The battle between YouTube and ad blockers is heating up again, with some YouTube users reporting that videos are now auto-skipping to the end if they’re using extensions to block advertisements. The new YouTube tactic has been widely reported on Reddit (via 9to5Google), with ad blocker users revealing that video playback immediately skips to the end of their video. This apparently continues to happen even if the video is immediately replayed. While Google hasn’t officially stated that this is a new tactic for dealing with ad blockers, it has escalated its crackdown on apps and extensions that remove advertisements in its videos over the past few months. For example, in April a Google post in a YouTube Community forum stated that viewers who use third-party apps like NewPipe “may experience buffering issues or see the error “The following content is not available on this app” when trying to watch a video”. This new auto-skipping behavior appears to […]