Google steps up its war on unofficial apps that obstruct YouTube adverts.

YouTube has declared that third-party apps that obstruct advertisements while videos are playing are in violation of its terms of service and that it will take appropriate action. Some apps claim to offer ad-free viewing experiences even with Google's APIs.

According to Google, its developer APIs may soon be inaccessible to any apps that use YouTube APIs to remove adverts.

Additionally, the video platform issues a warning, saying that users of certain apps may now experience prolonged buffering or get the error message "The following content is not available on this app" while attempting to play a video.

Since blocking advertisements reduces the money that producers make, YouTube claims that this is done to safeguard them.

"We want to emphasize that our terms don't allow third-party apps to turn off ads because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership, and Ads on YouTube help support creators and let billions of people around the world use the streaming service," says the YouTube announcement.

To enjoy an ad-free viewing experience on YouTube, users have the option to subscribe to YouTube Premium.

In an effort to combat ad blocking, YouTube has been enforcing rules requiring users to turn off their ad blockers and limiting them to three videos. However, a problem in the extension's engine that affected dynamically loaded content pages was the reason for video buffering issues.