YouTube Offline Without Ads: There’s A Paywall For That

By Kevin Carbotte
published

YouTube announced that starting October 28, fans will be able to sign up for its new subscription-based "YouTube Red" service. For $9.99 per month, members will have access to all of YouTube’s content, on all devices, without the nuisance of advertisements.

The YouTube gaming app that recently launched is also part of YouTube Red, so the benefit of the subscription carries over to that account as well. YouTube also announced it will be launching YouTube Music very soon, which will also be part of the YouTube Red membership.

The company said that the YouTube Music app is designed to make discovering and consuming music on YouTube easier than ever. Simply select a song and hit play. YouTube Music will automatically find more tracks to play next. The company said that YouTube Music works with Google Play Music, and if you subscribe to one, you get access to the other.

In addition to removing the advertisements, YouTube Red allows fans to save videos on their mobile devices for offline play at a later time. The mobile app also lets you multitask with videos still playing in the background, which would make YouTube Music a great alternative to other music streaming services that let you save songs to listen to later.

In the coming year, YouTube will be expanding YouTube Red to include exclusive, member-only content from some of YouTube’s biggest contributors. Some of the proposed shows include “Scare PewDiePie,” brought to you by the creator and executive producers of The Walking Dead, and an untitled 360 VR experience from MatPat of popular YouTube show "Game Theory." The full list includes projects from College Humor, Rooster Teeth and several other prominent YouTubers.

YouTube Red launches in the United States on October 28, and U.S. residents can sign up for a one-month free trial of the service. YouTube did not say when YouTube Music will be launching, only stating that it is coming soon. The company had the same vague statement about support for other countries. YouTube Red, YouTube Gaming, YouTube Music and YouTube Kids apps will roll out to other regions “soon.”

Follow Kevin Carbotte @pumcypuhoy. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Kevin Carbotte

 Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years. 

Topics
Web Life
40 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Onus
    Not good. That means that the free version will soon be inundated with ads; not only before a video starts, but sometimes interrupting as well.
    Reply
  • nevilence
    adblock on pc covers this, on a mobile.... intriguing
    Reply
  • chicofehr
    I don't like to be logged into anything google as they save all my search inquiries and keep track of everything I do on the internet. Not giving them all my info. They can work for it by trying to figure out who I am. Logging into their services just hands it to them. Got to work for your money.
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    Adblocking the app on mobile works. Unlocking background play on mobile works. Unlocking offline play and adblocking it will work, too.

    All glory to the Xposed devs!
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    16819800 said:
    Not good. That means that the free version will soon be inundated with ads; not only before a video starts, but sometimes interrupting as well.

    They already are. I used to be able to watch a video with an ad in the beginning. Now there is a ad in the beginning and it seems like every 15 or so minutes in a hour long video. Is annoying to be at a good part and it just cut to a random ad.

    This is Google after all. They gotta get as much ad time as possible since they make most of their money off of ad revenue (something like 68 billion last year).
    Reply
  • Brotide
    A majority of adblocker users will still adblock. I like the premise of being able to better contribute ad revenue to my favorite youtube channels while enjoying no ads without resorting to plugins that screw everyone out of the revenue. As a Google Play Music subscriber, I hope to see a package deal for the 2 services since Youtube Music will overlap in both services. $10/mo may be fairly steep to the average user that may only watch a handful of videos a month, but will definitely be good value for the heavy content users.
    Reply
  • Optimus_Toaster
    Considering the amount of content I consume on youtube, I am happy to pay $9.99 a month to remove the ads. Adblock is out of the question cause I am not an arsehole.

    -10 points. It even names the arseholes.
    Reply
  • uglyduckling81
    Adblock Plus = Winning.
    For mobile you can install Dolphin Browser which has Adblock plugin and default Youtube through it so all the ads are blocked on there as well.
    I would never use the Youtube app and suffer the ad spam.
    Life is too short to suffer that annoyance.
    Reply
  • Epsilon_0EVP
    I don't like to be logged into anything google as they save all my search inquiries and keep track of everything I do on the internet. Not giving them all my info. They can work for it by trying to figure out who I am. Logging into their services just hands it to them. Got to work for your money.

    Is supporting a free global video streaming service that hosts terabytes of video per hour not enough work for you?
    Reply
  • SinxarKnights
    16819901 said:
    16819800 said:
    Not good. That means that the free version will soon be inundated with ads; not only before a video starts, but sometimes interrupting as well.

    They already are. I used to be able to watch a video with an ad in the beginning. Now there is a ad in the beginning and it seems like every 15 or so minutes in a hour long video. Is annoying to be at a good part and it just cut to a random ad.

    This is Google after all. They gotta get as much ad time as possible since they make most of their money off of ad revenue (something like 68 billion last year).

    You know most of that garbage is from the uploader spamming ads. AFAIK the only ads that are shown by Google on Youtube are the little text box ads on the side bar. If your Youtube video does not have copyrighted content, you don't have to show any ads on your channel.
    Reply