How to block YouTube ads for free with DuckDuckGo’s new feature

Imagine you’re watching a YouTube video, completely invested in what’s happening, and then an ad suddenly interrupts. It’s annoying every single time, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way. I’d much rather install an ad blocker in a few minutes than pay for YouTube Premium just to avoid ads.

If you’re tired of YouTube constantly nagging you about ad blockers, here’s how you can get it working on your device, too.

Before I tell you more about what it was actually like using this, let’s get you set up first.

If you’re using a Mac, Windows PC, or an iPhone, you’re in luck. YouTube ad blocking is already enabled by default in the latest version of the DuckDuckGo browser, so there’s nothing you need to configure. Just make sure the browser app is up to date, open YouTube, and start watching your videos as you normally would.

Android users have one extra step, though. DuckDuckGo says YouTube ad blocking will be enabled by default on Android “soon,” but until then, you’ll need to turn it on manually. Update the app to the latest version, then follow these steps:

1. Open the DuckDuckGo app on your Android phone.
2. Open a new tab and tap the three-line menu (hamburger icon) in the top-right corner.
3. Tap Settings.
4. Scroll down to Other Settings and select YouTube ad-blocking.
5. Turn on the Block Ads on YouTube toggle.

That’s it. Once you’ve enabled the setting, open YouTube in the DuckDuckGo browser and enjoy your videos without the usual stream of ads getting in the way.

I followed these steps on my Google Pixel 10a, and the whole setup took barely a minute. The funny part was that I was skeptical. I’d tried enough workarounds over the years to know that many of them stop working sooner rather than later, so while I was hopeful, I wasn’t getting my expectations up.

Obviously, I had to try it for myself. The first thing I did was play a one-hour episode of one of my favorite YouTube shows. I simply hit play and watched. There wasn’t a single ad from start to finish. Honestly, it felt a little weird because I’d become so used to YouTube interrupting videos that I kept expecting an ad to show up. It never did.

So I kept going. I watched music videos, podcasts, long documentaries, cooking videos, and pretty much anything else I’d normally have open on YouTube — and it all ran smoothly. Even though DuckDuckGo warns you might notice a little extra buffering, I didn’t experience any during my testing.

The experience was even simpler on my iPhone, MacBook, and Windows PC. Since YouTube ad blocking is already enabled by default there, all I had to do was make sure DuckDuckGo was up to date. After that, it was the same story. I ended up spending far longer on YouTube than I’d planned, partly because I wanted to test it properly and partly because, for once, I wasn’t constantly being pulled out of the experience by ads.

While I was poking around the browser, I stumbled upon another feature that caught my attention. It’s called Duck Player, and it complements YouTube ad blocking surprisingly well.

Instead of opening videos in the regular YouTube player, Duck Player uses DuckDuckGo’s own built-in video player. The biggest advantage here is privacy. It uses YouTube’s strictest privacy settings for embedded videos, which means you aren’t tracked with cookies or served personalized ads while you watch. The videos you watch in Duck Player won’t influence your YouTube recommendations, and it won’t remember your place in playlists either.

If that sounds like something you’d like, you can enable Duck Player from the browser’s settings. Better yet, you don’t have to choose between the two. Duck Player and YouTube ad blocking work together, so you get a cleaner, more private YouTube experience without giving up either feature.

Of course, this made me wonder how DuckDuckGo was pulling it off, given that YouTube has spent so much time cracking down on ad blockers. So I dug into how it actually works. DuckDuckGo relies on community-maintained filter lists from uBlock Origin, which are constantly updated by an active open-source community to keep pace with the way websites, including YouTube, serve ads. On top of that, DuckDuckGo applies its own tweaks to improve compatibility and keep things running smoothly.

My only hope is that it stays this way, because right now it’s exactly what I was looking for. I don’t have to add another monthly subscription to a list that’s already long enough, and after using it across my Pixel, iPhone, MacBook, and Windows PC, I genuinely don’t miss YouTube’s constant ad interruptions.

If you’re in the same boat, I’d definitely recommend giving it a try.