NewPipe – ad-free, open-source Android YouTube client
newpipe.schabi.org
newpipe.schabi.org
Has anybody used it recently on AndroidTV / FireTV? I've tried it several times in the past, and its always been wonky there. I use SmartYouTubeTV (https://smartyoutubetv.github.io/) on AndroidTV right now, and the logged out experience is terrible.
Also, suggestion capabilities of Youtube are very high. I'll always be coming back for that until there is an alternative. Unfortunately, that also means that using non-official players is counterproductive (I want to feed the recommendation engine).
I would quibble with that. It's really all or nothing. Youtube changes something, NewPipe breaks entirely. Then NewPipe is updated, and it works perfectly again.
I like NewPipe, but in practice this means you just have to accept that there will be stretches, a few days or a week long, where it just doesn't work at all.
Unless you're talking aboit videos that had stereo audio that have been converted to mono. (;
Due to Fdroid being so slow at updating indexes on my older devices, I actually use a secondary Fdroid client (nethunter client also has a privileged extension) for manual updates, which only has my personal repos enabled.
I know what you're talking about since I have experienced it before, but I have not encountered the problem often in the past year or so. Perhaps you were just using it during a dry spell from the NewPipe developers or F-Droid. A number of useful features have been added during the past year, such as the ability to view live streams. A few quirks also exist, such as feeds displaying videos that are posted in the future.
As for the recommendation engine, I prefer gaming it. NewPipe is wonderful because it does not feed it. I have a special profiles setup on my desktop for when I want to feed it. This approach works wonderfully for discovering new channels, allows for multiple profiles to get recommendations for different viewing interests, avoids polluting recommendations based upon a single odd-ball view, and allows finer grained control over the information that I feed Google.
Since updating manually (in f-droid) i have been a happy camper.
{"user_action":"requested stream","request":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRdkI09KCpk","content_language":"en_US","service":"YouTube","package":"org.schabi.newpipe","version":"0.19.3","os":"Linux Android 8.0.0 - 26","time":"2020-07-18 05:29","exceptions":["org.schabi.newpipe.extractor.stream.StreamInfo$StreamExtractException: Could not get any stream. See error variable to get further details.\n\tat org.schabi.newpipe.extractor.stream.StreamInfo.extractStreams(StreamInfo.java:192)\n\tat org.schabi.newpipe.extractor.stream.StreamInfo.getInfo(StreamInfo.java:70)\n\tat org.schabi.newpipe.extractor.stream.StreamInfo.getInfo(StreamInfo.java:62)\n\tat org.schabi.newpipe.util.ExtractorHelper.lambda$getStreamInfo$3(ExtractorHelper.java:116)\n\tat org.schabi.newpipe.util.-$$Lambda$ExtractorHelper$5fJcha6Sq5APJBLdG6osaJby-mc.call(Unknown Source:4)\n\tat io.reactivex.internal.operators.single.SingleFromCallable.subscribeActual(SingleFromCallable.java:44)\n\tat io.reactivex.Single.subscribe(Single.java:3438)\n\tat io.reactivex.internal.operators.single.SingleDoOnSuccess.subscribeActual(SingleDoOnSuccess.java:35)\n\tat io.reactivex.Single.subscribe(Single.java:3438)\n\tat io.reactivex.internal.operators.maybe.MaybeFromSingle.subscribeActual(MaybeFromSingle.java:41)\n\tat io.reactivex.Maybe.subscribe(Maybe.java:4154)\n\tat io.reactivex.internal.operators.maybe.MaybeConcatArray$ConcatMaybeObserver.drain(MaybeConcatArray.java:153)\n\tat io.reactivex.internal.operators.maybe.MaybeConcatArray$ConcatMaybeObserver.request(MaybeConcatArray.java:78)\n\tat io.reactivex.internal.operators.flowable.FlowableElementAtMaybe$ElementAtSubscriber.onSubscribe(FlowableElementAtMaybe.java:66)\n\tat io.reactivex.internal.operators.maybe.MaybeConcatArray.subscribeActual(MaybeConcatArray.java:42)\n\tat io.reactivex.Flowable.subscribe(Flowable.java:14479)\n\tat io.reactivex.internal.operators.flowable.FlowableElementAtMaybe.subscribeActual(FlowableElementAtMaybe.java:36)\n\tat io.reactivex.Maybe.subscribe(Maybe.java:4154)\n\tat io.reactivex.internal.operators.maybe.MaybeToSingle.subscribeActual(MaybeToSingle.java:46)\n\tat io.reactivex.Single.subscribe(Single.java:3438)\n\tat io.reactivex.internal.operators.single.SingleSubscribeOn$SubscribeOnObserver.run(SingleSubscribeOn.java:89)\n\tat io.reactivex.Scheduler$DisposeTask.run(Scheduler.java:578)\n\tat io.reactivex.internal.schedulers.ScheduledRunnable.run(ScheduledRunnable.java:66)\n\tat io.reactivex.internal.schedulers.ScheduledRunnable.call(ScheduledRunnable.java:57)\n\tat java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)\n\tat java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:301)\n\tat java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1162)\n\tat java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:636)\n\tat java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:764)\n"],"user_comment":""}
You need to install from the github repository. Youtube changes interface every once in a while, this is really isnt any app's fault, but youtube's. Same thing happens to youtube-dl all the time.
If the app crashes with a Java stack backtrace, it's the app's fault.
One weird thing I noticed was that I used to be able to get a mouse style cursor with the right stick, but that stopped working at some point. Not sure if the change was NewPipe or OS level, but it's still manageable.
If you have USB ports you can always try other types of inputs. Aside from plain keyboard/mouse, there are a bunch of interesting options these days.
I use an iPhone 6 and have refused to upgrade iOS to the latest version, so there are quite a few apps that don't work on my phone anymore (when launched, they show a message saying I need to get the latest version of the app, but then I can't get it because it's not available for my version of iOS), one of those apps is YouTube, so I'm limited to accessing it through the browser. It would be great to have a good alternative.
I have used that to load old apps onto an iPad that I can't update.
Apple also makes iTunes 12.6.x available for download, but it's hidden on this page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208079 - this is the last Windows version with IPA management, but there are also other ways to sideload IPA files without needing XCode and a developer signing certificate, e.g. https://codeburst.io/latest-itunes-12-7-removed-the-apps-opt...
The question is - how are we supposed to save and archive those IPA files today?
I should have said that I was asking how users can acquire IPA files without having jailbroken their device first.
I’ve used this to do other functions before, but not saving IPAs.
https://imazing.com/guides/how-to-manage-apps-without-itunes
Why not get an Android then?
Yes I use newpipe on a Nvidia shield as my primary youtube client. There are at least 3 of us who open tickets as issues come up for Android TV.
It's not the most polished experience, but as of 0.19.5 it's functional. It rarely pulls videos above 1080p quality for some reason, but if I have to choose between 4k content on the youtube client and 1080p with my privacy, and without advertisements that's an easy choice for me to make.
I can't figure out how to make it do a 10s skip forward / backward that you do on phone/tablet by tapping on the left or right side of the screen. I tried all the buttons on the shield's game controller after not being able to skip on my remote. I can change the focus to the timeline, and skip that way, but its not as nice as a 10s skip.
Skipping ahead/forward works out of the box on my harmony remote, long press on the <- or -> button.
I'm not sure what it would be on the default shield remote (mine is broken).
Isn't it funny how one man's feature is another man's bug?
Not supporting logging in with a Google account to keep subscriptions and history synchronized across devices is exactly what disqualifies it from consideration for me, and I suspect I'm not alone here.
For those like me there's YouTube Vanced, which is almost an exact clone of YouTube except without the ads, allows you to disable a bunch of distracting "features" like info cards and watermarks, and with the ability to use MicroG in place of Play Services for the actual logging in with Google feature: https://vanced.app/
Isn't it great that we both have the ability to choose the YouTube replacement app that works best for us despite Google technically "owning" the platform though? This is why I love Android. (EDIT: Re-read this and realized this could be seen as inflammatory. Really did not mean to start a platform war. Just glad that Android is a choice that's available to those who value this kind of thing.)
