Google is shutting down YouTube Vanced, the popular ad-blocking app for Android

YouTube Vanced, the popular mod of the official YouTube app for Android, is dead. Over the weekend, the project announced its closure. Project leaders are oddly evasive as to why the app is being shut down, but The Verge has confirmed that a cease-and-desist letter from Google is the reason.

Created in 2017, YouTube Vanced is a modification of the YouTube app for Android by Google. The developers decompiled the official YouTube app from Google, added additional features and distributed the resulting code. Vanced’s main attraction was its ad-blocking feature (YouTube’s name is “AdVanced”but no “ads”- get it?) and background playback. Along with the copyright infringement of distributing Google’s proprietary code and YouTube’s trademark infringement, you can consider Vanced as a form of piracy since it was essentially a hacked version of the YouTube app that included most of the features of the $12/month YouTube Premium for free.

However, Vanced didn’t just block ads; it also added a number of features requested by the community, such as a darker dark theme, SponsorBlock integration, and video quality settings. Additionally, Vanced re-enabled the removed YouTube dislike button and got rid of the YouTube Shorts UI. Team Vanced also released “YouTube Music Vanced”, which made similar changes to the YouTube Music app. Vanced wasn’t allowed on the Play Store, of course, so the open source Vanced Manager app could check for updates, install both Vanced apps, and install a modified version of MicroG so you can sign in with your Google account.

In its five years of existence, the Vanced was so popular that it once accidentally appeared in an official Samsung video. It’s not clear why it took Google so long to kill the app, and there are still plenty of popular alternative YouTube clients like the FOSS NewPipe app that Google doesn’t pursue. Just last month, Team Vanced pulled off a provocative stunt involving the creation of a non-fungible Vanced logo token, and there is strong speculation that the move has drawn the ire of Google. Google is basically looking to leave the Android modding community alone, but profiting from your legally dubious mod is sure to call the lawyers.