I use Firefox or derivatives with uBlock Origin extension & never see any ads unless hard coded into the vid. Don't know if i have personalised ads turned off. Couldn't use YT without it because of the ads.

Just seen it's short vids affected, don't watch them much. Is Brave a chrome based browser? Chrome stopped offering uBO a while back, was probably costing them too much money in ad revenue.

I don't know 😬 I have just been on YouTube - 70% of the videos coming up for me are for channels that I watch. 20% are similar suggestions, but real channels and 10% are random. In Shorts probably about 30-40% are random.

I wonder what the difference is then? Country maybe?

Do you follow a lot of channels? I follow 50-60 so that content gets priority. Then YT will offer similar channels, or random stuff which makes sense. As I say, shorts are a bit more random with some AI slop in there.

I follow about 30 or so and you're right, on the main page it's not too bad... but the shorts are terrible.

I am in the UK.