- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@derp.foo
- technews@radiation.party
- opensource@lemmy.ml
Anyone who’s been using privacy-respecting frontends for some time will recognise Piped. A YouTube frontend with no ads, integrated SponsorBlock, return dislikes, and a customisable UI.
Piped also allows you to subscribe to as many channels as you want without ever logging into a Google account. You can export your subs list from YouTube and import them to Piped seamlessly.
If you’ve never heard of it, give it a glance at https://piped.video. For more instances, check here.
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Hello there, I’m the author of Piped and would love to answer any questions you may have! 👋
Looks great, I’m going to give it a try.
On your github, which I hope you have backed up.somewhere else because Google might come you, it says “no connections to Google’s servers.”. How are you getting the videos then?
Thank you for contributing to FOSS, and joining us on the Fedi. You’re helping free the internet!
any plans to integrate DeArrow? 👀
love piped, i dont even change URLs to youtube.com when i send them to friends anymore because everyone loves the sponsorblock and adblock integration. thank you <3
love your work!
I use it for about a year new. There are a few hiccups now and then, but you can just switch instance. That’s why I recommend using Libredirect with it. If you have trouble with an instance just ping the instances in Libredirect and chose a new one. Backup your preferences from the old instance and import it to the new. Your settings and subscriptions are available again.
Inb4 YouTube starts charging for API access… too soon? :(
Piped (and similar projects like NewPipe, Invidious, and FreeTube) scrape YouTube instead of using an API; so just like Nitter, they won’t be affected by a paid API.
Ironically Nitter stopped working lately, since Twitter started requiring users to be logged in to read anything.
Damn, I didn’t even notice that, because twitter sucks
That is a stupid decision, makes Reddit’s the second worst to happen today! Musk just keeps driving Twitter into the ground just like spez is doing to Reddit.
Invidious does use a YouTube API. FreeTube uses Invidious, so probably same story there. I don’t know about the others.
I recently had a back and forth with one of invidious’s developers. Judge for yourself.
I’m sure they’re watching the reddit situation very closely.
SmartTube for Google/Android TVs! So amazing. AdBlock and sponsorblock built in.
How’s the UI? I remember using it over a year ago and it felt really crusty compared to the Chromecast YouTube app
Been using smart tube for a while now. The interface and stability is getting better with every release.
Really the only solution to watch YouTube on TV. I sideloaded it to my shield. github
Is this a similar concept to NewPipe?
Yep, Piped uses the NewPipeExtractor to load videos, just like NewPipe. However, Piped runs it server side, and NewPipe runs it client side. YouTube likes to rate limit the big instances too, so all you have to do is use a smaller one like il.ax or piped.adminforge.de.
Doesn’t this make NewPipe better in that instance? If it’s client side you aren’t going to be rate limited.
There is also a fork of NewPipe that integrates SponsorBlock (I don’t know if Piped has that).
It has SponsorBlock integrated
If you don’t have a VPN you can hide your ip and overall traffic with the other users on the instance. Pretty cool
Piped has SponsorBlock. However, NewPipe is still just better, even if only for Android. I use it more often than Piped.
Should really get aroundto sonating, though.
What’s the advantage of running this server side?
That youtube don’t know YOU scrape their website. in fact, they don’t even know you’re watching a video.
However, YouTube rate limits big Piped instances, so it’s better to use NewPipe or a small instance.
Small instances it is ^^
A couple days ago I found a service called Farside, apparently you can replace youtube.com with farside.link/piped to redirect to a random smaller Piped instance. It works pretty well for me, although sometimes I just use il.ax because I’m just lazy and don’t want to type that much.
That’s nice!
Although, IDK how it works with piped, but because I’m using SearX for years and instances can log things if they want (and some did), I got used to briefly go over the service’s policy. I need to check if piped instances can log things before using random instances.
It will probably become apparent when Google starts matching IPs with Google Accounts so they can disable them if we use adblockers.
