The instance of the original dev has shut down because he seized developement, but the project ist still doing fine. There's multiple public instances, but those are often unable to handle all user requests and get rate limited by google every now and then. I'm currently using invidious.tube, it has a good "real" uptime in my opinion (the site is up the whole time but might have issues like described above). I'm considering just self hosting should things get worse.

I haven't had success with using Invidious. I'd love to ditch the YT frontend and tracking though.

I have extensions that remove suggested videos on the sidebar, homepage, and during the video; as well as ads, comments, and product recommendations. I use YT in a Firefox container without an account that is separate from my other Google container.

You can run your own instance; that’s what I do. Public instances tend to be overloaded or their external IP becomes temporarily banned by YouTube (since its traffic is obviously more than what a typical home would use).