cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/35967051
Most people turn to a VPN for one reason: privacy. And with its verified badge, featured placement, and 100k+ installs, FreeVPN.One looked like a safe choice. But once it’s in your browser, it’s not working to keep you safe, it’s continuously watching you.
I use my paid vpn extension (Nord) to select a Country for twitch.tv which isn’t served ads. However I would all my traffic go through that specific vpn as it causes trouble with other appe/pages. So being able to cnveniently switch my IP per domain is pretty nice sometimes.
It is a paid VPN luckily though. The issue is with “free” VPN browser add-ons.
There’s also different adblocker rules and extensions for twitch ads.
Not sure about the current situation. However in general Twitch uses server side injected ads (SSAI), which are basically unblockable. They can however be bypassed (using different methods, each having it’s own pros and cons). Anway there is a very active twitch ad blocking community that will explain everything: https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions Most reliably is having either an http proxy or a vpn in a country that is not served ads.
They’re not unblockable.
Every now and then Twitch wastes money on circumventing adblockers, but a few weeks later ublock filters will be updated to block that again. I’m currently watching without any ads or third party add-ons besides regular uBlock.
Curious, what country doesn’t get twitch ads?
Well that is actually quite dynamic as sometimes advertisers suddenly choose to place an ad in somen fringe country like czech rep. or Georgia. Mostly those small eastern EU countries are not attractive enough for advertisers. For some reason I also never get ads with Luxembourg IP, even though they are one of the richest countries in the world. Probably too small of a traget audience.