Watching YouTube "without ads" without blockers or strange apps sounds like magic, but there are actually curious shortcuts that take advantage of alternative players (or embedded views) where the experience changes drastically. Note: These aren't official "ad-removal" tricks, and they may stop working if YouTube or Google make adjustments, but they remain useful options for everyday use.

1) The Google Docs method with "Open preview"

This is the most "office-like" method, but it works surprisingly well for watching a video without distractions (and often with fewer interruptions). The idea is simple: instead of opening the video on YouTube as usual, you play it within the Google Docs preview.

How to do it step by step (exactly):

This preview plays the video "within" the document, in a preview panel, without taking you to the traditional YouTube page with comments, recommendations, and other features.

2) Add a hyphen to the link

This trick is the fastest when you're already watching the video. Go to the video you want to watch and in the address bar add a hyphen (-) right after the letter "t" in "youtube", so it looks like this: youtube.com/... instead of youtube.com/....

What happens next is that it redirects you to a full-screen, ad-free version, no matter how long the video is. This is possible because adding the hyphen activates an "enhanced privacy" mode known as youtube-nocookie.com.

Points to consider:

Using these methods can help you eliminate or reduce annoying ads that interrupt videos, because they take you to "cleaner" players or alternative views where the full YouTube experience (with its usual advertising load) isn't displayed.

Even so, it's not an absolute guarantee since in some cases an ad might slip through, but as a practical trick they usually work for watching content with far fewer interruptions and without depending on ad blockers or external extensions.