NewPipe: YouTube client without vertical videos and algorithmic feed | Hacker News Reader

NewPipe: YouTube client without vertical videos and algorithmic feed

newpipe.net

338 pointsnvader115 comments

IME newpipe breaks every few weeks or so, presumably because of some youtube change / obfuscation. Or at least that was the case a few years ago.

I've had more success hosting an invidious instance and using the materialious client for mobile. And a bonus is that it comes with sponsorblock built in.

https://invidious.io/

https://materialio.us/

I think that is overstating it, there has been one recent breakage and fix in the last few months or more roughly. It would be interesting to see it plotted out on a timeline though.

I think there was a phase of repeated breakages a while back, but things seem to have stabilised.

Fixes are released quickly ime too.

I use it to mainly download videos, and that seems to break every few weeks. I just updated and it's fixed. Small price to pay.

For downloads, I prefer Seal - a wrapper for yt-dlp. yt-dlp can update faster like this since doesn't have to update together with the app, and can add metadata and apply Sponsorblock. Could just use yt-dlp from Termux but this is more convenient.

Absolutely but I stop YouTube consumption if it's not through NewPipe, so a little productivity boost here and there is not too bad ;)

What’s the point of newpipe? You can block ads with ublock. You can block shorts with browser extensions. What other benefits does newpipe offer?

Newpipe is more pleasant than YouTube on FF Android with uBlock in my opinion. I often search find a video on YouTube, copy the share link into Newpipe and watch there.

What do you mean by pleasant? Is this primarily something for Android users?

Leaner. No ads in layout. Better organized. Not cluttered by buttons nobody asked for.

It's a native Android app vs. a bloated multi MB web page. Of course NewPipe and PipePipe are better. :)

If you have a $100 phone then UI is lighter as compared to running firefox etc.

Some things I've not seen others mention: you can subscribe to channels, create playlists etc, all without needing a Google account

I think it's only for mobile, and you can only get it by side-loading as far as I know.

"What other benefits does newpipe offer?"

The Javascript source code for Google's YouTube player and the YouTube website is obfuscated and/or minified

The Java or Kotlin source code for Newpipe is not

If one does not like something about Newpipe, one can change or remove it

Personally, I use it for a chronological feed of my subscriptions. It takes less time to find something worth watching, and it is easier to move on to do something else if there isn't anything worth watching.

Bookmarking or downloading interesting videos is also handy, since they aren't mixed in with my general bookmarks (in a web browser).

> I use it for a chronological feed of my subscriptions.

YouTube provides RSS feeds. You could use an RSS reader to subscribe to your channels. I do, it's marvellous.

On mobile I use PipePipe for listening to stuff (like presentation videos) in the background and downloading offline audio and video.

It can run in the background. I use it to listen to videos before I fall asleep. Ads would mess up this hard and keeping the screen on would be unnecessary use of energy and OLED.

That is the kind of habit I would want to break if I had it.

Falling asleep with a barely audible friendly human voice in the background instead of complete silence? Why would you prefer to avoid that?

Yes I would prefer having to be able to not rely on specific background noise. And it looks to me like most of sleep issues are the consequence of unhealthy habits (too mich screen time, too much blue light in the last hours of the day, too heavy dinners, or too close to bed time, not enough physical activities during the day, not enough sexual activities...) so I would rather treat the problem before the symptoms.

It also seems kind of potentially antisocial/annoying behavior if you share yoir bed with someone.

I don't have any problems with falling asleep without the voice. It's just pleasant. And I live alone. But I see why this might be habit forming for you and why you might want to avoid it. Overthinking something as simple and natural as falling asleep points to high neuroticism.

There's a mobile Firefox extension to do the same thing BTW.

Play in background, including with screen off, and ability to download videos to watch on a plane.

The UX is much better. It has convenient gestures to change brightness, volume and speed during tte video. The speed can range from 0.1× to 5×, not just 0.25× to 2×. You can download videos or play them in the background.

Newpipe doesn't clutter the screen with constant recommendations. You can just subscribe to the channels you want, get updates when they release a new video and that's it. It's a much more focused experience than regular Youtube.

