{"id":918759,"date":"2026-07-10T09:14:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T14:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/10\/these-10-apps-let-you-watch-youtube-without-ads\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T09:14:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T14:14:42","slug":"these-10-apps-let-you-watch-youtube-without-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/10\/these-10-apps-let-you-watch-youtube-without-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"These 10 Apps Let You Watch YouTube Without Ads"},"content":{"rendered":"
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YouTube is great\u2014except for the annoying, unskippable ads. And after the introduction of YouTube Premium, it seems like the number of unskippable ads for free accounts keeps going up. If you don\u2019t want to sit through three ads just so you can watch your video, it might be time to try a different approach.<\/p>\n

There are several great third-party YouTube apps and tools that will give you a great ad-free YouTube experience\u2014and they\u2019ll do it for free.<\/p>\n

YouTube Premium and Premium Lite<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s get the obvious one out of the way first. YouTube Premium<\/a> is the best and only way to remove all ads from YouTube videos on all the platforms that you use (including smart TVs). No other tool will offer that.<\/p>\n

But it does come at a cost, and that cost keeps rising. As of writing, you can snag a subscription for $15.99 per month. If your household would all benefit from a subscription, you could consider a YouTube Premium Family plan for $26.99 a month, which lets six users share the same ad-free experience. But, like Netflix, YouTube Premium also deters password sharing, and it only works if all the members live at the same residential address as the account manager. <\/p>\n

YouTube also has a cheaper $7.99 per month plan now in the form of YouTube Premium Lite<\/a>, which promises an ad-free viewing experience for most non-music YouTube videos. <\/p>\n

You can also try subscribing to YouTube Premium from a country where the rates are low. In countries like Argentina, India, and Turkey, YouTube Premium costs less than $2 per month. Install a VPN<\/a>, change the location, and try your luck subscribing to the cheaper plans.<\/p>\n

DuckDuckGo<\/h2>\n

DuckDuckGo<\/a> is quickly becoming the anti-AI browser. Unlike Chrome, the privacy-focused browser lets you choose exactly how many AI features show up in DuckDuckGo Search and the browser (there’s an option to disable all AI features as well). <\/p>\n

Now, the company has integrated a YouTube ad blocker<\/a> directly into the browser on the desktop and on mobile apps. DuckDuckGo is directly integrating community filters from uBlock Origin, making sure to cover a wide net of ads on the platform. And because there is no third-party extension, you don’t need to worry about ad-blocking extensions being deprecated (as in Chrome). DuckDuckGo should be able to block most of the pre-roll and mid-roll ads on YouTube. <\/p>\n

And the feature is enabled by default for the desktop and the iOS apps. If you’re on Android, you’ll need to enable it manually. Make sure that you’re running the latest version of DuckDuckGo and then go to Settings > Ad Blocking<\/strong>, and enable the ad blocker. <\/p>\n

NewPipe<\/h2>\n

NewPipe<\/a> is perhaps the best way to watch YouTube ad-free on Android. This is not a modded YouTube app. Instead, it\u2019s a separate, free, and open-source player for YouTube. NewPipe is lightweight, but offers the features you care most about: background playback; picture-in-picture; and, of course, no ads.<\/p>\n

While the app isn\u2019t available in the Play Store, you can directly download the APK installer from their website, or you can find the app on the F-Droid app store\u2014an alternate to Google Play Store that hosts free and open-source apps.<\/p>\n

The app has an option to import your subscriptions, but you can\u2019t sign in using your YouTube account.<\/p>\n

SkyTube<\/h2>\n

SkyTube<\/a> is another free and open-source third-party YouTube app for Android, just like NewPipe. It also offers the basic features you\u2019ll want, including ad-blocking and background payback.<\/p>\n

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\n What do you think so far?<\/p>\n

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The downside is that SkyTube is a view-only app; you can\u2019t sign into your YouTube account, so there\u2019s no sync feature. The app does have its own feature for channel subscriptions and bookmarks. On the other hand, there\u2019s a version of SkyTube called SkyTube Extra<\/a>, which is also free, and supports the official YouTube player and casting features.<\/p>\n

LibreTube<\/h2>\n

You can think of LibreTube<\/a> (also Android only) as a NewPipe app but with a modern interface. It has a bottom tab bar, updated icons, and an overall smooth operation. This level of fit and finish is something that\u2019s usually lacking in other popular YouTube apps. It supports SponsorBlock, so sponsored sections can be skipped as well. Plus, it has extra features like chapter selection. This, too, is a free and open-source client. <\/p>\n

Firefox Browser with uBlock Origin<\/h2>\n

Unlike Chrome on Android, Firefox<\/a> actually supports extensions, and a single extension can change your entire YouTube experience. If you don\u2019t mind using YouTube on the web (you can\u2019t access it offline), you can install the popular ad-blocker uBlock Origin to automatically block all ads on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Download the uBlock Origin add-on, then go to Menu<\/strong> > Add-ons<\/strong> > and enable uBlock Origin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Brave Browser<\/h2>\n

If you don\u2019t want to use an extension, you can use a browser that has a built-in ad-blocker. Now, you\u2019ll find many browsers that do this on the Play Store and App Store, but it would be best to use a trusted browser here. Brave Browser<\/a> is a highly regarded privacy browser that also comes with a great ad-block feature that works on Android, iPhone, and PC. As long as you have the Shields Up feature enabled for YouTube, you won\u2019t see ads in your videos anymore.<\/p>\n

AdGuard for iPhone<\/h2>\n

Thanks to the way iOS is set up, there\u2019s no easy way to install an unofficial YouTube app like you can on Android. But if you\u2019re okay using YouTube in Safari, you can remove ads using Safari extensions. Here too, you\u2019ll find multiple trusted apps that do the job. AdGuard<\/a> is a good option, as they have a specific feature built-in for removing all YouTube ads. After the extension is set up, go to YouTube.com, tap the Share<\/strong> button, and choose the Block YouTube Ads (by AdGuard)<\/strong> option.<\/p>\n

SmartTube for Smart TVs<\/h2>\n

So you’ve blocked YouTube ads in your browser, and on your smartphone. But what’s more annoying than sitting through long, unskippable ads<\/a> when you’re listening to lo-fi music<\/a>? Thankfully, there is a workaround here. If you have an Android-based smart TV or streaming box (Amazon Fire TV devices sold after October 2025 aren’t supported), you can simply install the SmartTube app<\/a> (previously called SmartTubeNext) to act as a YouTube replacement. You will have to manually sideload the app, but once that\u2019s done, you can say goodbye to all the ads.<\/p>\n

SponsorBlock<\/a> is both a browser extension and a service embedded in a couple of YouTube replacement apps we\u2019ve covered above (like LibreTube). It does one thing, and one thing only: crowdsources data for sponsor segments in videos, and lets you automatically skip through those sections. Chances are, if you\u2019re watching a remotely popular channel, SponsorBlock will recognize the sponsor segment. If you can\u2019t stand watching another 45-second ad for Squarespace, this is the extension for you.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YouTube is great\u2014except for the annoying, unskippable ads. And after the introduction of YouTube Premium, it seems like the number of unskippable ads for free accounts keeps going up. If you don\u2019t want to sit through three ads just so you can watch your video, it might be time to try a different approach. There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":918760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,451,104640],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-918759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-these","category-watch","category-youtube-videos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/918760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}