I remember my friend bringing over his Xbox and playing Halo for the first time. I was constantly looking down at the ground while he was pistol sniping me across the map. Figured it out eventually.

Reason is because the desktop version of YouTube is (still mostly? I think it’s depends on the content) using client side ad serving. On the iOS and Android app, you are getting server side ad serving, meaning the content and ads are coming from the same CDN address. So if you were to block the ad manifest address in Pi-Hole you’d also be blocking the content.

Pi-Hole only really works in a client side served world. Server side it’s harder if not impossible to get around. Server side implementations are more expensive to deploy, so that’s why it’s not as universal.

It’s not clear to me exactly how New pipe and Vanced get around it, but I’m assuming it’s just a browser wrapper?

It already takes me 15 minutes to brew about 10 cups of coffee for myself.

Facebook absolutely builds ghost profiles for people who don’t have a Facebook profile. You see all of those “Like” buttons on non-Facebook websites? Those are cookies that are essentially tracking you. They may not have your first/last name or other personal data as a regular profile, but they can build a pretty damn good composite of you. Source - I work in the ad industry