Error 403: Youtube's anti-bot measure overrides third-party apps

When several alternative YouTube apps from independent manufacturers started spitting out error messages during video playback over the past few days, suspicions quickly arose: Many users speculated on social media that this could be an attempt by YouTube to deliberately undermine apps with integrated ad blockers. In fact, however, it is apparently an attempt to block bots.

At least that's what the developers of the alternative YouTube app Newpipe report in a Reddit post. According to them, problems with the integration of a new anti-bot test and a new JavaScript player are responsible for the error messages. The developers of individual apps still have to implement the new query before their users can play videos normally again.

Many users of such apps have complained about problems with the playback of YouTube videos in recent days. In many cases, the error code "403: access_denied" was spit out instead of a video. According to the user reports, which can also be found on Github, the error is said to affect or have affected SmartTube or Kodi as well as Newpipe.

Action against adblockers

The analysis of the Newpipe developer indicates that the error messages are not due to a deliberate action by Google against third-party apps. In view of the error messages, many users had assumed that Google was stepping up its enforcement of a threat made in April: At the time, the Google subsidiary made it clear in a support entry that third-party YouTube apps are not allowed to block advertising on the video platform.

In fact, this rule has been in place for some time. In the support document, however, Google held out the prospect of enforcing it more strongly in future. Users of third-party apps with ad blockers are therefore threatened with "problems buffering" videos. The message "The following content is not available in this app" could also be displayed. So far, however, most third-party apps can still block advertising on YouTube.

(dahe)