Published on 12, July, 2020
I hate it, I find it really difficult to learn from, it's often to loud with music in odd places, everyone seems to think that it's the best thing since sliced bread except me, I know lots on here love it and often post links to it. It annoys me when I look at what I think will be an interesting thread and all it is, is a link, can't people give a synopsis so that those of us who don't or can't watch it can join in too, I don't have the tech to watch it or listen to it rather. I find it a worrying place to be as there are so many homespun nutters on there who's normality is brain warping. I rarely find what I want on it, if I want something British I find it's all American and for practicle things it's often all different. I often can't see what someones doing anyway, as I need to be beside them rther than in front of them.
Another problem is adverts, I hate being advertised at is there anyway I can switch the adverts off? On my normal pooter I have adblock, some sites wont' let me use them because they want to advertise at me, so I refuse them, I find flashing ads really distracting and they sort of hit a kill switch in my brain and I have to fight the implulse to chuck the pooter out of the window and jump on the smashed up bits. I have this impulse with lots of tech, not just that which advertises at me.
I sperg, thanks for the suggestion, but I don't feel confident enough to download a new browser, I dont' really feel confident enough to download anything much. I'm afraid of having to do things I don't understand and messing everything up and not even being able to get back anything approaching normality.
I tried raising stuff like this with a family member earlier and got a very rapid change of subject.
Brave browser can be run alongside of your regular browser so it's an option not a permanent change.
Although it turned out to be a permananet change for me...
Thanks Iain, but most of what you said made my brain glaze over, its a problem I have with anything techy, it's like I'm standing in front of a huge concrete wall, that I can't see over or around and can't get any idea of the dimensions. I know people find me really frustrating because I'm so carp at it all. It dosen't seem to matter what search criteria I use, I get bounced back, it may be because I tend to look for more accademic stuff, if for example I want to to read up on the Viking Eric Bluetooth, I will get reams of stuff for the Vikings tv series, loads and loads of stuff on blue tooth apps and stuff and maybe something on popular Erics, none of who are what I'm looking for. I've even tried going several pages back and I just get reiterations of the stuff I didn't want, I can put words like accademic research in and I still get loads of stuff I don't want and nothing I do. There was a good article in the Guardian a few months ago about what the autor called the enshitification of the internet and how a few big companies are taking it over and coming out top in pretty much every search criteria and blocking others, totally messing up what the iinternet was originally intended for as a space where big business didn't domiinate.
There are times when I think about going totally off line, getting rid of the pooter, the lot of it, the only thing that stops me is I use email to keep in contact with a couple of friends and I download books to my kindle and read the news paper. I'm feeling increasingly and despairingly unconnected to the world, everyone else seems to understand all this tech stuff and I don't, I feel like I'm just starting school all over again and everyone knows each other and how to behave and I'm the weird girl standing on her own in a corner not knowing what to do or say and wanting to go home, and all anyone says to me is go and play and I don't know how.
I Don't bloody care, I'm on the ADD end of the spectrum and pop ups and ads are too distracting to tolerate.
No ads, no internet, fine with me.
I am NOT paying for my own brainwashing...
And I've got a mate who everytime I'm stuck on my bike maintenance project says have "you tried youtube?" No because its a time suck if you are on the ADD end of the spectrum, with vary variable outcome.
Last resort rather than first go-to.
I use "brave Browser and I don't get no steenking youtube ads. Or much tracking of my day to day activities.
Adblocker Ultimate and Blocktube make Youtube more managble.
Blocktube especially allows you to block entire videos, channels. and all those annoying shorts and music recommendations.
The issues you are having are quite normal and most have easy fixes if you are interested:
TheCatWoman said:I certainly dont' have the skills to make a transcript of what I'm watching,
On the YouTube video, there is the Closed Captions option on the bottom right of the video - click on this and it will either use the ones that the creator made or use its own automatic transcript option to write based on what it things is being said.
TheCatWoman said:what really bugs me and weirds me out is when I do a search and nothing come up,
The key to these searches is to use the words you think will be in the article. For example to search for this thread I would use "youtube thecatwoman adverts" as these are all words that I expect to be there.
Note that some really recent stuff won't show up on a search as it takes time for the search sites to index the massive volume of new stuff appearing daily.
TheCatWoman said:is there anyway I can switch the adverts off?
There are a few ways of doing this but all require a bit of technical savvy to setup, so I would recommend getting someone who knows what they are doing to set this up for you. They can also show you how to check your anti-virus is working and your computer has all the updates it needs - these all help keep you safer from hackers.
There are a few techy people on here can help with whatever you need so long as you are not in a hurry, so feel free to request help and you should find it provided within a few hours.
I know these sites use adverts to generate income, I'm not motivated enough to use it and pay for no adverts, I'm not sure I actually trust it not to go ferreting through everything on my pooter anyway. I rubbish at internet searches, people have tried to tell me different ways to get the results I want all to no avail, what really bugs me and weirds me out is when I do a search and nothing come up, I just get a page saying no documents found and then someone else does an identical search using the same wording as me and they get loads of results. I thin one of the problems I have with not finding stuff when I search is that I'm in a viscious circle where because I do comparitively few searches, its dosent' "know" me, so I get quite random or no results, because I don't get much useful stuff I dont' search and so it goes on. Of course also being a total technoklutz who can crash a digital egg timer dosen't help either.
I certainly dont' have the skills to make a transcript of what I'm watching, I dont' have a printer for that matter either.
I think every community has its share of crazies, but You Tube seems to have more of them.
TheCatWoman said: I find it a worrying place to be as there are so many homespun nutters on there who's normality is brain warping.
Sounds like this community sometimes LOL
TheCatWoman said:I hate being advertised at is there anyway I can switch the adverts off?
If you pay for premium you can switch them off, but they have to make money somehow and you either pay to remove the adverts to they make money from letting advertisers dig through your browser history and target ads at things you have been looking for.
They are offering a "free" service and there is no such thing as a free lunch. Only non-profit sites (like this one with a .ORG site address) can give a free service but it is paid for by the charity or organisation who subsidise them.
Advertising is the lifeblood of sites such as YouTube so by consuming the content from them and blocking ads, you are contributing to bleeding them dry.
TheCatWoman said:I rarely find what I want on it, if I want something British I find it's all American and for practicle things it's often all different.
It is very American centric and since most of the content is home produced (even I have my own channel there) then it isn't surprising that most content is aimed at that market which is many times larger than the UK.
To find the content you want you need to make good use of the search terms - maybe find channels that have content similar to what you want and then look at the list down the right of the screen which are related videos - you often find what you want obliquely.
I do get the dislike of adverts but I tend to go do something different when they are on, much like on terrestrial TV.
However, particularly if watching a training or conference YouTube video: I do like to make ue of the Transcript option - and copy the transcript text into a Word doc - to aid my future search / find something I partially recalled - upon which I wanted (at a later date) to follow up references / books mentioned / reports mention / re-read and consider some aspects etc. That technique is helpful for me as I study.