YouTube is perhaps the best place on the internet to kick back, relax, and watch free long-form videos for hours on end. And whether you’re trying to watch a video during lunch, or stream something before bed, you don’t want your browser coming between you and your entertainment.
It appears that’s exactly what’s happening to some Microsoft Edge users: They go to YouTube, choose a video to watch, then are greeted by not content, but a large warning that reads “Ad blockers violate YouTube’s Terms of Service,” and implores you to either turn off your blocker, or to subscribe to YouTube Premium instead.
If you have an ad-blocker enabled, it’s frustrating, but perhaps predictable to see such a message. However, for those without an ad-blocker installed, the inability to watch YouTube is confusing. As it turns out, however, you might actually have an ad-blocker on without knowing it.
What’s setting off this anti-ad-blocker on YouTube is a specific Microsoft Edge privacy setting. The browser comes with three different settings to prevent tracking as you surf the web: “Basic,” which lets most trackers and ads through; “Balanced,” the recommended option from Microsoft, which blocks trackers from sites you haven’t visited as well as known malicious trackers; and “Strict,” which tries to block as many trackers as possible.
It’s this latter setting that’s breaking YouTube for some Edge users. It’s not clear at this time whether it affects users on all platforms, or just those on Windows 11. Either way, Google is getting more aggressive in its fight against ad-blockers, and it seems blocking Edge users who have Strict enabled is just the latest.
How to get YouTube working again on Edge
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If you see this warning on YouTube rather then the video you’ve chosen, you really only have three options at this time to fix it.
The first, and the simplest, is to change the Strict setting to either Balanced or Basic, or to turn off tracking prevention entirely. YouTube can live with that, it seems, but that’s no fun: Part of the benefit of using Edge is its enhanced privacy features like this, so you should feel enabled to use Strict if you want to benefit from it. Instead, consider adding YouTube to the “Exceptions” list below this setting. That way, YouTube can run what it needs to, and you’re still protected while browsing the internet. You’ll find all these options in “Privacy, Search, and Services” in Edge settings.
Of course, YouTube would prefer you to subscribe to YouTube Premium. When you do, you can watch all of YouTube ad-free, in addition to other perks like offline play. If you don’t feel like adding another $13.99 subscription to your other monthly payments, however, just adjusting your Edge settings will hopefully do the trick.