Newpipe is a good youtube downloader for android. Works well for me with this pipeline: Youtube music -> newpipe -> music speed changer, so that I can slow down and pitch shift then song when using it to transcribe or learn a song.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this: NewPipe is an Android app, and consuming YouTube on a mobile browser is a much worse experience.

You can, in both Firefox and Brave

Thanks, I've edited my post to be more accurate.

Not needing a google account to view most of the videos? Being sble to download those you have interest to watch later offline (in a plane for instance)? Being able to subsribe to channels without a google account?

For me, the main benefit over the browser are the progress tracking and playlists. You can do both with bookmarks in the browser, but it's much less convenient.

I found pipepipe to be more stable, break less and have more features.

https://pipepipe.dev/

How can it be more stable if it still uses NewpipeExtractor?

Apparently they forked the extractor some years ago and have been maintaining it independently, without merging anything from the original branch.

"IME newpipe breaks every few weeks or so, presumably because of some youtube change / obfuscation."

Same experience. I have a commandline program I wrote to retrieve YouTube download URLs many years ago. On average it has always been more reliable than Newpipe. It continues to work when Newpipe fails and I can fix it quickly when there is a YouTube change

However I noticed recently Newpipe, the original, not SponsorBlock, old version, no updates, had been going many weeks without failure. When it eventually failed I was able to get it working again immediately by simply changing the www.youtube.com IPv4 address

Will try this again when it fails the next time

Why did you think of changing the ip address?

Rate limiting IP addresses is one of the many tools in YouTube's anti 3rd party client toolbox.

got it, thanks.

A few years is different case. Invidious is also getting blocked easily. Are you running it now? If yes, then report.

I am running it, and I used to use NewPipe before. I honestly don't notice much difference in stability. In both cases I would experience issues every couple of months for a day or 2. As YouTube made some change and I need to upgrade the app or server to resolve it. I wouldn't say one is better than another. Both have different advantages and drawbacks that come mostly from the nature of one being an app and the other being a server+web

Not every week, more like a couple of times a year when YouTube makes some breaking changes.

Personally I take these periods as healthy time off from YouTube, so I'm no longer even annoyed by them.

There is a fork called PipePipe[0] too, that also implements SponsorBlock

0: https://github.com/InfinityLoop1308/PipePipe

I just switched from Tubular[0] to PipePipe. It has more feature than Tubular! I also migrated my database without any problems.

0: https://github.com/polymorphicshade/Tubular

I think these are the main related past threads:

NewPipe Is Turning 10 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45707575 - Oct 2025 (28 comments)

NewPipe 0.26 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38732781 - Dec 2023 (91 comments)

NewPipe – Lightweight YouTube experience for Android - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38144400 - Nov 2023 (389 comments)

NewPipe: A lightweight YouTube experience for Android - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30449570 - Feb 2022 (220 comments)

NewPipe – ad-free, open-source Android YouTube client - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23871169 - July 2020 (590 comments)

“My Google account got suspended because of NewPipe” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759 - Oct 2019 (522 comments)

Newpipe is great, I tend to spend too much time on youtube. This at least limits it. It does break from time to time.

Editorialized title! Portrait aspect ratio (or "vertical video", as it's described here - at least I assume that's what the term refers to - like, as if the landscape aspect ratio has no Y axis!) is not obviously mentioned anywhere.

I don't get why the poster thinks NewPipe doesn't support vertical videos (let's not be anal, we know what they mean) if the video is "vertical" then making it fullscreen will fill the phone's screen vertically.

Well, perhaps you know what they mean! Me? I can only read the words and then guess based on the words I read. If it's not clear from my post what guesses I have made based on the words I have read, and which assumptions I have made while making those guesses, then I apologise. I will try to make it easier for the reader next time.

It sounds like you found no reference to portrait aspect ratio videos in the article either.

I assumed it was just a sloppy way to actually say it has an option to filter out shorts. (Because shorts are always portrait, and it's a common wish to want to eliminate shorts.)

Either way, I also knew what they meant, because "vertical video" is not an inscrutable term that leaves any room to guess it's meaning incorrectly. It's entirely scrutable.

You can keep trying to defend the obtuse complaint that all videos have a vertical dimension, but if it were me I think I would not be so eager to advertise that I was this baffled by this.