Then again they can also block the Pipe servers by IP so…
Yes, it uses NewPipeExtractor to get the videos, so it’s basically just a different UI as far as I understand it.
Excellent timing! With the rumblings of YT attacking anti-ad users and me using my new iPad Pro for watching stuff on the go, I’ve just started looking into side-loading.
Looks like I’ll be going with an app that utilizes this fw. Good share!
I’ve heard that Yattee is good for Apple devices.
Yes that’s what I landed on, works quite well once you get the right config with an api that works.
Seems YouTube is actively killing invidious or whatever it’s called piped seems to be next so hopefully they can evade YTs bs. They already sent a cease and desist from YT to that piped alternate invidious
How does it compare to invidious? Worth switching?
The two are quite similar services, there are only minor differences. Invidious uses its own API to scrape, while Piped uses the NewPipe extractor serverside. Piped also requires JavaScript to run, while Invidious does not. Overall, it’s just up to your choice. Generally I prefer Invidious, then open a vidro in Piped if it won’t load in Invidious just to see if it will.
There’s a great browser addon called Libredirect which redirects Youtube videos to Piped or Invidious. You can quickly jump to another instance if one isn’t working. It also supports reddit > teddit or libreddit along with many other frontends.
I like the ability to get an RSS/Atom feed for my subscriptions, which I just imported from NewPipe. I don’t think it’ll replace NewPipe for me, but it might come in handy if NewPipe fails to load a video for some reason. Even though the backend is also NewPipe, so it remains to be seen if it makes a difference.
Also great if you only have a browser available on a device and can’t / don’t want to sideload NewPipe.
gotta also remember that this is a browser-based alternative, making it perfect for anyone using a laptop or desktop pc. i use newpipe AND piped :)
How is it different from NewPipe?
It uses NewPipe in the backend. Your requests will be proxied through the Piped server.
To add on: There are a few things about this difference. Unlike in NewPipe, your IP never reaches Google, easier to make frontends or apps (Most private YouTube apps are an an Invidious/Piped frontend, excluding NewPipe and a few others), only the server’s. However, YouTube rate limits large instances, so it’s best to use a smaller one.
NewPipe generally provides a smoother experience, but it’s largely limited to Android while Piped can be used anywhere.
Having a lot of troubles with viewing content in any of the instances. Unfortunate since things are looking a lil’ bleak on YouTube as a whole.
Initial player response is not valid. Doesn’t inspire confidence that it is immediately broken.
eh, i don’t think it’s fair to discount a youtube frontend for having a bug, especially not a frontend as new as this one. projects at this early a stage always have issues, & youtube frontends have to deal with the added bonus of google randomly rate-limiting & consistently trying to break them. youtube frontends are always going to have issues & need constant updates by nature, there’s not much any of them can do about it
The main instances are also rate limited too which does not help. A smaller instance like il.ax should do the trick.
It happened on every video I clicked so as far as I could tell it just doesn’t work. Maybe that’s technically a bug but for me it means that’s the end of my experience with it.
It wasnt always like this. Google is always, moreso lately, constantly changing around the API to break things like Piped from working.
That’s awesome!! I’ll definitely try it out later.
is there any way for me to sign into my youtube account by way of piped so I can get my sub feed and stuff?
You can export your Youtube subscription into a csv file that can be imported into Piped. If you enable cookies you don’t even need to create an account and can still have a personal feed. That’s the main reason for me to use it above Invidious
Completely new to this. I click a video and it says, initial player response not valid. What do I do from there?
Try a new instance. Worked for me when I did that. It looks pretty coo now.
sometimes the main instance gets hit with rate limiting. these types of issues happen on invidious too. you can see a list of instances at the link below. if the main one gives issues, you can tap the preferences button in the top right, scroll down and swap instances. or, you can just open one from the list below. this works for me, i usually just hop between piped.video and piped.kavin.rocks.