Also, on my experience, some Youtube ads are served through the same domain that serves the video so you won't be completely ad free.
Their stance on why they can't open source it sounds reasonable: https://github.com/YTVanced/VancedWebsite/issues/10
But I agree that if you have sensitive data on your google account you should make a value judgement yourself on if the extra convenience/features on Vanced is worth the risk over NewPipe.
I personally use a different mail provider so I don't have much sensitive information on my Google account, basically just using it for YouTube and Play Store.
There is also Bitchute and Hooktube, if you want to get at Youtube videos without using Google more than absolutely necessary.
But.
NewPipe allows downloading the videos which is great. Sharing video function in Vanced allows using NewPipe for download directly from Vanced application.
please donate : https://newpipe.schabi.org/donate/
YT API requires keys and they know exactly what is going on here and can shut it down in a heartbeat if they want to. This is exactly what happened to apps built on top of Twitter APIs back in the day.
I am very grateful to the developers of NewPipe for providing me with a painless way to experience the content produced by creators that I like, and which also respects my freedoms and my privacy. It is unfortunate that YouTube has an effective monopoly on its market, and that a lot of the content is not available elsewhere -- I'd much rather watch content served by a platform which respects its users, but unfortunately that is not really possible today. So in the meanwhile, I am happy that I don't have to support a nasty company with a nasty business model.
I'm curious to know what exactly would you do differently if you were to make a replacement for Youtube.
> If Youtube used P2P, it still wouldn't solve many of the issue people have with Youtube.
What issues in particular are you talking about and how would P2P fail to resolve them?
Firstly, no one in this comment thread has claimed that PeerTube can solve all of the issues of YouTube. Privacy-oriented folk, and some FOSS advocates see it as a potential solution. Further, I do not personally use PeerTube, but I do use Mastodon and have read about PeerTube in passing.
Another major component of PeerTube aside from the P2P video is the decentralization aspect powered by ActivityPub, which is also used by Mastodon. So not only are the videos decentralized themselves, but so is the service; you can joined one PeerTube instance, and view videos that other instances can also view. If you grow unhappy with the administration of your current instance (maybe they added ads to the page, or maybe they are privacy-invading), you can simply move to another but still have access to the same videos.
In addition, since the videos are P2P, this reduces the server loads on each respective instance and thus lowers the baseline cost of having to host every video uploaded. This could reduce the need for ad revenue to keep the servers running.
If Pewdiepie switched to Peertube, that would be a problem for Google. But probably not for Felix.
> It’s then up to the creator to decide how/if to monetize their content.
And this is why the creators gravitate to youtube. The real tangible service google provides is an automated ad sales rep. That's not an easy job, roughly 0% of creators would succeed at this on their own.
> Just like the old days.
My guess is that this still exists and never even stopped growing. It's just that youtube grew so much faster that it's easy to miss. Again, because youtube is most creators' only good chance at monetization (not that its their only option for hosting).
Perhaps we could call it the world wide web?
There is a big problem in your model. But before that let me address the reason why the current model is better. You are right that the intermediary company is profiting out of your and content creator's backs. That is true. But that is not the complete picture. The company is also paying for hosting the content. In essence, the money that advertisers pay is split in the following way:
1. Content Creator
2. Content hosting
3. Company gets the remaining chunk
Now here is why the current model is better: you can watch all videos on Youtube for free. Discovery is an essential part of how Content Creators are discovered. Now if you put all these Content Creators behind a paywall how are you going to decide if the Creator is worth supporting or not? And even if the Content is good, is s/he going to stick around for long? How many can you support? 10? 100? 1000? There is a limit isn't it? And what happens if the Content Creator stops releasing more content? Eventually subscribers will unsubscribe (stop payments). Then what happens to the Content? Will it remain hosted? Who is going to pay for the cost of hosting content that no one is watching? You won't be able to pay more than X$ amount because you feel that is what the Content Creator is worth to you. An advertiser is different. An advertiser is driven by motive of making profits. If s/he finds that advertising with a particular Content Creator is lucrative s/he spends way more than X$ that you contribute. In essence, the advertiser values the Content Creator more than you will ever be able to. Because you are consuming content from the creator - that is where your link with the creator ends. The ad agencies are making profits from the creator. That is the big difference! You are not motivated to pay more and more to the creator right? Advertisers are! And that will only continue to increase the more quality content the Creator puts out. And even if the Creator decides to take a break, advertisers will still continue to pay for a spot in his/her content as long as people are watching it (which they have discovered because Youtube is free). Would you pay for a Creator if s/he takes a break for 6 months to a year?
Advertising right now monetizes even 10 year old videos. However irrelevant that video might be for today's scenario you still have people watching extremely old videos and advertisements running on it with the Creator getting passive income. So even though a Content Creator might get a lesser chunk of the overall payment in the short term s/he would recover everything and a lot more over the longer term. But if s/he starts taking payment for Content then it will only continue until s/he is posting content. Once that is stopped people will leave the creator in droves. Then that content becomes a deadweight! The platform will never allow content to just sit around stale with no one paying for it. The platform will have no choice but to remove it.
Plus, the democratised ad platforms have led to random scummy people running their disgusting scams on forex trading or get rich quick schemes, or tech products that don’t work etc. being able to get in my face while I’m at home relaxing. I’d want to see that problem fixed.
Example: I love Apple products, I’ve watched dozens of hours of Apple product reviews - and I often like what I see, and end up buying. But I still “Skip ad” on Apple ads - because ad content really sucks!
So as a modern civilisation we must find a way to sell products better than the current state of the art in the ad industry.
I am assuming you work at a company or have startup of your own. Either ways your company would never get orders without some form of advertising. I know it sucks but that is the only way to reach potential clients. Banning advertising will end up having a major cascading effect where companies that rely on advertising (nearly every company does) would get shut down leading to huge unemployment. I rather ads be regulated than banned completely!
The only effect banning advertising will have is that businesses will have to find another way to attract customers.
As for companies not existing without advertising are you serious? Billboards or some other passive advertising could still be possible,or how about we all opt in to services we want to hear about.
Companies have existed before modern advertising and will exist after.
Good for you. Use an ad blocker.
> The only effect banning advertising will have is that businesses will have to find another way to attract customers.
There is no better way in the 21st century than online advertising. Nothing even comes close. You want to remove online advertising, you will have to remove 80% of the companies that exist today as well causing huge unemployment.
> As for companies not existing without advertising are you serious? Billboards or some other passive advertising could still be possible,or how about we all opt in to services we want to hear about.
You possibly can't be serious. Do you know how much it costs to run an ad on a billboard? It is the second most expensive form of advertisement after TV ads! Technology has enabled us to reach people in better ways. If you want to revert back to ancient ways of advertising why not go all the way back to stone age where there was no form of advertising and everything was done through barter system?
> Companies have existed before modern advertising and will exist after.
Yes they have. But there were no trillion dollar valued companies pre-modern advertising. That is also a fact! You want to go back to printing ads in newspapers, using billboards and TV/radio ads? Not all companies can afford it. Majority of the advertisers (in terms of numbers and not revenue) are small mom and pop shops and startups. They do not have the capital to invest in these avenues. What you are suggesting is regression not progress!
Plus like 90% of YouTube channels I'm following mirror their content to their own subscription service (https://watchnebula.com/), and I'm happily paying for that instead of paying for YouTube Premium.
YouTube is a corporate for-profit walled garden platform. Corporate entities put massive effort into designing complex and subtle policies for these platforms in order to drive first and second order effects that sustain them and extract value from them. It is absolutely not the job of random user to spend any effort figuring out whether their actions are in support of the particular platform policies. In fact I'd go so far as to say that YouTube is monopolistic and unethical and users should do everything they can to subvert it.
(For the record, I pay for YouTune Premium which directly contributes to content creators on YT).