Yes, we can assume "vertical video" means "shorts". But once we do that, I still don't see anything on the front page or the FAQ or the github page that mentions shorts. The HN title had "without vertical videos" jammed in and that needs clarification. Maybe there's a toggle somewhere to hide shorts? Or maybe it doesn't have a shorts feed but it otherwise has shorts? Or something else? It's not clear.

I don't either. But I didn't install the app so it's still possible. But yeah I don't see anything either.

The point of my post was that the title is editorialized. Am I allowed to say "Did you click the link"? Probably not. But, still, let me suggest that you click the link. Once you've clicked the link, compare the title of the page you find yourself on to the title posted here. Now you've compared them, ask yourself: are they the same? I just did this experiment myself, and the answer was: no. The title of the page at time of my click is this: "NewPipe - a free YouTube client". The title of the HN submission at the time I'm composing this message is this: "NewPipe: YouTube client without vertical videos and algorithmic feed".

We are oft implored, not only by our famous and much-valued dang, but also the other guy (whatever his name is. He does a great job too though), not to editorialize the titles by submitting submissions with titles other than the actual title. How can you tell if the submitted title is other than the actual title? That's easy. You read the one and read the other and compare the two and see if they're different. (Which is another way of restating the previous paragraph.) In this case: they are. (Or at least were at time of writing! Since you'll be reading this in the future.) Hence my complaint.

The vertical video thing? That was just my little joke. OF COURSE I KNOW THAT VERTICAL VIDEO MEANS PORTRAIT VIDEO. And, yes, I have visited youtube.com, and have had a big pile of portrait shorts shit up the feed, same as everybody else. I am not completely... wait, hang on. I am completely stupid. Because I thought it would be so obvious that it was a joke, that nobody would bother to quibble. They'd just chuckle at my attempt to amuse the reader, or roll their eyes at it and ignore it, and then go on to moan at me about some other part of my post. Though, reading my post again, more fool me perhaps. I guess I didn't leave people enough other material to complain about.

Sorry. I'll try to do better in future.

Hey tom_, usually they say that explaining a joke makes it worse, but I think you crafted the rare exception!

I did in fact intend to share NewPipe as an antidote to the "en-short-ification" of YouTube after reading a couple of threads earlier today from other Hackers complaining exactly about that. And yes, calling it "vertical video" is a sloppy way of expressing that.

I too will try to do better in the future.

I primarily use NewPipe, but I'll also throw out Grayjay as a client with similar benefits. They work a little differently and since Google sometimes pushes out breaking changes to YouTube's API, I'll switch to Grayjay while I wait for the eventual NewPipe update. In my experience, the Grayjay player also tends to work better with live streams.

There's also Freetube, which is a fantastic desktop client.

https://freetubeapp.io

For some reason I always preferred having tabs on desktop, so I can having stuff paused to be watched later.

Thanks, I've bookmarked it for later.

is this just a way to browse youtube without ads or tracking, or what?

I'm looking to just hide Shorts, but I want my recommendations. Not sure what's out there for that.

I'd recommend stayfree. It works great on mobile android with feature blocking (shorts and reels) and we'll as time based and scheduled blocks. You can remove the blocks by retyping a long prompt.

Unfortunately I'm not an Android guy.

and Grayjay

I've been using and loving NewPipe since 2015 or 2016--whenever it first showed up on Fdroid. Really like the ability to play songs from bandcamp too. Although there's one bug in the bandcamp workflow that I wish was fixed: If you search for an artist then tap the artist page in the results this will take you to the albums screen. Click to the album, then if you either use the back arrow or swipe back you're returned to the search results rather than the list of albums on the artist page.

The issue is I like the algorithmic feed, as well as having all my subscriptions there. I believe that's not available in NewPipe without manually adding all subscription channels.

NewPipe can parse a Google data export dump and import all of your subs.

That's too manual, I have tons of subscriptions and subscribe to new channels often. Maybe there could be auto syncing via a Google data export through a cron job or something.

NewPipe works good enough, learned here that "was able to get it working again immediately by simply changing the www.youtube.com IPv4 address", is a fix for it breaking, not that it fusses me as watching vids is a very low priority for me, though sometimes a video that tells me which wire to cut first, is invaluable and has saved my sorry ass.Which sometimes I wish there was a similar way to make, edit and upload videos useing nothing but a cheap phone.

