Block YouTube ads in Chrome
Pre-roll, mid-roll, banner, overlay, Shorts ads — Omit blocks them all. Free, no account, no analytics. Here’s how to set it up and what to do when YouTube changes.
On this page
Install in 15 seconds
- Open the Chrome Web Store.
- Search for “Omit Ad Blocker”.
- Click Add to Chrome and confirm the permissions.
- Reload any open YouTube tabs.
Pre-rolls disappear immediately. You’ll go from a 30-second forced view to clicking a thumbnail and watching the video. That’s the whole product.
How a YouTube ad blocker actually works
YouTube serves video ads from googlevideo.com and ad metadata from googleads.g.doubleclick.net. A modern ad blocker doesn’t literally “skip” the ad — it intercepts the ad request before it leaves your browser, so the player has nothing to play and moves on to the actual video.
On top of network blocking, Omit applies cosmetic rules that hide the promoted shelves, banner overlays, and “Sponsored” rows in your home feed.
What Omit removes from YouTube
- Pre-roll video ads (the 5-second-skip and unskippable variants)
- Mid-roll ads on long videos
- Bumper ads (6-second non-skippable)
- Banner overlays on the video player
- Display ads next to the video
- Promoted videos in search and home feed
- Sponsored shelves in subscription pages
- Ads in YouTube Shorts
What it doesn’t block (and why)
Omit cannot block sponsor segments inside the video itself — the “this video is brought to you by NordVPN” bit is part of the video file. For that, install SponsorBlock alongside Omit; the two extensions stack cleanly.
Omit also doesn’t block ads in the official YouTube mobile app, because Chrome extensions only run inside Chrome. For mobile YouTube, see our how to block ads guide.
YouTube’s “ad blocker detected” popup
Starting in 2023 YouTube began detecting ad blockers and showing a full-screen modal that asks you to whitelist the site or pay for Premium. Most modern blockers — including Omit — ship with anti-anti-adblock rules that neutralize the detection script.
If you ever see the popup with Omit installed, two fixes:
- Open Omit’s settings → click Update filter lists. The detection rules update weekly.
- Reload the YouTube tab. The detection script only runs once per page load.
Alternatives to a Chrome ad blocker for YouTube
YouTube Premium
$13.99/month removes ads everywhere YouTube runs, plus background play and YouTube Music. It directly funds creators, which is the cleanest moral path. If you watch 5+ hours of YouTube a week, it’s a reasonable subscription.
Use Brave or Firefox
Brave ships with Shields enabled by default and blocks YouTube ads with no extension needed. Firefox + uBlock Origin gives you the same coverage as Chrome + Omit.
NewPipe (Android only)
NewPipe is a third-party YouTube client for Android that doesn’t play ads at all. It’s open source, available on F-Droid, and is the closest thing to a perfect mobile YouTube experience. It does break occasionally when YouTube changes its API, but the community ships fixes within days.
Why Omit is a good fit for YouTube ad blocking
Omit was built specifically for the post-Manifest-V3 Chrome era. Older blockers that rely on webRequest blocking are losing capabilities; Omit uses declarativeNetRequest, which is the API Chrome will keep supporting. Translation: Omit will keep blocking YouTube ads after other blockers stop.
It’s also free, with no premium tier, no “acceptable ads” deal with Google, and no analytics on this site. We can’t see what you watch.