You can watch live streams or recorded streams with mpv coupled with the yt-dlp program right from the command line! This is only for watching though, I am not sure about chatting, but as far as I know, Twitch uses IRC, so theoretically, you could join with an IRC client, but you might need an account for it. This last part might be less about privacy but more moving away from the website.
this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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Privacy
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I tend to use GrayJay. But i've never used it for twitch. I do however see there is a beta version for twitch on the app ^^ (it's a all in one app so it does support YouTube, oddysey, kick and basically anything you can think of)
Could it possibly work to still participate in the chats (like i imagine a build in throwaway account for example) or does that break the whole concept of privacy? How does that work exactly.
also: anyone got emotes and other browser plug-ins to work on the player/site?
Thank you for your contribution all!
twitch chat is just a (lightly modified) irc server
you can use most irc clients to chat, though it's a few more steps to connect than using it in browser
Stream link twitch GUI is by far the best I have seen. Has chat plugin too (or uses chatterino)
Could it possibly work to still participate in the chats (like i imagine a throwaway account for example) or does that break the whole concept of privacy? How does that work exactly.
Thank you for your contribution!
Not positive I mean an account will always be less private but I imagine you could use a burner
on that note, no chat logins in all alternatives mentioned. at least these that also list minimizing data transfer to amazon :(
Would love to hear insights on why Mozilla with uBlock is worse than these front ends that dont specifically list minimizing communication with amazon efforts but only "no ads/open source" (i dont even know what what difference open source makes in that case)
Umm I imagine they limit Amazon JavaScript. Or they could proxy if you weren’t the one hosting. I’m wondering what activity on twitch is so concerning for you? If you just want to “anonymize” your boring normal day to day twitch stuff you can use the one I linked along with a vpn (and possibly proxy to prevent being blocked). Enough in the way that your cringe commentary likely will never be found out. If you’re doing hardcore activism or something three letters would be interested in then twitch is likely not the platform for you lol
The one I linked does need to utilize a headless browser to get an auth key because of how twitch handles auth now. It happens in the background without you even seeing but you have to set it up.
Thanks i will look into this.
I'm new to privacy and just want to cut all data selling opportunities for big corpo, does that change or would you add to your response after knowing that? I'm pretty uneducated on the whole backend mechanics, it's just the possibility of ill intent and the damage corporations can do with such data that frightens me
Your information seems very knowledgeable, so I will be very thankful for more guidance :p
Buying a VPN seems to be something I need to budget in one day... It's not that easy during these times to get money flexible
I would say a vpn and that app and a throwaway email address are all you would really need. Proton might have some free servers for vpn im not sure. You’ll never be sure but it’s a relatively inconsequential item so just do your “best” and then stop stressing. A throwaway email and a vpn and using a specific browsers (with Ublock) only for twitch would accomplish similar.
Get Bitwarden and keep all your passwords unique and safe with a very strong password or phrase as your master that is never reused anywhere. That will give you more security than worrying about every site you click on because having an account breached will generally impact your life negatively. Getting a personalized ad here or there is way less problematic on the grand scale of things.
thank you so much, this is very helpful really
so a personal ad is all the data could be abused for? I mean meta recently just misused rights of book authors to train their AI with lots of terabytes worth of literature.
Its just a business expense, and so is I imagine personal data storage. Data sciene & full auto analysis catered to your corpo demands could be very powerful and evil in my eyes, idk I wish I could somehow be fully convinced that theres no danger, but I just am not as long as corporates see these things as business expenses and exists like nothing happened
doesnt mention privacy, it even lists telemetry as an anti-feature
In what way is the app more privacy-friendly?
No ads, open-source code
I use this, it's pretty good
possibly working with addons like ublock (vern cc has ad breaks) and emote support (so chat isnt a cryptic jungle)
EDIT: added more description to my interest in the EDIT of the post
I honestly dont know, I never use twitch. I use the add-on Libredirect to auto use alternative frontends.
GrayJay
I use grayjay to watch twitch as i already use it to watch youtube. It works fine. Their privacy policy.
For android TV check out S0undTV
Seconding this, I also get a lot less ads with S0undtv and to get rid of the rest I just VPN to an ad free country and it works flawlessly.
They definitely exist, i use PurpleTV,but I can't say how privacy friendly or actually good is it (I barely use it)