I’m not sure it’s the “best” way, but it’s a solid alternative, and receives rapid updates when YouTube moves to break things.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/15571129
I’m using this all the time myself. There is no login to YouTube required and it supports adding subscriptions and doing everything important you can do on YouTube.
And the best part is no ads whatsoever.
- jared ( @jared@mander.xyz ) English43•17 days ago
SmartTube is pretty great for android TV.
- Blizzard ( @Blizzard@lemmy.zip ) English2•17 days ago
It’s annoying though that you can’t save videos to lists or subscribe to channels without logging in to youtube account.
- American_Jesus ( @American_Jesus@lemm.ee ) English1•17 days ago
Newpipe or Clipious also work on AndroidTV
- Blizzard ( @Blizzard@lemmy.zip ) English1•17 days ago
I use NewPipe on regular Android but read somewhere it wasn’t recommended to be used on Android TV because it wasn’t designed for it. If you vouch for it working fine then maybe I’ll try it.
- dan ( @dan@upvote.au ) English1•16 days ago
It’s using the YouTube API, so that makes sense. The developer likely wants to keep the app focused and reduce the amount of feature creep, hence reusing YouTube’s standard subscription and list systems rather than building their own. That’s also what the majority of users expect - if someone subscribes to a YouTube channel on one device, they’d expect to be subscribed to it on all devices.
- Nougat ( @Nougat@fedia.io ) 31•17 days ago
Other benefits:
- Multiple subscription profiles, so you can organize your subscribed channels into groups. “I want to watch stuff about cars and motorcycles - I choose ‘Motoring.’”
- SponsorBlock
- No stupid recommendations to drag you into despair, hate watching, and misinformation.
- Ability to never show shorts.
Downside:
- Max 1080
- Fonzie! ( @lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network ) English9•17 days ago
Seeing how I invested in an 144Hz monitor instead of a Hi-Res one, I see no issues here!
Will check it out!
- TwilightKiddy ( @TwilightKiddy@programming.dev ) English5•17 days ago
You can add mpv to FreeTube as an external player. With yt-dlp, it supports playing YouTube videos directly and in any quality. It also has a plugin for SponsorBlock integration.
- corvus ( @corvus@lemmy.ml ) English3•17 days ago
Yeah, I use MPV as a external player and it’s great because you can highly customize the way you watch videos. I like equalize the sound and through a MPV script I save the video from cache with a keystroke if I liked it. Sadly watching with subtitles stopped working some weeks ago.
- Sir_Kevin ( @Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English3•17 days ago
There is also an Android fork which works amazingly well.
- L3ft_F13ld! ( @Contort3860@links.hackliberty.org ) English3•17 days ago
Here.
- Melody Fwygon ( @Melody@lemmy.one ) English13•17 days ago
I’m certainly concerned that now that this software has been covered in PopSci; that it will certainly suffer a needless onslaught of DMCA and other lawsuit-related shenanigans. >_>
- boredsquirrel ( @boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net ) English12•16 days ago
Grayjay and Freetube are both fine but different.
For some reason, Freetube currently works well, Grayjay needs iOS fallback and barely works.
Grayjay follows the bigger, already implemented idea of combining multiple platforms. This is a great UX and smooth fallback when Youtube blocks again, or permanently.
Accounts can link multiple platforms, so switching is easier.
It also allows commenting, livechat, on the platforms and has on the polycentric protocol, connecting all others.
Also, it has Sponsorblock integration.
- Fitik ( @Fitik@fedia.io ) 2•17 days ago
@boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net I like GrayJay, even tho I find their integration of PeerTube quite lacking.
@Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- boredsquirrel ( @boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net ) English2•16 days ago
Yes, I also dont understand why Peertube works so badly. It is one of the platforms with the most quality content, but its decentralization really makes it require an app.
sepiasearch.org helps here, to connect all instances and index them
- Fitik ( @Fitik@fedia.io ) 3•16 days ago
@boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net Same, PeerTube has so much good and interesting content, this content just doesn’t get exposure because of bad discoverability
@Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- L3ft_F13ld! ( @Contort3860@links.hackliberty.org ) English2•17 days ago
Freetube does have SponsorBlock and DeArrow integration as well.
- boredsquirrel ( @boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net ) English2•16 days ago
Oh cool didnt know that
- atro_city ( @atro_city@fedia.io ) 10•17 days ago
You can donate to them, can’t you?
Thanks for the reminder: Donate link
- Blizzard ( @Blizzard@lemmy.zip ) English9•17 days ago
… on computer.
- L3ft_F13ld! ( @Contort3860@links.hackliberty.org ) English6•17 days ago
Unofficially on Android too.
- Blizzard ( @Blizzard@lemmy.zip ) English4•17 days ago
Now that’s more like it. However for android Android (phone, tablet) I already have NewPipe I’m happy with. Does FreeTube work well on Android TV? I use SmartTube and it’s good but it’s not perfect.
