YouTube viewers have grown increasingly frustrated over the years with the platform’s escalating barrage of video advertisements. This prompted many to install ad blocking extensions — that is until YouTube began cracking down on these tools earlier this year. But one software developer has devised an ingenious workaround, creating new browser extensions that accelerate YouTube ads instead of removing them.

Dubbed “Ad Speedup“, these extensions take advantage of YouTube’s video playback controls, automatically speeding up ads by 16 times their normal rate. So a 30-second commercial lasts just a couple of seconds before users are back to their regularly scheduled programming. The extension also conveniently mute ads by default. Future iterations aim to enable automated ad skipping as well.

A similar extension called “Ad Accelerator” preceded Ad Speedup, speeding up ads by 10x. Both are now available to install on Chrome and Edge browsers. Demo videos showcase just how swiftly they transform YouTube’s notoriously sluggish ads into forgettable blink-and-you’ll-miss-them interruptions.

YouTube’s robust ad blocking detection and deterrence mechanisms have stymied most typical ad blockers. Even paid services tend to falter. The beauty of these new ad speedup extensions is their simplicity — they cleverly leverage built-in browser video controls instead of trying to conceal blocked ads from YouTube’s systems.

However, it remains unclear how accelerating ads could impact payouts to YouTube creators. Watch time is a metric used to calculate advertising rates after all. For uninterrupted ad revenue, a YouTube Premium subscription is still the best bet — albeit not free like these extensions. Nonetheless, this approach seems likely to disrupt far less than outright ad blocking.

So while the arms race continues between YouTube and ad blockers, for now speeding up ads offers a compromise to satisfy both viewers and creators alike. The extensions deliver a quick fix for reducing ads’ aggravating viewing experiences without entirely demolishing their potential revenue. If widely adopted, though, YouTube will surely hatch its next counterattack. For disgruntled YouTube users, at least it buys some time to breathe easy watching videos again — even if only for a few rapidly accelerated ad seconds.