Hacker News Reader

HNHacker News

Top New Best Ask Show Jobs

Comment by Jenk | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Jenk·

NewPipe has that feature.

https://newpipe.net/

View on HN

That looks interesting. Thanks a lot!

Edit: or not. Seems youtube is not happy with the app and blocks playback randomly with 403 errors.

Also, the app seems to insert undismissable fullscreen ads every few minutes, without even having the courtesy to stop the video when doing so. But at least background play definitly works, I guess...

(Undismissable in the sense that it tries to block me from going to the homescreen if I didn't click the ad - not even talking about going back to the video player or other parts of the app)

I think you're using a copycat app from Play Store. It's not a real app which is only available through F-Droid.

Ah, that was probably it. Gotta admit, I deserved it then, for not reading carefully enough :)

It's a sad state of affairs, NewPipe being forbidden from distribution because the ad company that owns YouTube also owns the platorm's app store, and the app store being full of scammy apps including clones and malicious forks of F/OSS. No one deserves to be presented with traps like that. :-\

No clearer evidence of monopoly harming the consumer than this!

Yeah that ain't Newpipe. Newpipe doesn't have ads.

Follow the link in GP.

As mentioned, that's not the genuine app in my experience.

The 403 error should be fixed in release 25.2.

The ads are because you're some copy someone made of the FOSS app and added ads

Yep. Switched to the F-Droid version and now the ads are gone.

Also explains why the ads in the copycat version didn't integrate at all with playback controls or the rest of the app: Someone probably took the original apk, slapped the ads on as a separate thread/process inside the apk and never modified the app's original source.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com