- BearOfaTime ( @BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ) English4•16 days ago
Grayjay seems to be more stable than NewPipe
- L3ft_F13ld! ( @Contort3860@links.hackliberty.org ) English1•16 days ago
I don’t have an Android TV so no idea. But I’d love it if that did work.
- B0rax ( @B0rax@feddit.org ) English4•17 days ago
There is no shortage on frontend alternatives for PC… but somehow I have yet to find anything worth mentioning for iOS
- anar ( @anarchist@lemmy.ml ) English3•16 days ago
iOS
I’m sorry but there likely never be a long-term alternative for free software such as this on that platform. Neither you nor the developer has much say on how to use it.
- cyberwolfie ( @cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml ) English1•16 days ago
Freetube exists for Android also.
- sqgl ( @sqgl@beehaw.org ) English4•17 days ago
Isn’t this exactly like the original YouTube?
They get users to provide free content with the impression it is a genuine grassrots community then when the site becomes popular enough they cash in. imdb was like this too.
- Kissaki ( @Kissaki@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English5•16 days ago
Did you mean to reply to a comment?
Freetube is a frontend client that uses YouTube.
- sqgl ( @sqgl@beehaw.org ) English1•16 days ago
Sorry, I didn’t read the article. Thanks for picking me up on it.
I just use my Brave browser which avoids ads and doesn’t require login but I see now that FreeTube offers a few customisation features and allows you to import your subscriptions.
And there are privacy benefits too. With Freetube your watch history is stored only on your computer, not YouTube’s servers
Really? I imagine it is free because FreeTube collect data on you.
- Kissaki ( @Kissaki@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English1•12 days ago
I imagine it is free because FreeTube collect data on you.
It doesn’t have to sell user data if it doesn’t have to make money if it is run by volunteers.
You can disable watch history in your Google/YouTube account as well. It’s not like you’re forced to have it on native YouTube either.
- sqgl ( @sqgl@beehaw.org ) English1•12 days ago
Wikipedia, Whirlpool, GiHub are the only big sites I can think of which resisted going commercial. They may still be selling user data though.
Can you think of others?
- Kissaki ( @Kissaki@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English1•3 days ago
I don’t get your argument. FreeTube is nowhere near as big as Wikipedia or GitHub. Are you not using any free software?
LibreOffice, Gimp, System Informer, Nushell, Thunderbird, Firefox, Steam, this Lemmy instance, Matrix, … I don’t know what to tell you. I can go through all the applications and websites I use and I’ll have a hard time finding some that sell my user data.
- sqgl ( @sqgl@beehaw.org ) English1•3 days ago
My point was about free apps going commercial (not about selling data).
Give FreeTube time to get bigger.
Open source cannot be commercialized.
Steam is commercial, Firefox received about a million dollars from Google to set it as the default search engine.
- rooroo ( @rooroo@feddit.org ) English2•10 days ago
I don’t know whirlpool but you might want to read up on what your code on GitHub is being used for.
- Rusty Femboy ( @rustyfemboy@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) English3•16 days ago
I’ve been using FreeTube for a while and it’s great. It allows me to customise my feed to only include content from my subscriptions and filter out any recommendations designed to keep me on the platform for as long as possible.
- y0kai ( @y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English1•16 days ago
Out of curiosity, what’s is better about it than YouTube?
Vanilla YouTube is obvious, but I’ve got ublock origin , sponsor block and that thing that renames stuff to non click bait.
It all just works and I don’t get adds and I keep all my sub’s and still get useful suggestions.
On android i just use revanced.
So, what’s the pull of downloading a 3rd party for Linux / PC?
For me it’s not just about ads, it’s also about surveillance. With FreeTube you can have subscriptions without needing a linked YouTube account, and all the subscription/watch history data is stored locally. So, it’s a good opt-out of Google/YouTube surveillance. And you can import/export subscriptions if you need to transfer to another device. I happen to use FreeTube for this because it is frequently updated and I like the setup, but other options exist - I’m not really promoting this option over other options, just raising some awareness about it.
- y0kai ( @y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English1•16 days ago
I’ve tried a few different front ends for fun in the past and they’re fun to tinker with, I’ll admit. I don’t think I used freetube.
Also it was some months ago, but the biggest issue I found was that I couldn’t sync watch lists. I could add subs and things but if I watched something on my phone, whatever front-end on my computer would tell me I still hadn’t watched that video and recommend it.
Is there a way around this? Because, that’s a huge deal breaker for me. As an end goal, I want less Google in my life, but there are certain inconveniences I am unwilling to tolerate (however seemingly small lol).
Anyway, I may start tinkering again soon. Thanks for the reply!
- bastardsheep ( @bastardsheep@aussie.zone ) English1•16 days ago
Is there anything similar that works on iOS and tvOS? That’s where most of my YouTube viewing is done.
- DarkNoul ( @DarkNoul@feddit.nl ) English1•16 days ago