But more importantly, the main reason I use NewPipe is because it has basic features that the official YouTube app doesn't provide -- playing videos in an overlay and in the background (so you can lock your screen and continue playing the video). You can get this incredibly basic feature if you pay for YouTube Red, which seems to indicate the only reason this feature isn't provided for the free version is spite. And that is the benefit of free software.
It's because YouTube's music agreements prohibit it on mobile platforms to prevent it competing with Spotify et al.
NewPipe uses Google resources; WINE itself only uses resources on your personal computer.
If your only source of revenue is Youtube, you probably have to worry about Google more than this kind of clients taking away your earnings.
That's a good thing.
Of course, I don't even use NewPipe for its lack of ads. If Google improved their own app, maybe I'd go back to it.
Thank you.
The people that created pocketcast implemented the same feature and as I remember it it is pretty wild implementation wise.
On a similar note - I also have found invidious [1] to be so much better than the normal youtube web frontend, and use it almost exclusively for my desktop youtube usage. It might be an unfair comparison because I am not a google user and the youtube website is terrible for non-logged-in users, but for us it is an absolute godsend. I am not sure how it works as far as views and add revenue and all that, and certainly the ability to thumbs-up and comment is disabled unless you click through to the youube link and log in, but I generally try to support the channels I follow through other means so I do not feel too bad about it.
Also other great substitutes for Twitter and Instagram are Nitter[0] and Bibliogram[1].
I could be mistaken but I don't think YouTube officially permits third-party clients of any sort. Perhaps that's a good litmus test.
I read a lot 'entitled' opinions in this thread pretending that the whole world should ignore their circumstances and just do whatever works for them (ie. Pay for yt premium). The internet is global: why would you think that using open source software to access bits off of global internet is unethical/illegitimate?
"It's just bits." That's a slippery slope.
One might argue that circumventing the intended purpose of a platform in this way uses technological advantage to take advantage of content creators who are vulnerable.
The kid who takes all the candy from the "Please take one." jack-o-lantern on Halloween is only taking a bit of atoms from their neighbor's porch.
Now let me get off my high horse and turn my ad blocker back on.
Youtube does not even run on a standard Android anymore (without Google proprietary bits) so that's not like some people have a choice anyways.
If you want to use Youtube on a standard Android, you either have to use a modded version of Youtube or a third-party app. I'd argue that modifying manually the official version sounds worse.
Overall, the benefits of the "free bits" have enabled anyone to be a creator and create a audience for free, has enabled companies to become global in an instant reach potentially everyone with access to TCP/IP and DNS servers. But creators and operators are trying to shoehorn the global world into a handful of brands (YouTube, ig, fb...) and a handful of business models.
If you were content creators before this age you had to suck it up to several layers of middle men, to get your content on tv, on cinema, on a CD. Now, the free bits lets you operate single handly from your bedroom. But is has a cost: you rely on gatekeepers to distribute your content and track your audience in the name of ad optimization and those users who they are trying to track - who are sovereign over their devices and software - can and will decide how they engage with the bits that reach their hardware and software.
There are alternatives: aol used to operate a walled garden. Many countries try to operate their own walled gardens. I'm not making a judgment call, I know where I prefer to spend my time on. But people do have to climb down their high horses pretending the power dynamic on the open web is only favouring consumers and users
She had her screen lock and a message on Chrome saying that she needed to "Call Microsoft" and she wasn't able to close the window, etc. So she called and "John Henderson" was able to talk her into installing LogMeIn. He then started about charging her $149 and she came to her senses and called me.
I'm 99% sure that she was served some Javascript via an ad network.
I installed uBlock Origin on both of her browsers. I tried changing her DNS to Adguard but it turns out that Comcast hasn't let people change DNS on their routers for many years. Even if you change it on your personal device, they'll force DNS on you.
I have been debating putting ad-blocking on their computer because I've worried about something like this happening. I'd also worried about some site not functioning properly because of ads being blocked. But we'll deal with that if and when.
Sorry but not sorry to sites that are doing 3rd party ad networks that they don't audit.
How does that work?
Come on, how many of the HN users bragging in this thread about blocking YT ads are in a similar situation? I'm glad you've come up with a convincing justification for your behavior, but you've built a mighty strawman there, no one is arguing that people who cannot afford a modern smartphone are the problem.
The other part is about freedom to challenge contemporary adtech and digital business models.. ie. Compute on my terms.
Content creators and YouTubers are welcome to not serve me their content if I don't accept their trackers.
It's not only about affording a modern smartphone: all these digital behemoths rely on us keeping up to date to their tech standards, chasing the latest phone, the latest firmware.
Software like newpipe lets us engage on our own terms.
Except they are not. If you turn on an ad blocker and use YouTube, the creator of the content has no way to stop you.
Let's not pretend this is about high-minded freedom; like everyone else in a free market, you're free to not consume the fruits of labor from content creators and YouTube.
At least in your previous comment, I thought it was honest and interesting to raise the issue of self-interested piracy for low-income users. For all your talk of entitlement, how disappointing it is for you to end with "but I'm entitled to their work because I don't like their terms".
What's the restaurant equivalent to me having to turn on JavaScript or disable my ad blocker?
> thought it was honest and interesting to raise the issue of self-interested piracy for low-income users.
Well, I touched you on that point (inequality). But it seems that I failed to touch you on the fact that digital users are entitled to run whatever they want on their computer.
I don't know why some people think they can just make up the right to do whatever they want with other people's work. You can do what you want on your computer, but not with their stuff. Easy solution: don't use YouTube, but apparently you think you're entitled to it.
Platforms and creators have pletora of other protocols to use that suit the model you're suggesting.
But the model of entry is not my right to decide. I do not freely infringe on others' rights because my tools allow me to do so. I do not infringe of others' rights because other people have a plethora of alternative rights to choose from.
Content creators and YouTube have agreed to a set of (legal) terms of entry, as is their right: watch ads or pay for Premium. It is not your right to deny them simply because you are capable of it.
It’s interesting to see how prices vary, for example Netflix UHD costs around 20.- per month in Switzerland but only 3.- (equivalent) in Turkey.
I do understand that some apps provide extra features etc. but premium removes ads cross-platform... and since GoogleMusic is included, it replaces Spotify as well(yes, it's different..).
This alternative looks great to me, on paper at least. I'll give it a go.
You're saying that you don't pay for Premium and use an unofficial client that does not pay content creators just because it's too much of a hassle to change the two settings that bother you.
And I understand wanting a gratis client. To what extent does the cost of YouTube Premium pay for the client versus the creators?
Out of curiosity, if there were a private (but neither libre nor gratis) YouTube Premium client, would you use it?
How come? If someone sends me an email to my FOSS server, which I open with my FOSS client, I don't care if the server they used to send me is FOSS or not. If YouTube is just sending me data (not running their code on my machines), why should I care what they run?
In any case, to use YouTube Premium you have to login, and therefore have all your viewings tracked. Being able to have subscriptions, etc while avoiding having to login is one of the great features of NewPipe.
My understanding is that you can pause watch history, see link below.
I find it equally odd to assume that they do exactly what they say.
If you stop watch history, that must mean no watch history is collected.
Is your hypothesis that a large company would consider violating important privacy laws for minimal gain (very slightly improved ad tracking)? It's possible but unlikely.
It's not really a hypothesis at this point. I've seen first hand plenty of companies that treat fines and lawsuits as a cost of doing business. If the expected profit is higher than expected fines, full speed ahead. GDPR does have large potential fines, but for all I know the math could still work out.
Not only that, but they have enough information on user locations that it might be worth it to segment it out. Take every jurisdiction a given user might be connected to, use the most restrictive overlap of laws, and track each user as much as legally possible. Most users are not under GDPR or similar, and if you miss one here or there you take it out of the fine budget.
I agree that this is an issue, but I'm not that much of a purist. As long as I'm not actively supporting a non-libre service I don't necessarily mind using it if I can do so in a way that does not completely disrespect my own privacy.
>To what extent does the cost of YouTube Premium pay for the client versus the creators?
