Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
I download it with yt-dlp and watch it with a video player. that way they don't know at what pace do I watch it (when do I rewind and pause, or speed up).
or grayjay when I remember that it exists.
other options for me include FreeTube and NewPipe
I use a bot on mastodon named [email protected] . It sends me a link of new videos from creators I follow.I directly open the link with Tubular (newpipe fork) or freetube and download it to watch later.
Vlc,potplayer, freetube
PipePipe on mobile works fine.
Tubular on on mobile and trying to find a Non Electron app for pc
I pay a subscription to nebula and most of the creators i want are on there.
Freetube and Grayjay. Grayjay has a desktop app now.
Freetube and newpipe for me. However I will say they just don't work sometimes. So then I just am left with my browser.
I personally use libretube (with piped proxy disabled in settings) with proton vpn. If it shows the "sign in to confrim your not a bot" mesaage I just swap vpn servers.
I download the videos I want to watch with yt-dlp. This applies to audio as well. I then add the videos to my Jellyfin server to watch them on the TV.
Searching Videos on FreeTube but watching these in the SMplayer, because FreeTube lists theVideos, but often don't play it. SMplayer works almost always, Also possible open the Video copying the URL in it. Another possibility is searching the Video with Andisearch and watch it there in the search results sandboxed and anonym with the random proxies which use Andisearch.
I discovered that I watch enough YouTube to warrant paying for a premium subscription. I've turned off viewing history (after one video, so the homepage renders).
This isn't a solution for everyone, but it works for me.
I use it enough but since Google is evil I use ReVanced and give the money to a better cause.
Close the door, turn off the lights, wear earbuds, pull a duvet over your head. Works every time. Might look a bit suspicious, but at least it's private.
Seriously though, it's getting pretty bad. I'm currently shifting my video watching habits away from YT. I have a feeling that sooner rather than later I may have to quit YT completely.
Hell, I'm having issues using the plain old YouTube website. It tries to make me sign in.
i just search it on dukdukgo and use their viewer
You can still use yt-dlp with most of the invidious instances that are still up, but not displaying the video for some reason. Just copy the URL and use it with yt-dlp from the command line. All still works, sponsor block and all.
On my android phone I use either invidious with seal(yt-dlp wrapper app) or tubular (fork of newpipe with sponsor block).
Freetube has an option to watch videos in a external viewer. I set it to be MPV which I set it to use yt-dlp to download which allows me to customize many things like video and audio quality, subtitles, equalize audio, etc. No need to copy and use the command line.
seconding this
At this point we should just start torrenting YouTube. Like fuck YouTube.
At this point we should just ditch YouTube entirely, but alas.
I kinda assumed Vimeo would step up its social aspects when YouTube started ratcheting up its bullshit. Still waiting.
At this point we should just ditch YouTube entirely, but alas.
YouTube is great for downloading movie rips. They're out there if you know where to look. When you download a movie on YouTube, you're legally in the clear: Google is doing the copyright infringement. That's one big advantage over torrents.
I don't know where to look. How can I find out?
Here's how it works: people who want to upload movies on Youtube create innocuous-looking channels, upload 10 or 20 bullshit videos on them for a few months to make them look innocuous, then suddenly upload those big forbidden movies you want. Youtube doesn't react rightaway - probably because the channels have been rated harmless by the algorithm over the previous months - and for a few hours to a few days, you can download the movies. Then Youtube takes notice of the traffic increase, takes a look and nukes the account. There are a gigantic number of those sleeper accounts waiting to be activated. They're mostly created in upload farms in asia.
The trick is finding them. It's a game of cat and mouse between Youtube and the uploaders, and you want to find the mouse before the cat does. For obvious reasons, the movies are rarely labeled exactly what you want (i.e. don't look for "Dune 2", you won't find it). But there are several keywords you can use to at least find some of them, and then you can follow the Youtube suggestions until you spot the thumbnail of the movie you want. It may be called "This guys fights in the desert and wins" for example, but the thumbnail will unmistakably show some collage of Timothy Chalamen against the desert of Arrakis. Then you can use yt-dlp to download it. But do it quick before Youtube kills the channel.
As for the keywords that will take you easily to burner uploader accounts, my favorite ones are "Blockbusters" (or "Blockbuster movies") for action movies (that will take you quickly to the same plethora of shitty Marvel, John Wick, Jason Stratham, Liam Neeson, Vin Diesel and Mission Impossible rehashes, so if you're after something a bit more interesting, follow the suggestions) and "Harlock Space Pirate" to find animes. And for 80's movies (yes, I'm from that time), I look for... "80s movies" 🙂 I usually don't find what I want, but again, follow the suggestions.
Finally, to throw the Youtube algorithm, most of those poster also post movie snippets with well-known titles. Don't get bogged down in those: look at long video and dismiss anything shorter than the running length of the movie you're after. They won't have the right title but they'll have the right thumbnail.
Good luck 🙂
Yeah, but you can get movie rips off other places like archive.org. Also, in the US at least there's not much of a penalty for consuming pirated content, only if you distribute it. The chance of that even happening is greatly reduced if you use a VPN.
I found that switching my VPN server allowed FreeTube to work for me. I'm on Mullvad's South African servers atm, which are quite slow. If anyone knows of any unblocked Mullvad servers that are faster, lmk, but those were the first ones I found that you can use FreeTube with.
Grayjay.app
But it requires login when I tried to play some videos on youtube
Check the settings. There should be some to allow restricted videos
Downie.app (MacOS) and yt-dlp (multiplatform).
I am not watching YouTube content while these are blocked. I will not watch stupid ads. I will not submit to shitty platforms that suck. Until these work again, there is no YouTube.
I'm finding other ways to fill my free time during the holiday break. I'll have a bevy of new content to watch when they're updated.
Grayjay
What's the benefit of Grayjay over NewPipe, except for the fact that Grayjay supports other video platforms too?
Grayjay is just plugins for everything, so if you want to add a new platform you can make it
NewPipe is only on Android, no?
There's a flatpak too, but it's not good.
There are several way, honestly. For Android, there's NewPipe. The app itself fetches the YouTube data. For PC, there are similar applications that do the same such FreeTube. Those are the solutions I recommend.
If you're one of those, you can also host your own Invidious and/or Piped instances. But I like NewPipe and FeeTube better.
I've used freetube for a while and it seems like it's expierencing the same issues since I've been getting a lot of error messages lately.
Really? It's been working just fine for me.
Newpipe still up as of this morning. Hope it stays that way.