YouTube Adds Stable Volume But Says Ad Blocker Has to Go

After a more widespread rollout this week of its tirade against ad blockers, YouTube began its roll out of dozens of new features for its mobile app Tuesday.

One of the most notable features is Stable volume, which will smooth any jarring differences in the volume of a clip. Stable volume is on by default, but users can access this using the gear icon in the app, tapping “Additional settings,” and toggling it on or off.

The platform may finally be putting an end to the perilous pursuit of finding that song that pops into your head. In August, YouTube began testing a new voice recognition feature that would allow a user to hum, sing, or play a song’s melody into the app to be identified. A variant of this feature has been present on Google since at least 2020, but it’s now available on YouTube as part of this new update.

YouTube also unveiled new, bigger preview thumbnails when browsing on the mobile app as well as the ability to lock the video player to avoid accidental taps and swipes. There is a new scrubbing feature as well, in which users can cancel a scrub by moving their finger back to where it started and releasing it when they feel a vibration. More aesthetically, the Like and Subscribe buttons now have a sparkle animation when tapped.

This all comes as YouTube cracks down on those using ad blockers to navigate its hellscape of a website. YouTube users noticed they were greeted on the site with a cheeky little pop-up informing them that they were using an ad blocker. For now, it would appear it’s as simple as shrugging off the notification by closing out the message, but it’s likely only a matter of time before this is a permanent obstacle.

This past May, Redditors spotted YouTube toying with forcing its users to disable their ad blockers in order to watch videos, with the alternative being a subscription to YouTube Premium. In June, YouTube altered its experiment to shut off video browsing for users with an ad blocker after just three videos. All the while, YouTube has done nothing but jam more ads onto its website in a feverish bid to cash out, beginning with unskippable 30-second ads on the platform’s TV app.