That's a good question, which I would really like to know the answer to. In principle, if YouTube offered a libre client like Newpipe but with a payment model like YouTube Red, and if I knew that a majority of the money went to content creators, I would love that and very happily pay for it. I would be very reluctant to use a non-libre client (like Youtube's own), however - I prefer the browser, even with ads, in that case.
The last 3 years I've been very happy with "YouTube Vanced", in particular because of: background play, native adblocking, fully native logged in experience if desired, AND it switches to audio only encode if background play is enabled so it saves data.
Get it here: https://vanced.app/
There is also a ton of ad blockers for Safari which block YouTube ads.
[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/musi-simple-music-streaming/id...
Wow and it's been up for years! Do they scrape YouTube like NewPipe? How come Google didn't go nuts about taking it down?
A downside to Musi is that after playing a video a full screen ad will often pop up in a way that feels invasive and can be difficult to avoid inadvertently clicking. The behavior feels like malware, which leaves me concerned that the developers behind the app might hold flexible ethics and engage in practices such as covertly monetizing user data.
>(and you can choose whether to download them as audio files)
Videos with still images (many songs) shouldn't be much data at all over the audio alone.
Nit: Not sure what this is supposed to mean. Is this an attempt to mimic how you speak aloud?
>Consider the Official YouTube app, with a paid YouTube Premium subscription.
That is definitely an option, but people who use things like youtube-dl or apps like NewPipe probably aren't in the target audience for YouTube Premium.
>Videos with still images (many songs) shouldn't be much data at all over the audio alone.
Part of the point is if you never intend to watch the content, but only want to listen to it, there's no point to having video.
Of course.
> ...probably aren't in the target audience for YouTube Premium.
True. It's unclear if OP fits that description though. Re-read OP's comment.
> ...there's no point to having video.
Agreed. I think it most cases, there is no video for still image YouTube content. Just, you know, a still image. I don't know the extent this is true, nor do I know OP's use case. Assuming that OP is interested in music, the video component shouldn't be a real issue. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6007071?hl=en
It's to add condescension.
That was my assumption. Things like "um" and "uh" tend to be silence-fillers, among other things (see below). It's weird to see them being typed-out, and I've noted an uptick in how often I see it being done.
Yep.
There's something about internet culture that rots our ability to have conversations with others. It's something I've also noticed in myself (it's easy to complain about everyone else) as someone who, sheepishly, has snuck in a juvenile "Um..." when I think I've really got'em good.
I suspect the uptick in just this sort of rot going mainstream. Like instead of bringing your in-person social skills online when the internet was newer, and then becoming corrupted over time, people are just born into the rot from a young age.
And frankly it takes eternal vigilance to stay a noncombative and fair online.
I think I sort of built it up over time though, I remember not being able to do 2x previously because it seemed to fast, but I guess I got used to it.
Edit: I'm a very, very happy new pipe user, this is literally the one feature I'm waiting for. And there is a GitHub issue being worked on for it.
It seems like NewPipe can't even add an option to enable ads because third-party ads are against F-Droid policy.
Besides, does Google/YT even specify the reason for bans? Don't they just write something vague?
What he probably meant is that people who are logged into the Google Services with their google account got im trouble for using NewPipe, which to me seems unlikely. I doubt that Google got away with something like that!
I suppose and app like this could provide a third party (self host able api) account service - recording history and managing/syncing playlists? Maybe with an option to merge in entries from Google account playlists from time to time?
Playlists are nice not just for playing/listening, but also downloading for offline use/backup/archive.
Ed: i see that it has local history and playlists, with option to export data - but apparently no option to load data (whether from youtube/Google or an earlier export).
[1]: https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/issues/105 [2]: https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/issues/668
It has way poorer framerate, requires streaming to two places instead of one (from source to phone and then phone to cast device), requires the phone to stay awake thereby needing more power and wasting the phone display which I'll not look at, has a way worse interface for whatever app you're looking at, because what you see is a scaled up phone interface instead of one more suitable for a larger screen, ...
I essentially never use it when I can avoid it, and even when I need mirroring if I have a cable I'll use that instead.
I imagine this will be an unpopular opinion here though.
Regarding ads: Showing ads like "Girl Mobile Video Talk" with description "Girl Mobile Number Live Video Call" with "Install Link" in a youtube ads is unacceptable. And the worst thing is you cannot even turn off that ads without being turning on ads personalization.
Regarding Money: 10$ may be a cup of coffee for you but in other side of world people are earning 200$ of salary so they just can't afford it. So many people don't have privilege like average Americans have?
Regarding supporting creators. Sure ads pay creator but showing ads every 10minute , beginning of video and end of video is total BS. And even creator are already using their own ads like "This video is sponsored by Brilliant.org" so I don't mind blocking ads.
With their resources and the nature of the service, they could easily win the cat-and-mouse game against ad-blocker devs if they wanted to.
The reason they don't, is because they actually want to keep those "entitled people" on their platform, in order to avoid giving competing platforms an opening to grow their own communities. They know there is a substantial part of their userbase who would simply not use their service if they had to either pay or endure the vanilla experience.
I mostly use YouTube to discover niche content, but only because I've been running an ad-blocker since forever. I cannot fathom how anyone could enjoy it in any other way currently. When I see how IT works at friend's houses I'm horrified.
If YT blocked access for browsers with ad-blockers (or make it inconvenient enough) I would essentially stop using it.
You're supporting them just by using them, whether they are showing you ads or tracking you or not. You're reducing demand on other platforms for this content because you're letting YouTube provide it for you. If you really want to stand against YouTube, don't use it. Otherwise, you're still supporting their platform, you've just decided to do so in a way that saves you time, money and convenience at the expense of YouTube and the content creators on YouTube.
If you're going to do it, you might as well own it.
I guess it's too easy for me to continue using YT for discovery.
It's similar to disliking Walmart and Amazon but still using them because they are cheap, convenient, a known factor, etc, which many do (including me, in the case of Amazon). The first step is acknowledging the trade-off you're making and being aware of it. At least then people are making a conscious choice, so if they want to re-evaluate at some point, they can do so with better facts.
OMG.
Whereas YouTube is a toxic cesspool, the others are blackhole hellmouths leading directly to eternal damnation. Meaning the wannabe's complete abrogation of their responsibilities show that YouTube's pathetic attempts at content moderation are better than nothing.
I now think there's an opportunity for white label video hosting.
I just saw an ad from "Epoch Times" (Scientologists?) about the COVID-19 hoax.
I'm gobsmacked. YouTube is pure unfiltered evil.
Moderation wise, I don't make any kind of distinction between content and ads.
I forgot that I turned off ad blocking. I guess I normally don't see this kind of shit.
If I'm watching an hour long video about X, and I have to watch 40 mid-roll ads, I'm way more likely to turn it off. I'd much rather directly support creators via Patreon, and Adblock everything else.
Since when is that an unreasonable ask?
Nobody uses youtube because they love it. Everyone uses youtube because google effectively killed all the competition by sliding billions of investor money to DMCA backers. And well, this one time it worked out nice for them, i guess. But it is not a business practice I will support. Fortunately, i'm technical enough to play their cat and mouse game to consume creators who are hostage to their monopoly on discovery.
It's a whole different matter when you can pay, the service provider asks you to pay and then you release an app that deliberately bypasses that ask.
YouTube is asking that their users either watch ads or pay money. That's how YouTube and creators can keep the lights on. I think that's a fair model. There are other models, like Vimeo, where the uploader pays for the hosting.
It certainly seems like the future is one where we expect access to everything and pay for nothing. That worries me.
/soapbox
Creators do get the lion share of YouTube's gross revenue.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/03261...
Fuck YouTube.
nowadays, if you want to pay for a newspaper article or a video, you have to fork over all your pii and oblige yourself to paying a certain sum in the future unless you do something to cancel it.
there is no fairness in commerce any more. they treat us like hostiles, and we have to treat them like hostiles.
the current choice isn't between paying for it or pirating it, it's between handing over your identity and future income or actively hiding.
one party to this commercial transaction doesn't need to eat and has an income the size of hundreds of thousands of the other side.
