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Is It Haram To Use Ad Blockers And Download From Youtube?
Hi,
We know that piracy is haraam because its stealing. Is mein kisi na kisi ki haq talfi hoti hai as Ghamidi Sb explained it.
However what about using software like adblock plus. It’s an extension that you install in your browser e.g. Google Chrome, Firefox etc. After the installation of this software you do not see any ads on websites you visit. We know a lot of sites make money from the ads. Using these kind of software do not break their terms and conditions because as user you can use any kind of browser and any kind of software to access their sites. However the content creators don’t get anything from you if you use adblock software. Would this be considered haraam?
The second question is similar as well. However it does break Youtube terms and conditions that you have to accept before using Youtube. Youtube says you can use the service but you are not allowed to download copyrighted material from it for example music etc. Is it haraam if we do download music for offline listening or download videos from youtube for offline viewing?
thanks
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18 Replies
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Is It Haram To Use Ad Blockers And Download From Youtube?
updated 9 months, 2 weeks ago
6 Members
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18
Replies
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As long as the terms of use are not violated then using an ad blocker can’t be considered haram. There are also ways that the content providers can detect ad blockers and refuse to serve content, however, most providers don’t mind ad blockers. That said, generally ad blockers do prevent ads, however, they record all of your browser activity and sell it to third party companies – just a word of caution!
Downloading from Youtube or any other site that explicitly prohibits such activity through terms of use is obviously an immoral act. This is not only considered haram but it can also have legal implications.
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Using adblocker is not fair. Because it’s also considered as haq talfi. Almost all the sites are working with the money that are collected using ads and not all the sites collect data for selling purposes. They collect data so that they can show us appropriate ads (ads related to our interest). Also there collecting data is fair because it’s on us weather we allow “cookies” or not. Almost 90% of ads are views based (website owner will be get paid according to views of ads). Suppose everyone is using adblocker, website owner will be paid amount 0.
As sir Faisal discussed that website owner knows which person opens his site with adblocker, he can also refuse to open their site. But I don’t think this argument is solid. The same argument I can give in the case of piracy. Microsoft knows that who’s is using its pirated windows with dummy activation keys. Microsoft also knows which are the sites which are selling pirated version of their softwares. Adobe also one of the biggest tech company knows the same. They can forcefully block these sites by requesting Internet Service Providers. So my counter question is that “can we say using Microsoft pirated software is not haraam”. The same is the case with youtube videos, Google (owner of YouTube) knows which are the third party sites which are used for downloading. Google is also an Internet Service Provider. Google can directly ban these sites with these terms. So its mean is not that we can download. If someone is not reporting in police station does it mean your stealing is legal.
There is also one thing with downloading YouTube videos. YouTube mobile app has the default button of downloading videos but these downloads are only available on app with offline. So by playing these videos you will not be shown ads within the YouTube videos. So using this feature is only fair as YouTube is itself providing.
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Thanks both for the detailed answers. I don’t have any doubt about downloading the content. It certainly breaks the terms and conditions and YouTube clearly says you should not be downloading copyrighted material. Material that’s in public domain (and has no copyright) is fine.
Regarding the ads blocking; so in light of what you said can we then safely say that using browsers such as Brave (https://brave.com/) are haraam because they block ads out of the box and we have to use the websites with the ads?
Also I think other browsers like Firefox and Opera are also adding features that will disable ads and trackers on websites. In that case will these browsers become haraam as well?
This will mean that we can only use a browser that allows ads to browse the Internet. Also we wont have any control on our own computers. We are forced to use specific software.
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You can disable the adblock feature in these browsers and use them. Almost every browser give extensions to block the ads including Chrome and Edge both of them can remove them in their web store. So it’s up to you weather you use them or not.
This video will helpful for understanding the methodology of adblock.
Note. If you’re working on some sensitive project where privacy is big deal, you can use adblocker because you have no way other.
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Talha, Sorry I don’t think knowing about why Google or some other company does not remove adblock extenstions from the their stores or why they allow software like this answers my question.
In your opinion Faisal bhai’s argument was not good enough when he said if we are not breaking the terms and conditions then adblock can’t be considered haram. You said you would consider that haram regardless of whether it breaks the terms and conditions or not. Then in the next reply you said its up to us whether we should use adblock or not. I just want to know if it’s haram or not. If it is then I wont use it. What project I work on wouldnt really matter in that case. What’s haram is haram and we should stay away from it.
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Sorry, In my opinion, adblocker is haraam in normal situations, because it’s haq talfi of someone. In some of the cases(rare), it’s necessary to use adblocker of trusted sources. For example, any country is working on its Nuclear Weapons Project. So if that country is not considering its privacy, this project will be collapsed. So in that situation proper safety measures are done for privacy. So, in that case, it’s necessary to use adblock (in such situations, countries not rely on third party adblocker rather they develop their adblockers).
It’s the same case as dead animal is haram but if you’re dying with hunger, you can eat.
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Ah ok. got you. Thanks brother. Make sense.
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One more thing, I didn’t say it’s haram weather it’s breaking terms and conditions or not. I said when we use adblocker, 99% of the times when we visit site it will break the terms and conditions. If you’re sure that some site is not using ads. On that site you can use adblocker like ghamidi.org is not using.
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Makes sense. This was the confusion I had. Thanks for clearing it.
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Talha, in all the examples you gave (Microsoft, Adobe, Google), as far as I understand their terms of use explicitly prohibit piracy, hence using those services will still be impermissible.
You and I can’t unilaterally decide what constitutes a given service providers ‘haq’ – it’s their terms of use that determine that. Terms of Use is a contract between the provider and the user which serve the purpose of establishing the rights and responsibilities of each party involved. ‘Haq talafi’ (violation of rights) can only comes into existence when such contract is violated. Once again, as long as the terms of use are not violated then using an ad blocker can’t be considered haram
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Yes, you’re right but 99% of the cases, by using adblocker, terms of use are violated as most of sites generate their income using ads. If you’re using adblocker, their income will be get affected.
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“99% of the cases, by using adblocker, terms of use are violated”
That’s not true either.
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I think the correct approach is to just check the terms of service of the system that you are using. As long as you are not breaking that contract then it should be fine. So in my view we should just disable the adblocker by default. And if you are 100% sure of a service that allows adblock then enable it only for that service to stop the annoying ads.
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Based on the above discussion, can one assume that a website’s terms and conditions do not include any information concerning an ‘adblocker’, or would it be necessary to go through the terms and conditions in detail? Because I’ve never done that.
I have noticed that some websites request the user to turn off adblocker and do not allow the user to access their information unless the adblocker has been disabled. If this isn’t the case, perhaps we can assume that the website does not have an issue with the use of adblocker?
JazakAllah
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This is a grey area and in such grey areas we have been advised to follow a path of not indulging in that questionable activity. But if someone does that, we cannot call it explicitly Haram.
Even when someone hasn’t read ‘terms of use‘ or ‘terms of service‘ before agreeing to that, but as soon as one becomes aware of the fact that one is violating any such terms, one should immediately stop doing that.
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JazakAllah Mr. Umer Qureshi,
This is somewhat unrelated, but is there an expectation that when one confirms that they have read ‘terms of use’ and agreed to them that this is truly the case? Would it be explicitly haram for someone to have claimed having done, even though it’s widespread common practice for ‘terms of use’ to be ignored?
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Actually, I’ll create a new thread since this is unrelated.
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Btw it’s completely legal to record videos from YouTube by your device for one’s own personal use.
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