Hacker News Reader

Comment by user3939382 | Hacker News Reader

Recently they have iOS YouTube (or some A/B test of it) automatically opening shorts on full screen when you launch the app. Totally obnoxious.

View on HN

These AB tests where they force you to engage in some new medium of content that they want you to become accustomed to is reminiscent of that scene in A Clockwork Orange where they force Alex to watch film of violent images.

https://www.denofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/treatme...

Although this was actually intended to be a punishment.

>> Although this was actually intended to be a punishment.

Involuntary YouTube shorts seems like authentic punishment to me.

cruel and unusual if you ask me. we have rights damn it!!!!!

Could be worse - recently Android YouTube (or some A/B test of it) opens links with the tiny thumbnail at the bottom - like it reduces to when you go back to search results or something usually, but it's not maximisable, not dismissible, it just sits there tinily playing its ad.

I have to back out of the app and open link in new tab (so it plays in the browser instead) if I want to see it, but usually I just bounce, and am slowly learning not to bother clicking in the first place.

If I use YouTube on mobile, I access by opening a new tab in Brave.

I deleted the app well over a year ago.

I am never force fed anything by Shorts.

I'll load the URL directly either in mpv (desktop or Mobile via Termux), or VLC.

Fuck YouTube entirely.

The pain of using the Web interface is precisely the point, as someone's KPIs are steering users to apps. That's succeeding, though it's not YT's apps which are substituting....

I still miss the mps-yt app, though I'd found an alternative recently, yewtube (still need to try it out).

<https://github.com/mps-youtube/mps-youtube/issues/1191>

<https://iamtalhaasghar.github.io/yewtube/#installation>

NewPipe is a godsend on Android.

Thanks, I'll keep it in mind.

Given that I'm generally driving an e-ink device, mpv/Termux is actually preferable for playing audio-only.

Actually, that's my preference in most cases for "video", especially anything that's talking heads / expository.

There's also effectively no data surveillance capture possible, other than IP.

And NewPipe + Sponsorblock does wonders at getting rid of unwanted in-video segments (intro, sponsors, etc, outro).

That tells me they’re absolutely freaked out over TikTok. Ridiculous. Like an F150 trying to masquerade as a Miata.

I strongly recommend using iOS Safari, 1Blocker and Vinegar. Between them you get pure HTML video with picture-within-picture support etc and no ads. Feels like you YouTube used to be.

This is what I do, I just wish that YouTube didn't only support 720P as maximum resolution on iOS safari; happens on everything from an iPod touch & iPad Pro to iPhone pro max, at least for me.

Vinegar has the option to force 1080p, via adaptive bitrate streaming, with the possible downside that the stream may start at lower quality, although I haven’t experienced that downside for some reason. Although perhaps that caveat only applies when using airplay. Either way, check the Vinegar settings from within Safari to find/set 1080p.

Or you can sideload uYou+[1] using Sideloadly[2] or AltStore[3]. It has built-in adblocker, UI unclutter options and Sponsorblock[4].

[1]: https://github.com/qnblackcat/uYouPlus

[2]: https://sideloadly.io/

[3]: https://altstore.io/

[4]: https://sponsor.ajay.app/

What is Vinegar?

Does it still do that silly thing where it opens fullscreen videos in portrait? That along with the lack of swipe up/down to toggle fullscren made Safari YouTube a no-go for me.

ReVanced has an option to turn this off on Android. As well as a lot of other annoyances

https://github.com/revanced

That page tells me nothing about what ReVanced does, except that it's a continuation of Vanced (and has a lot of icons for various services). I'm guessing it's a kind of meta-social thing that gloms each of those services? And from your comment, I guess is provides more settings?

I've had this happen to me in the Android version, but I judged it to be a bug due to its inconsistent behavior.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com