NewPipe doesn't need to be trusted where Google actively requires you to trust them - yet repeatedly acts untrustworthily.
If they want me to happily give them money, let me do it without trusting those who do not deserve my trust. I shouldn't have to trust corporations.
I 100% agree that personal data has unfortunately found its way into a transaction in which it should not belong. I respect the fact that you push back on this point, though I do find "treat them like hostiles" as an extreme position. Other entities offer transactions that I find abhorrent, and I simply just refuse to interact with them.
If paying for physical media (be it movies or newspapers or anything else) with "coins" is still valuable to you, I encourage you to continue to practice that behavior, and encourage others as well. It is still mostly possible in many cases.
> ...Google actively requires you to trust them... ... I shouldn't have to trust corporations.
Regarding YouTube, you can still interact with them in a trustless environment. Browse in incognito mode in a non-Google browser. Google gets to show an ad to an anonymous user and you get to watch a video. End of transaction.
I mean, the creator should have its share, but it's not like YouTube does nothing.
Yes, that happens.
Otherwise, there's no issue with YouTube getting add money.
But they're not - they're like one of those re-released Android Play Store apps which are hacked to provide paid features for free.
NewPipe is not a re-release of any Android Play Store app, or like any hacked app (like YouTube Vanced). It provides features beyond even YouTube Premium's featureset, removes perceived anti-features like Google Play Services integration, and is much more lightweight to boot.
It is a mistake to assume that everyone blocks ads because they do not want to watch ads. In my case, it is playing a game of damage control with a major corporation that has the ability to connect my activities across much of the web. Other people legitimately point to the cost of bandwidth. I am sure that other reasons exist.
It is also to the benefit if creators if they diversify their revenue streams. At the moment, they are far too dependent upon decisions made by Google. Some have realized this by requesting donations from users, merchandising, baking in ads from sponsors, and promoting alternate distribution mechanisms. While seeking out other sources of revenues creates problems for people who are just starting out, it is pretty much a necessity for people who are seeking to earn money from their work.
Watching content on YouTube while blocking ads does not encourage creators to go to other platforms. You've already consumed their product, thus lessening demand, so there's less reason to put it on another platform. It's not likely you'll go watch it on Vimeo after they upload it there when you've already seen it on YouTube.
Creators may be better off with a donation and merchandise revenue stream. Describing your actions as "benefitting" them by helping them see this by depriving them of revenue from you for their content is a slightly odd take though.
The claim was that creators would benefit from diversifying, not that my actions were benefiting them. I was quite clear that my motivations were related to Google.
I don't like it one bit -> down vote
I actually ended up going down a different route and created my own F-Droid repository for NewPipe and a couple other apps so I could get faster updates for them and I trust the upstream developers.
https://garykim.dev/blog/2020/04/14/personal-f-droid-reposit...
It's one thing to hate a company and refuse to use their products and a whole nother thing to promote products that sidestep features the service asks money for.
With that I have almost exhausted the list of ads that Google thought has been relevant for me since I started dating my wife well over a decade ago.
Why they cannot show ads for family holidays, programming conferences, local stores etc I don't know but if I had to guess I'd say they could need some diversity on their teams ;-). (Adding a few married parents with stable marriages and small children should do the trick, but I am not interested and haven't been for a couple of years, I find Google close to disgusting sometimes and whatever technical edge it has has disappeared to the degree that I'm positively surprised to just see sane results like they used to be in 2007.)
The corollary of that is that any interaction with such a company is unethical, since it encourages them to continue the manipulation on people who may not be as aware or resistant.
I therefore assume you've routed YouTube.com to :: ?
For a number of years I allowed them to run JS on my device and download ads from other servers to my device.
I have now instructed my rendering device to not do that. Even as a devout christian that doesn't feel unethical.
I'm free to try to avoid the ads, they are free (within limits) to get me to view ads.
A pro tip in that regard would be to make the ads relevant and unobtrusive.
A good first step here would be to include them statically on the server side and make sure they don't contain any moving or noisy elements.
Another good idea would be to select ads not solely on what company they can fleece for most money by showing me irrelevant ads but also factor in if the ad is in any way relevant.
https://curiositystream.com/legaleagle/
Some content creators on YT (such as Legal Eagle, etc.) are also now on Nebula. $15 USD per year right now. Apparently they don't have to worry so much about de-monetization, however that works.
Google should, at least in theory, treat users of NewPipe same way it treats browser users with adblock.
So next time you see a YouTube employee, thank them for that
Do you have a source or a more detailed explanation for that?
Adblock Plus for example uses EasyList by default, and that contains this rule to block the ads:
youtube.com#@#.video-ads
This may be right, so host based adblocking may not work.
However, uBlock origin etc definitely block youtube ads and it works as a browser extension so they have access to the DOM and probably do something there.
I have two YouTube accounts, and at first it only happened on one. Now it is happening to both. Maybe it is something they are currently just testing.
Even if I were to pay for Youtube Red, this application has a feature that I cannot get with the official app: a lack of dependence on the Google Play store and services. Since I run a build of Android that does not include those services, this app is wonderful to bridge the gap, as it performs much better than playing the videos directly in Firefox. That it happens to include a bunch of extra features the official app does not is just a bonus really.
If there was a way to pay for YouTube premium and make the money go to the creators I watch while using a FOSS client like NewPipe, I'd be willing to pay several more times the current price of YouTube premium for that.
And yet the HN community happily endorses such apps when it comes to Google. I also wonder why moderators think that this is acceptable in terms of YouTube.
Developers have long since abandoned the concept of providing demos to "try the game" before you buy it. If I am thinking about buying a game but can't be convinced that I'll get my money's worth, I'll pirate the game. If I end up liking the game, I might as well buy it so that I can use online features, receive updates, and not have to worry with the crack causing weird bugs. In these cases, piracy has filled in the roll of demo software and provides a net positive for companies because any converts to paying customers would likely have never purchased the game had they not pirated it.
Alternatively, look at something like the anime fansub scene. Fansubs often have far better quality than anything you'll see coming from legitimate anime streaming services. I pay for anime streaming subscriptions but I can't count the number of times I've refused to watch something on the service due to how bad the subtitles were, torrented an actually good fansub, and then supported the series (not the streaming platform) through alternative means.
You also have the digital preservation aspect. Piracy is the reason most early console games are playable nowadays. Emulators aren't really legal and all of the published ROMs are very much pirated content but if they didn't exist, how many games would be either extraordinarily rare or lost to time by now. Same goes for music. What.cd was an incredible archive of music and it preserved tonnes of tracks from small now defunct bands throughout the start of the millennium. This is all content that would otherwise be lost to time if pirates hadn't preserved them due to their own motivations.
There's more on this out on the web. I read a really cool article about it a while back but I can't find it atm.
One of the features is background playback of audio from videos. On the desktop, that's a feature that exists thanks to your window manager. Is that unethical?
It isn't stealing to use another method to get a feature someone is selling you, any more than using a third party DVR is stealing from a company offering you one as part of a more expensive package.
They have implemented the feature independently, and are providing it as a way of doing the same thing as something YouTube is selling you, I don't see that as a problem.
(NewPipe also has features that YouTube's app just doesn't support at all, like higher speed playback than 2x).
Playing in the background is not a "feature", it's a basic device capability, the fact that YouTube went out of their way to prevent it does not make it right, imagine if the browser client had stopped playing when you went out of focus - that'd be completely unacceptable. The fact that somehow this is accepted on smartphones probably says more about consumers lack of technological competence and awareness (and maybe historical reasons, as earlier versions of Android/iOS didn't have proper multi-tasking)
Google has terms of use on their service.
You are violating those terms of service.
This is completely cut and dry.
