, and SponsorBlock. A lot of users say they experience smoother scrolling, faster search, and better accessibility than what can be found in the original app.
You have to sideload it for installation since it’s not in the Play Store, and you definitely don’t want to sign in with your Google account. SmartTube has a few workarounds for signing in and local subscriptions, but you should treat it just like any other third‑party client: keep it up to date, and install only from the project’s official source.
As connected‑TV viewing increases — Nielsen’s The Gauge has consistently found YouTube to be the largest streaming platform on US TVs — SmartTube has emerged as a go‑to for people who want control without the ad load.
The bottom line: If you want the absolute best, most dependable cross‑platform fix that directly contributes to supporting creators, Premium is the way to go. If what you want isn’t just maximum customization but minimal muck, browsers featuring SponsorBlock, third‑party clients, and SmartTube can give you a cleaner YouTube — but you’ll need to be careful about updates, security, and terms of service. Either way, you have some options to make the world’s largest video platform feel like it respects content again.
