Since a couple of month the amount, duration and volume of localized ads in my Podcast App has become a really annoying factor. You listen to a serious or even sad topic of a very personal story about death, just to get all the sudden interrupted by a squeeky fast food voice talking about some food or insurance with the most distracting and off putting voice. Its so loud and mostly ends the podcast experience for me in that moment. Some of them do not even have a pay-per-listen model that I could in theory avoid them. A ad in the beginning and end, okay, but they are every 15 Minutes in some productions. Its getting Crazy! Enshittification reached Podcasting.

I guess these localized ads are based on the IP I requested the download from, so I am wondering if there is a fix like a VPN downloading them from a really remote area, where no localized ad is available. Or if there is a player detecting those ads and skip them. I wish I could keep the habit of listening to podcast, but it has reached a point where it is nearly unbearable.

Did anyone had any success circumventing those blasting audio ads while falling asleep?