Under the heading, "Permissions and Restrictions":
> The following restrictions apply to your use of the Service. You are not allowed to:
> 1. access, reproduce, download, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, alter, modify or otherwise use any part of the Service or any Content except: (a) as expressly authorized by the Service; or (b) with prior written permission from YouTube and, if applicable, the respective rights holders;
> 2. circumvent, disable, fraudulently engage with, or otherwise interfere with any part of the Service (or attempt to do any of these things), including security-related features or features that (a) prevent or restrict the copying or other use of Content or (b) limit the use of the Service or Content;
> 3. access the Service using any automated means (such as robots, botnets or scrapers) except (a) in the case of public search engines, in accordance with YouTube’s robots.txt file; or (b) with YouTube’s prior written permission;
I think this is just one of those cases where copyright/IP law moves too slowly compared to the technology it tries to cover.
They are "accessing ... part of the Service or Content [without being] expressly authorized."
To make it concrete, as an example, a user using youtube-dl is violating the terms. Not the makers of youtube-dl.
Are they though? AFAIK, law is very pedantic, and technically speaking, a human is physically incapable of accessing Youtube; we use tools to do so. We use some kind of software to access youtube.com, in this case, we are using an app that accesses youtube.com and relays the content on that page back to us. Similar to say, using Chrome or Firefox to access youtube.com and relay the contents on the page back to us.
Note, the APP accesses youtube.com, not the user. The app is (potentially) in violation, the user using the app is not. In fact, the user may not even know that the app is actually accessing youtube. Again, IANAL and I'm sure this is argued both ways, but I'm just saying this is an interpretation of the terms.
"Your Honour, technically I did not break the window. I had to use a rock as my agent, therefore the rock is guilty."
> You are violating those terms of service.
That's not what piracy means, and that's not how the law works. If I state that the terms of service of reading this comment are that you must hop on one leg for the rest of your life, and you continue to walk on two, you won't be violating any laws.
OP claimed, "It's my own right to save those packets(without re-distributing) them and watch them in any form I like." That is not accurate. He doesn't magically GAIN COPYRIGHT over content, just because he downloaded it. His use MAY be covered by Fair Use Laws, but it may also still be a violation of YouTube's Terms of Service.
What's the difference between downloading and streaming a video? It's OK for the bytes to stay in main memory/network cache, but not in HDD? Would taking a memory dump of the RAM break their TOS?
"It's my own right to save those packets(without re-distributing) them and watch them in any form I like."
YouTube lets you rent movies for 48 hours.
You download a movie. You then claimed you can watch the movie in any form you like. Such as, later than the 48 hours.
They should at least consider the possibility. Go in with open eyes, so to say.
This story comes to mind:
https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/239728-google-suspends-ac...
If this happens, even more people will take their eggs out of Google's basket. I've already migrated my email to another provider and use Searx[1] for search.
If you do use it, please don't violate the TOS, because it increases the chances you'll screw it up for everyone else (me). People who violate TOS are why we can't have nice things.
It just also is unethical. Cheers.
So bypassing the wishes of copyright holder / creator and getting the content for free is pretty much textbook definition of piracy.
Now, we can debate whether piracy is ethical in some cases (and I think it is in many cases, especially due to how cancerous the copyright lobby is these days). But let's not pretend that having a service provider say "hey, pay us 10$ a month for this feature" and then making an app that gives that paid feature for free is some kind of right.
I'd like to focus on a single point here: background playback. If anything, it's Google that's stepping over the boundaries in this situation, trespassing the typical boundaries of an app and breaking the natural interaction model. How I consume (or not) the output of an app should be none of its business. I expect to be able to switch windows, minimize, look away, turn off the screen or mute the volume without the app knowing and acting differently. Forbidding me to do so is an artificial anti-feature and doesn't bring me any sympathy towards Google and their paid offering.
I would keep using NewPipe along with the official app even if it showed ads (which I consider tolerable in YouTube's case) for sanity-restoring features like this one.
Google needs your preferences more than they need to show you an ad immediately. They can also show you an ad on their search space or any of the sides that use the Google ad network. It actually might be cheaper for them to show you the ad elsewhere when they don't have to pay the youtube content creator as I would assume that the creators don't get any money if their audience doesn't watch the immediate ads in the video.
It would be great if there was a way installing the app without allowing third party sources.
Haven't developed on Android since years. Does anyone know if I can build it and upload it via ADB without enabling apps from 3rd party sources.
Also the application crashes all the time, especially when switching to play in the background (locking the screen, switching apps, etc.); and as of Android 10 on my device it introduces a delay when switching to background play, which interrupts the audio (it didn't do this on Android 9).
This is the opposite of what I want, the search bar has a scroll menu with the most recent searches anyway, I really have no need to traverse my search history.
Either way, I get misspelled ads, or ads that just say "18 YEAR OLD WOMEN" in some shitty 1999 font that is barely legible.
Edit: I'm talking about the clickable ads interspersed between videos in the UI.
It seems generic not really weird.
But mostly F-droid, which has Newpipe. Both excellent and reliable and shite-free.
I really don't get app stores. How did they convince everyone to install so much spy and adware?
I think you must mainly mean the Google Play Store, where the situation seems really bad... As for Apple, they manually review every application. I remember iOS apps for jailbreaking getting removed incredibly quickly.
Another example is "Generic viking game", like literally. It just says some generic viking game, no brand or recognizable name. It looks just like phishing.
Something like this showed up on reddit a couple of months back: https://redd.it/ghmuy7
You won't get automatic updates, though. I encourage you to install F-Droid (that you can also install using adb install), and enable third party sources just for F-Droid (which is possible on the latest versions of Android). Or, if your bootloader is unlocked, flash the f-droid zip package and then you don't even need to enable third party apps and F-Droid will be even more enjoyable to use.
[1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/
[2] https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/tree/master/metadata/or...
I suspect that's not very battery efficient though.
Also, as an ad free and non tracking twitter alternative there is nitter.net (other nitter instances exist as well).
At the end of the day, you have to pay $99/year to publish on the Apple App Store, and on Android, although Google has had some shady practices around automatically flagging/removing apps from it's store, you have more options in terms of app distribution, such as F-Droid.
To my (now deleted) comment's point though, I don't see much of a relation between F-Droid and NewPipe, besides that F-Droid hosts it.
EDIT: other comment on this thread answers that last point I made and your question, and sums up what NewPipe has to do with the "openness" of the platforms [1]. However, I now wonder, what is stopping Google/YouTube from going after NewPipe & F-Droid?
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store...
F-Droid is just a visible example of that functionality.
Or, an app that would go as far as doing such deviant things as providing its own custom web engine and allow an iPad 2 to remain relevant and useful in 2020.
why hasn't anyone built a fully-featured desktop Youtube front-end experience? With, like, borderless floating video (a la Firefox's floating video feature), dimming the desktop, a search experience that doesn't bombard you with clickbait garbage, etc?
it seems like Youtube.com is really just a fancy mp4 player, targeting static video content.
does Youtube actively do anything to prevent such clients from existing? What's their stance on them? Will they one day change the service so the video stream urls are generated randomly, or obfuscated, and break every 3rd party client?
If your referring to Picture in Picture, it was implemented for Chrome via an official extension
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/picture-in-picture...
Not really, no. Though they took some kind of legal action against Hooktube I remember.
> Will they one day change the service so the video stream urls are generated randomly, or obfuscated, and break every 3rd party client?
They already do this to some extent for videos with copyrighted content, but it's not very aggressive and has long been reverse-engineered and dealt with. They use a series of three string transformations like reversal, replacing a single letter, etc. on an alphanumeric signature parameter. The sequence of transformations varies per video but can be extracted from the Javascript source using regular expressions.
Here are some available clients I know of. I do not know if there any that use floating videos or dim the desktop as you say:
mps-youtube (terminal-only): https://github.com/mps-youtube/mps-youtube
youtube-viewer: https://github.com/trizen/youtube-viewer
FreeTube (which uses the invidious API): https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube
Invidious: https://invidio.us/, https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
youtube-local (my project): https://github.com/user234683/youtube-local
smtube: https://www.smtube.org/
Minitube: https://flavio.tordini.org/minitube, https://github.com/flaviotordini/minitube
And most of all, and this is weird to admit on HN, I kind of enjoy Youtube's algorithm of recommending videos -- it actually presents content that I would be interested in. Every time I opened Newpipe it was just a random mishmash of stuff, maybe it's what's on the default Youtube homepage or something, but it's never something I'm interested in. It's nice for when I want to explicitly search for something to watch, but not if I want to just open up the app and tap some random video to start watching.
