topic Re: how to block youtube but NOT youtube music in OpenDNS

how to block youtube but NOT youtube music

rgormley — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 06:11:55 GMT

Has anyone got a solution to this?
I want to block youtube videos but still allow you tube music to play music
i have set these blocks/allows in opendns
googlevideo.com
ytimg.com
youtube.com
youtube-ui.l.google.com
ytimg.l.google.com
ytstatic.l.google.com
youtubei.googleapis.com

and i have set "never block the folllowing"
music.youtube.com
www.music.youtube.com

The problem is that (i think) that the youtube music site plays a video clip with the music (or a video add) and thus is blocked by opendns and the music site wont play any music
i have tried using a custom block "video sharing" but this give the same result

i have white listed
music.youtube.com
www.music.youtube.com

I want to block youtube but allow youtube music to play music
(for my daughter, she can listen to music, while doing homework, but not watch the mind numbing youtube time wasting video crap)

help! any ideas??

Re: how to block youtube but NOT youtube music

rotblitz — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 14:39:49 GMT

The domain www.music.youtube.com does not exist, so you don’t need to whitelist it. It is included with music.youtube.com anyway.

Here are the domains being used by music.youtube.com:
https://www.webpagetest.org/result/201128_DiHR_7fbb7e606ae9554947d351c280984e07/1/domains/

As you can see, they share at least the domain www.youtube.com with YouTube, and you need to whitelist it, maybe more. So I would not know how to set this up to still block YouTube. You may need to experiment until success. Good luck!

Re: how to block youtube but NOT youtube music

rgormley — Sun, 29 Nov 2020 00:38:32 GMT

thanks for the info

hhhmmmm i wonder how many other parents are in this situation, kids need to do homework, but are distracted by silly youtube videos...

youtube is great and has it`s place... but the useless distracting stuff is over the top,,,

Re: how to block youtube but NOT youtube music

klooride — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 22:04:46 GMT

I may be wrong but I believe youtube music gets content from main youtube domain.

I'm right now in your situation, I blocked youtube.com on my router only for kids' device.

Re: how to block youtube but NOT youtube music

rotblitz — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 13:47:22 GMT

Try with blocking youtube.com and the other domains in the original message, and with whitelisting music.youtube.com, s.ytimg.com and www.youtube.com.

Re: how to block youtube but NOT youtube music

zeevg — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 18:42:35 GMT

Same boat, this worked for me ...

Block: youtube.com

Whitelist: googlevideo.com, accounts.youtube.com, music.youtube.com

(I'm using NextDNS, so YMMV)

Re: how to block youtube but NOT youtube music

pcoop — Sun, 10 Jul 2022 08:27:24 GMT

As per 20460235568 that's the softcore solution for web browsers. Unfortunately, it also whitelists YouTube apps on mobile too. Infact that's the main thing I'm trying to block (googlevideo.com kinda blocks the video playback ingeneral) there's no way to block youtube videos & then whitelist youtube music, as both are from same servers & have same domains / ip addresses.

It's better to switch to a music only streaming platform such as Spotify & block all youtube stuff all together (which is the only working solution for me).

Just block these domains & you're good to go

googlevideo.com, ytimg.com, youtube.com

Even though the app has access to videos, their thumbnails get blocked & videos will never load.

Also, try to disable your router's ipv6, as these sites may slip through ipv6.