I see no mention of not playing vertical videos on their website.

It absolutely works with YouTube shorts. It just doesn't put them in your subscriptions or let an algorithm feed them to you.

What's an algorithm?

Been a long time user of Newpipe. It do occasionally break but not that huge of a deal breaker for me.

Only complaint is I can't select a livestream quality/resolution. I want to catch up to some news live and put those on background but it would use too much bandwidth since it's locked to a higher resolution. In such cases, I would just open them on Firefox, set to desktop mode, and listen from there. Afaik, Invidious doesn't support livestreams.

What's the difference of NewPipe to ReVanced?

Revanced is a mod for the official Android app, where NewPipe is an original app.

In practice this means that Revanced will be much more feature complete than NewPipe.

It also means revanced is legally dicey whereas newpipe is essentially a legal frontend/scraper of YouTube.

Revanced is only distributed as patches, probably to avoid being susceptible to the claims against the original Vanced.

Worth noting that ReVanced has a lot more patches than just YouTube.

Not that I care about it but I'm sure you are also violating some terms of service by using NewPipe

A trained monkey to operates the controls for me.

NewPipe has many features that the official app doesn’t, such as speeding up videos up to 5×.

Revanced supports up to 5x too.

NewPipe always works while the weird revanced route worked for me exactly once out of the several attempts on two phones.

Top comment right now says "newpipe breaks every few weeks or so", but revanced builds in my experience last for at least a year before a new build is required. Personally I'd prefer more upfront steps and get a stable result, rather than something that works quickly but breaks often.

Other comments claim it keeps working for me. Works for me as well (except the last week or so).

I wouldn't mind working a bit for the permanent solution but revanced worked for me once, required a weird microg or a weird play services replacement installation, and then spending endless hours trying to build an working apk.

I revived a once popular Youtube frontend called Cloudtube. All the Youtube media url deciphering is still done by Invidious and I use it more like a frontend for invidious.

https://github.com/rhee876527/clean-youtube/

I use LibreTube: https://libretube.dev/

Newpipe is awesome. If you're on firefox, you can block the main-page feed with the following filter in ublock-origin,

"www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"]"

Sadly, you can't do this on Chrome/Chromium anymore with manifest v3.

The biggest issue with it is that watching a few videos in a row will result in YouTube soft blocking your IP for an hour or so. They're really cracking down on watching videos without a login

Probably already mentioned, but tubular is a fork with sponsor block enabled

https://github.com/polymorphicshade/Tubular

I used to use this & just ended up paying for premium for my family to get over the headache of bugs & risking any IP associated with our google accounts lest Sundar wakes up on the wrong side of the bed

For the desktop, I recommend https://github.com/lawrencehook/remove-youtube-suggestions

It’s possible to disable history in YouTube’s settings. This will turn off algorithmic feed replacing it with a reverse chronological feed of channels you’re subscribed to.

There are YouTube settings that seem to get unset periodically. Even some that their documentations says should be sticky, like caption preferences.

Maybe yeah. Though I doubt they’d reset data collection settings like that.

They do. I am currently in a weird middle where I have personalization off but ads are shown based on "videos you watched recently".

I don't use YouTube much nowadays. It's better for your mental health. I mostly use a fork called Tubular that has sponsored block

If only it worked. We need a good alternative to YouTube that still let's creators feed themselves...

Though I don't think it will ever happen...

Brilliant? Nova? It won't happen if you don't support it.

What's Brilliant?

https://brilliant.org/

> an online, interactive learning platform designed to teach STEM subjects—math, science, and computer science—through active problem-solving rather than passive, pre-recorded video lectures

https://nebula.tv/ was the other one I was thinking of.

How is that relevant to YouTube? Same for nebula?

Nebula is an exclusive invite only platform where no creators outside of English mains and hard left ones are present.

I am not on the right to be specific but I speak other languages and would like more non English content as well.

Same for the exclusivity. Small creators don't exist on either of them.

Ideally we need a video delivery and servicing platform where I can pay like 10 usd per month for my small audience of friends and to view with the convenience of YouTube and good features...

All platforms like these are exclusive for my tastes. I don't sub to any channels with over 100k subs and rest are just programming adjacent content.