I'll just add a side note that I don't watch political videos or anything and it's not about echo chamber or bubbles. I just watch videos about old video games (think AVGN etc.) or listen to music by artists I enjoy, and those are the videos that show up on my Youtube which is nice.
So i've never had those issues, because videos simply never stopped playing!
I use YouTube frequently, but I almost always just watch my subscriptions.
By not having a login system, it is basically rendered useless despite how nice it is to be ad-free and having a much cleaner UI
(I knew you can import subscription, but I sub and unsub channels constantly so it becomes a pain very quickly.)
I'm currently using YouTube Vanced instead.
To get the official Google token, you must go through a massive wad of obfuscated JavaScript in a browser VM. It uses a thing called "BotGuard" for which barely any information is available online to prevent automated logins, and apparently the code changes on every request to the login form. I know this from poking around at the page source and seeing a blurb advertising their credential security division slipped in at the top, like they just know that the only way you're getting that token is if it's exactly how Google and that security division wanted you to, and they felt the need to inform everyone attempting to reverse engineer the thing by looking at the source what they think of their effort.
This is the reason why we don't have Google login in another unofficial YouTube frontend called invidious[1] and youtube-dl[2].
That's right, not even youtube-dl can handle logging in to YouTube since about April 2019. That was about the time that Google apparently got around to patching their auth endpoint so you have to run their obfuscated JavaScript if you want in. Since then scores of issues reporting 400 responses from trying to download Watch Later or private playlists were posted on youtube-dl's tracker, collected in the issue I mentioned. Their response? Close it as a duplicate without, well, any other response. None as of present writing, eight months later. Exactly the same response as nearly every other issue reporting the same error.
That is a misstep on youtube-dl's part, and has greatly affected my impression of the project's leadership, but part of me also thinks that they don't want to admit that it's nearly impossible to get past a system Google specifically designed to be impossible for third-party clients to get past.
Just a thought: maybe it could add a function to just sync user's subscriptions via scraping their user page? Of course this requires you to make it public, but at least it would provide an additional option.
By removing ads, you're viewing content without paying back in any meaningful way. You might say that you give donations to the content creators you really like, but I don't find that very convincing (you cannot donate to every small YouTuber you ever encounter while browsing, not all content creators churn out 100s of videos).
Besides, it probably costs a ton of money to store/process billions of videos each month, and stream billions of 1080p (or even 4K) of videos to all devices.
I understand people are fundamentally against ads (I also find them life-sucking and extremely obnoxious), but there is an option that does just that while fairly contributing back into the ecosystem that produces your content.
not sure how much truth in that, but I've avoided using such apps because of that.
My only major complaint is that the colour of the seek bar is hard to see on black backgrounds.
Maybe it is just the rate at which binaries get released... For example, it has had comments support for some time now but only for top level comments. However, iirc the pull request that introduced this also had an example implementation of fully working comment support. So why is this not yet implemented?
I recognise that I should probably just build from master or some dev branch which has more features myself...
I think that if you don't like YT app and advertising, you simply shouldn't use YouTube.
Those of us who don't want to see ads ever, for any reason aren't stealing or harming anyone, we simply don't want to see ads -- saying "well don't use the service" is not all of a sudden getting the creators back any revenue, and no, if there's interesting stuff on YouTube, I'm going to use it, and do so without seeing ads. I'll support the creators I want to support elsewise.
Even if you never click an ad or buy anything from an ad, you are still helping the publisher make money.
If you ignore ads but don't block them you're helping the publisher steal from the client. Personally I think that's wrong.
The hypothetical being discussed is "it's better to not use the service at all than to use it and block an ad". In this scenario, which impression would have been shown that now is not? Either way, no money is made by the content creator.
The only way that person would make money is the third scenario which it seems you're talking about, whereby I use the service and watch an ad (and yes, for some of us, that will never happen).
My eyes, my ears, my brain. I'll consume your content how I want.
I think similar considerations are valid for ads on websites too.
I hope you enjoy being force-fed content, because that's the future you're advocating for.
It's extremely disturbing to see people essentially advocating for the loss of control over their own minds and senses.
I'm just saying that you have to accept the rules or terms of service if you want to use a non-vital private-company owned service otherwise you can simply stop using that service.
You are not compelled to watch YT even if it has a predominant position. And you still have the right to complain (like i do too) about the horrible privacy issues with today's advertisment but that is a completely different topic
And I'm sure I'll get roasted for this but YT isn't free to run either. Alphabet Inc. should get some money from you if you are watching youtube, and I'd rather I just pay them than watch an ad from them.
Minus how big of a cut for google?
Using NewPipe is just crossing your fingers and hoping they never decide to make use of those two pieces of information.
This make it much more useful for me, I can still have access to my YouTube account but I can open the actual videos in NewPipe and skip ads/have more control of the playback options.
Also, this bug from official YouTube app does not happen in NewPipe, making it much more useful to me since I use a custom caption settings because Amazon Prime Video (but they look horrible in official YouTube app because there is no outline): https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/e935yz/bug_caption...
Free and Open Source - https://sponsor.ajay.app/
It also looks like it doesn't have the option to login and sync, so I'd be seeing already watched stuff on between desktop and mobile. I understand why some people wouldn't want that, but I use the feature all the time and would like the option.
I might try it as a kind of backup app for things I want to track, but don't want suggestions for (mostly technical videos).
I implemented the update notification for the GitHub APKs few years back.
Perfect for podcasts: run playlist in background at x2 with "skip silences" on.
The OS has application permissions for apps: why is a feature designed to protect my account (and only my account) preventing me from independently installing free and open source software?
I find the ability to seamlessly switch between services, and create playlists containing both YouTube videos and SoundCloud audio, to be a complete game-changer.
I doubt I could easily go back to the official YouTube app now.
NewPipe (Lightweight YouTube frontend) - https://f-droid.org/app/org.schabi.newpipe
F-Droid definitely wasn't a recent one when I tried (in the comment above) it now seems to be showing more recent ones on my phone... I don't use f-droid often, so may have been a syncing/update issue or something else.
It was a big pain for me. Made the app unusable.
They are absolute scum.
Is it a remote proxy to filter ? Local lists of blaclist etc.
Some more info would be cool
Edit : The comments are so good I'm more suspicious! :D
Google can't be too happy that people access their service without paying either with eyeball time for advertisers or money for Youtube Red or whatever it is called today
...except I have a decades-old VCR that can skip those too, so the technology today could probably deal with that pretty easily.
"ad-bypassing" is essentially choosing not to consume content; while most if not all DRM and other protections are for preventing people from consuming content, preventing them from not consuming content is nearly impossible unless you essentially have control over their minds.
It's still easy to work around, but maybe Google's getting more aggressive about blockers.
Whilst I would personally prefer videos with no ads, is this not stealing?
I would be very interested to hear this groups view on why this is morally ok. Also what alternatives there should be to an ad revenue model for YouTube type sites.
If not then there's still a shortfall.
The usual response you'll get is "is it stealing if I go to the bathroom during a TV ad break?" or "that's why content creators have in-video paid sponsorship blurbs"
I personally think those are flimsy justifications though. I think it's stealing to bypass ads when the company hosting the service has a clear avenue for paid ad-free viewing.
It would be like creating an app that streams the free-tier of Crunchyroll ad-free while still using Crunchyroll's bandwidth. Dishonest.
"If there's a publicly exposed service with no authentication or security in place, it is not the fault of an individual for using it. It's clearly not illegal, and neither is it unethical. If [the city of Rome] wants to protect their [water service] from unauthorized use, they are perfectly capable of doing so."
I disagree that it is not unethical. I would hope most people recognize that abusing a free service to avoid a paid service is unethical.
Further more, it's not an ocean sized fountain run by a monopolistic corporation and one of the only places to get water, with simple technology to restrict who can get water if the corporation so decided.
