My method for android & desktop. I never sign in to YouTube & never use the app. Using Joplin synced through Nextcloud (any syncable note taking app would do the trick) I keep a list of channels ("subscriptions") & interesting looking videos ("watch later") which I group by length. Obviously, this way the links can be via Piped, YouTube whatever.

I only ever interract through browser which is never signed in. Kiwi browser on Android, Firefox or Brave on desktop. All of them run uBlock + SponsorBlock + DeArrow.

DeArrow is by the same dev/s as SponsorBlock & gives anti clickbait crowd sourced titles & thumbs. Its become an invaluable tool so I'm glad to have paid to offer some support.

All of the browsers have history/cookies etc cleared once closed.

i ran into this kind of garbage the other day looking for a Nicholas Jaar video when i couldn't recall the name. like BoC, there's tons and tons of tracks by Jaar, but results gave me one or two of his most popular tracks and a buuuuuunch of other stuff. i couldn't even just keep scrolling, there were a dozen results and then the "related search" garbage.

ugh, i'm so fed up with google, and at the same time not motivated enough to figure out workarounds. i have work and shit to do around my house.

i guess, with me, they won.

edit typo

Works for me

soon google will block ALL forms of front ends

It's usable with the default stuff, well, minus the fucking 5 second ads

In fairness, I have no idea what I would want from that search query.

Unusable for me with ads as well. Grey loading screen and choppy audio instead of actually loading ads, never gets to the video. If I reopen the video a few times to skip the ad the video loads fine. No problems with online gaming, streaming services, etc so I know it's their shit Roku app and ad network and not me. Ad blockers make it actually usable.

• Here's an extension which turns YouTube into an Invidious-like site, removing all addicting elements.
• If you're using Linux, I wrote the youtube-tui a few years back, very similar to the extension where you get nothing but the search bar and subscriptions.

OK but what does that have to do with privacy?

Has been for years already sadly. I recommend https://github.com/user234683/youtube-local to watch directly and https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl to download. They both remove the dark patterns trying to abuse the attention of viewers.

In using smarttube on my shield and search works perfectly, and revanced still works on mobile. I never use thd Tube on desktop, is there no good solution on that platform?