Vanced offered Android smartphone and tablet owners an unsanctioned way to watch YouTube without ads. Needless to add, the ease and simplicity of the process, combined with the ability to strip ads from all YouTube videos, posed multiple legal as well as ethical issues. But the process was streamlined and arranged in a systematic manner. Installing YouTube Vanced involved multiple sideloaded APKs. The modified app also brought back the dislike count which YouTube had recently removed.

The app even improved upon the official YouTube app by offering an AMOLED Black theme, gestures for brightness/volume controls. However, it also offered other features like background play and free Picture-in-Picture (PiP), which are exclusive to YouTube Premium subscribers. YouTube Vanced was essentially a modified version of the official YouTube app to implement the adblocker. A user-generated and publicly available allow list for channels was available for those who wished to listen or watch the promotional material. The platform could also disable promotional banners displayed on the “Home” tab as well as those related to merchandise and movie/TV purchases. Besides eliminating ads served by YouTube, Vanced, allowed viewers to skip sponsor segments that are natively integrated and spoken by creators.

Vanced youtube app