YouTube is blocking ads in a way that prevents videos from playing when using the Brave browser. When Brave’s built-in ad and tracker blocking is enabled, YouTube does not allow any video to load or play, making the platform unusable.
Ensure Brave Shields (ad & tracker blocking) are enabled
Click on any video
The video fails to play or shows an ad-block related block
Expected result:
YouTube videos should play normally on Brave without being blocked, even with Brave Shields enabled, or Brave should provide a reliable workaround.
Brave Version: Brave v1.85.118
Additional Information:
This issue appears to be related to YouTube’s recent changes targeting ad blockers. Disabling Shields allows videos to play, but this defeats Brave’s core privacy features.
@yassineonfire this is an issue that will occur on/off for the foreseeable future, as Google frequently implements new ad-block detections to prevent users from blocking ads when streaming YT content. Further, sometimes these new countermeasures are account based and not everyone will encounter them at the same time.
@Saoiray has a nice explainer post on this (along with steps you can take to try and resolve it, if possible) here:
I’ve informed our ad-blocking team about this regardless.
I am on windows11, just installed Brave for the 1st time.
I do not have this issue, I was surprised to see that out-of-the box, even without installing the u-block-origin extension, Brave kills Youtube advertisement videos.