YouTube Vanced, a reliable yet ethically questionable method to watch Youtube videos without any ads, is being shut down. The developers behind the project have confirmed that they have stopped all further development of the project, and “Vanced” has been officially discontinued. The team is keeping communications channels on Discord, Telegram, and Reddit open for now.
YouTube has always been an ad-supported platform. All the content creators as well as YouTube’s owner Google, earn from ads that appear before, during, and at the end of nearly every video that any viewer watches. YouTube Vanced was a platform that managed to strip the videos of ads.
Besides eliminating ads served by YouTube, Vanced, allowed viewers to skip sponsor segments that are natively integrated and spoken by creators. The platform could also disable promotional banners displayed on the “Home” tab as well as those related to merchandise and movie/TV purchases. A user-generated and publicly available allow list for channels was available for those who wished to listen or watch the promotional material.
YouTube Vanced was essentially a modified version of the official YouTube app to implement the adblocker. However, it also offered other features like background play and free Picture-in-Picture (PiP), which are exclusive to YouTube Premium subscribers. The app even improved upon the official YouTube app by offering an AMOLED Black theme, gestures for brightness/volume controls. The modified app also brought back the dislike count which YouTube had recently removed.
Installing YouTube Vanced involved multiple sideloaded APKs. But the process was streamlined and arranged in a systematic manner. Needless to add, the ease and simplicity of the process, combined with the ability to strip ads from all YouTube videos, posed multiple legal as well as ethical issues.
Vanced offered Android smartphone and tablet owners an unsanctioned way to watch YouTube without ads. YouTube allows users to skip ads but asks for a monthly subscription fee. YouTube Premium offers a cut of that monthly fee to creators to make up for the loss of ad revenue.
As observed by Reddit user MidnightPeanut0901, the YouTube Vanced developer team is shutting down Vanced for good. There won"t be any new development from the team. The current version is available and working. However, it could stop working soon. The developers will also take down all download links. Their Discord server, Telegram chat, and Sub-Reddit thread are active for now.