All analogies are flawed. I would hope the difference between something being ethical and unethical is more than just a law.
Again... abusing a free service to avoid a paid service is (usually) unethical and dishonest, regardless of legality. Doesn't matter if you are plumbing your house with public water intended for tourists, filling your backpack with all the honey packets from all the Chick-Fil-A's so you never have to buy honey again, or buying hundreds of thousands of dollars of $1 coins from the government with credit cards so you can profit off of taxpayers. It's abuse of a free service, and it's unethical.
Also, why don't they just protect their endpoints with authentication? It would be simple. They choose not to. There is not an easy way to protect public water or Chick-fil-A honey packets, so ethics is the main mechanism. Not so with internet services. There are countless well tested mechanisms for this.
It's not easy to block third party access, it often ends up being a whack-a-mole style game where you block it and then they just get in using a different method. YouTube already has been doing this.
On top of this you are taking money from the creators of the content, not just YouTube itself and violating their terms of service.
If a service tells you not to do it, and you still do it anyway it's quite clear you are being unethical.
It wouldn't be wack-a-mole if they just had proper authentication instead of using the freemium model. It's their choice to open up their APIs to unauthenticated anonymous users due to their shady advertising revenue model, and the costs are calculated in their models.
BTW, I've never once read or signed any agreement with YouTube, so I have no idea what you are talking about when you say "the service tells you not to do it".
Even if there was more prominent messaging of the sort, it's not the job of the user to twist themselves in knots to assist wealthy rent seekers' desires to apply ancient business models based on physical property to modern information systems.
I will admit that I am not very fond of YouTube either. They have far to much control over the income source of a good amount of people. They could on a whim take away the monetization of a channel (which they do sometimes) and cause them a lot of financial strain.
In terms of your slave comparison I would say a better comparison would be if the slave owner was doing poorly the conditions the slave lives in are worsened. This highlights that the slave does not have much chances to acquire food on their own. I wish there was more competition but I do not believe starving the slave of the system fixes the owner of the system.
We're talking about unethical, not illegal.
What about ad blocking? Well you aren't actually blocking ads. You're electing not to request ads. I'm simply not interested in ads. It would be wrong for YouTube to sell my views to advertisers since I would just ignore the ads anyways. So basically they are actually the bad guy and I'm a hero.
Re: alternatives, the guys that make stuff I like I support through patreon / gumroad / PayPal / mail gifts directly to their PO box. Some of them host their own videos. Its cheap.
On the flipside the crap made that's supported by advertising is terrible - drawn out for revenue, totally soulless and generally for children. Who cares about that?
Until I can be absolutely assured I'm not going to be given a malicious payload from ad server I will not allow ads in my browser
I do have a problem in paying for it with my data.
If the content creator wants my money for their service, they'll provide a way for me to purchase it without having to use an intermediate surveillance company.
Since I block the surveillance company by default, the content creator is not at a loss from me consuming their content without ads - for I simply would not be consuming their content at all otherwise.
OTOH, the creator may benefit from me viewing their content because I may find it interesting and recommend it to a bunch of other people, who don't have the same privacy concerns as me.
The Youtube ad model is probably not long-term sustainable. Content creators should be looking to find alternative delivery methods based on pay-per-view, or freemium subscriptions to get people engaged. You'll find many already do, as they have patreon pages in addition to their youtube, but patreon is also a surveillance company, so that's not an option for me either.
I don't mind paying for things with Bitcoin. Any content creator can accept money without requiring me to sign up to work for a surveillance company.
If you don't want to feed the "Surveillance company", then don't use Youtube at all. But it is quite arrogant to benefit from their work, acting entitled to it, and then turn around and shit all over them behind their back.
I'm not "entitled" to anything, but the content is accessible to me without being spied on, so this is the way I will consume it until the creator uses an alternative, non-surveillance company to distribute their content.
The onus is on the content creator to provide the alternative - not force me to be spied on.
But again, hidden behind that is indeed an air of entitlement. It implies that you are owed content from the creator, and if the creator decides to put it on Youtube, then they are giving away their rights to be compensated by you. And you still don't really acknowledge that what Youtube (not the creator) is providing you should be compensated either.
If you found a shortcut for getting food from a store without paying (let's say a big store like Walmart or McDonalds), do you think it's a fine thing to do? Do you think it's ethical to get the hard work of others for free, just because the company providing said work is rich?
The entitlement is actually from Google et al. They think they're entitled to aggregate your data simply because you visit their web page - but we know that the internet does not necessarily work that way, and an ad blocker can thwart their efforts.
I don't think I am entitled to other people's content, but I can access it - that's what happens when you put things in a public space like the internet. The content creator is fully aware that some people are going to block ads and they still upload it anyway. Perhaps they get more viewers by making their content public rather than hiding it behind a paywall?
The store comparison does not work because there is a deprivation of a physical product involved. No deprivation occurs with digital data which can be cloned an infinite number of times. You might argue that you are depriving the provider of bandwidth, but they have elected to make something public with the understanding that they may not be compensated for that bandwidth.
The surveillance business model is only sustainable for as long as people are willing to give up their data in exchange for services. If they are not willing, then Google et al will have to find a new business model. They aren't entitled to your data just because they've made some content publicly accessible and you have chosen to access it whilst maintaining your own privacy.
Perhaps there will be other options for monetization of content other than the surveillance-company-masked-as-advertiser model. Where you can pay for stuff without giving up your privacy.
"take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it"
Also, Vanced doesn't run on my FireHD tablet.
Is anyone familiar with youtube.videodeck.net / pockettube? Aggregates channels into subscription columns like RSS. Like old youtube collections. I've been using the service for years and have yet to see anyone else replicate the feature.
What it misses from a usual RSS reader is the notifications (idk maybe they exist and you only have to turn them on) and the "read"/"viewed" marker.
You have to enable installing apps from "unknown sources" (an option available in the Android menus, no root required), then install the Fdroid application, and from now on you can revert back the "unknown sources" setting, and use Fdroid to search and install FOSS apps, including NewPipe.
https://developer.android.com/distribute/marketing-tools/alt...
As for the experience being very different on premium: I recently had to use YT on a browser without uBlock/uMatrix and I believe I got a taste of that difference. Scary stuff, not sure how people cope with all the shit being thrown at them.
The trust in google not taking away my contacts, spying on my position, requiring to have their gms on my phone (which will further grab as much of my data they can have) is virtually zero.
And with a very good and well known couse.
Personally I think the real value add of Youtube Premium is the ability to offline videos in the official app; that's not something the browser can normally do. Well, and the secondary effect of contributing somewhat to creators, even if the payout isn't significant through that channel. It's nice for it to be automatic and not require an explicit subscription.
At this point pretty much all comments saying that this is bypassing paid features are downvoted into oblivion and grayed out, so what exactly are you talking about?
Yet, here we are...
The part they marked "/s" was sarcasm, the sibling comment isn't saying otherwise.
B: no, all bad comments about NewPipe are being downvoted
A: the votes have changed since I posted it so my comment is no longer relevant
Tell me again how they missed the obvious sarcasm.
From the HN Guidelines[0]:
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a YouTube/Google employee, just someone who cares a lot about preserving the quality of discussion HN is known for.)
Anything that can be interpreted even the slightest in favor of Google/YouTube is automatically downvoted by the HN mob. If anything, this thread is a prime example of that.
I wish:
* the playlist was easily accessible from the left pane drawer
* autoplay was easily toggleable from the playlist view
* the automatically added title wouldn't be a regular title in the playlist before it's played (a bit lower and grayed, and adding items would do so above that title)
* the playlist would show various options for the next automatic title.
But nowadays, I don't really want to invest time in the Android ecosystem, especially as I think I'll switch my daily driver to a PinePhone soon enough. The desktop equivalent is freetube, I think.
It's an invaluable resource and until there's something better taking the ads away takes part of their income away.
If you'd ever work on anything close to video streaming industry you'd find out that the costs of delivering video to the world is massive. And paying for those services is how you make them sustainable (and add competition).