Use freetube, a desktop frontend to invidious that you can import your sub list
Never look back
If you’re on desktop, download FreeTube. No more ads, ever. No more jittery youtube videos even though you have 300mbs down, you can download any video in app at max speeds, and its not algorithm fed. I imported my subscriptions, and now if I want to see something new I can use the not broken search function. Its like early early youtube and its wonderful!
Freetube is great but it’s also a source of endless frustration. Like if you walk away from your computer the stream times out and it won’t resume. Then it says “reload” and they never implemented a reload button so you have to navigate to something else. Except their navigation doesn’t work quite right so sometimes if you click too fast it stays on the new page after you try to go back to the one you wanted to reload. Rawr. (GitHub issues 1005, 1425, 1500, 1958, 4062, 4409, 5019, 5152, 6136, 6201)
I use youtube-local which is great, but it’s more susceptible to breakage which is why I’m currently back on freetube and very very very frustrated.
In Freetube, reload is ctrl-R on Linux and Windows, and cmd-R on Mac. I have experienced the fact that if you leave a video paused for a long time (hours) then you need to refresh. If you have history active, after refreshing the video will resume from where you left, which by the way is better then actual YouTube where it will often resume from an earlier timestamp. I have not experienced the other issues you mentioned.
Yeah I learned that when I looked up the issue number, very disappointed that it’s Ctrl+R instead of the canonical reload button for the last 30 years (F5). :(
Since you knew Ctrl+r you wouldn’t experience those issues. That’s a side effect of “reload” without a reload button.
Control r is standard reload for web browsers and other stuff too
But since F5 is and has been for 30 years the universal refresh button I never needed to learn that some software uses a different, undiscoverable key combination.
There’s no reload button directly in the UI, but if you press alt and then go to View > Reload or View > Force Reload. It’s not ideal, but it does work.
Edit: Didn’t finish reading your comment, I’ve never experienced any of those issues, especially with navigation.
With the recent major update, Freetube implemented a new player which I like much better than the old one. With the new player, all keyboard shortcuts work well, that’s great for me because my Home Theatre PC is controlled by a wireless keyboard+touchpad.
I still use yt-dlp to download because I don’t understand Freetube’s options. It’s either only audio or video
Also if you’re on Linux and you get a white screen during playback (has been an issue since 0.22) this fix works for me:
freetube --enable-features=''edit: posting a vertical pic messes up the webpage a bit. If it’s annoying tell me
That’s a side effect of YouTube messing with the streams to try to break downloaders. Obvs a dedicated downloader like ytdlp handles YouTube jerking the chain around better than a tool intended for viewing.
My understanding is you’re pretty much only gonna get those broken up streams especially for piratey content like music videos and tv shows. Ytdlp will join with ffmpeg.
Seconded. Tis a beautiful experience. And if you are currently using FreeTube, please throw a donation their way. They are putting a lot of work in to this app.
Thank you so much. Youtube hasn’t been playing videos past the 1:00 mark and idk why.
It’s a bit of a faff, but I use FreeTube to grab the URLs which I then drop into a yt-dlp command that I use to download my subscriptions to watch on Plex on my Apple TV. Works a treat, though I wish I could get Plex to display them properly.
Why not just use tubesync? There’s another one like youtube archivist or something as well. If you already have a Plex server you probably have the skills to set it up.
https://github.com/meeb/tubesync
Here’s the other that I’m aware of https://github.com/tubearchivist/tubearchivist
I found tubesync kinda needs to be run on vpn if you don’t want YouTube to ban you during the initial sync, I assume the same is true for archivist. Works fine after that first sync tho (I’m actually using as an archive since people tend to take their stuff down once they change hobbies for some reason, so I literally was archiving whole channels).
Yeah, I’m aware of both of them but have spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out how to get them to work. I’m fairly new to Linux, and the instructions for both seem to assume a certain amount of expertise.
Oh, and as I type this I’ve remembered that I did manage to get one of them to work, but something to do with the way it downloads the videos means that you need to install a Plex plugin of some description because Plex won’t recognise the metadata or some shit.
So for the time being I’m happy enough to fanny about with my manual method. Between my wife and I it takes up about ten minutes every couple of days, and that’s ok.
Yeah if small quantity it’s not too bad to do your way. I use jellyfin so everything shows up ok for me, although it’s weird to see the “wrong” thumbnails.
For me I’ve got everything as a docker setup using https://docs.linuxserver.io/ They don’t have a tubesync one but I found they have good instructions for setting it up and that’s how I learned enough to do so on my own with tubesync. But there is def a curve there.
My perfect ideal would be freetube as a web server just for browsing where I could hit the dl button and fire off a download command to my server, then it shows up in jellyfin or Plex. I… Haven’t found a way to do this seamlessly yet, but I’m always on the lookout
I saw it and refreshed the ublock filters and everything works again
ad blocker detector blocker in filter list go brrr
If a million porn sites can make streaming video work, then YouTube is replaceable.
rumble, banned.video - it’s just people don’t upload stuff there
Rumble are also host to truth social and the worst of humanity.
YouTube is not replaceable because it’s the only reliable way for VOD creators to monetize their content effectively without a paywall. No other VOD platform comes close.
If creators can’t monetize their content effectively, they’re not going to upload to that platform.
So sad YouTube died, it was such a useful service.
Use Firefox
I am already doing that, but YouTube doesn’t like uBlock Origin. The browser is not the problem.
To be clear, uBlock Origin isn’t the problem, either.
YouTube is.
On ublock origin, go to settings > filters and disable the one that says “Quick fixes”. It will work again.
I just checked github and this is already resolved, just refresh filters
Fine work as always from ublock
No issues for me using Firefox and unlock
It’s been fine for me.
What it doesn’t like is my VPN, even when it’s not using it for the browser connection (split tunneling). For some reason many sites crap out when I have that on and become unreliable.
I had the same issue until I realized I had Ghostery and privacybadger also enabled. Disabling them on YT but keeping ublock origin worked
If you digged all the crap out sure
Grayjay by futo just released a desktop app.
I use Firefox on Linux Mint, none of this happens and if it does you fix it by copy pasting a code on the settings of ublock
What code? I am on Fedora+Forefox and it does happen all tge time :-/
Search for it, is a code you paste on the my filters tab of Ublock add on in Firefox
Eat shit, Youtube!
Fun fact, it seems this ban is IP based. (they’re still testing in waves with a subset of overall users)
I switched to a new IP with my VPN, and while still signed in to the same YouTube account on the same video without ever clearing my cache or cookies, the block disappeared.
Genius work from the developers over at YouTube.
I think that’s probably because ublock fixed the filters while u were doing this.
It was early yesterday, before filters had been updated, 30 seconds after a full purge and re-selecting of all relevant filter lists, done within the span of 2 minutes, so I doubt it was those.
If the garbage takes itself out, I won’t complain. YT doesn’t see how the cable companies dying is the exact same future it is racing to emulate.
I’ve landed on that page a couple of times. I’m just waiting to be blocked.
I almost never watch videos on youtube because I download them and watch them locally. The two things that I use to download them are Downie (Mac) and yt-download (cross platform). This helps me avoid ads unless they are baked into the video. I also like to grab a bunch of content all at once and then watch at my leisure.
If you use yt-dlp you can save your subscriptions in a text file and download all their latest vids on a schedule.
Easy enough ChatGPT can write you this script and you may also find examples online.
If not directly useful for you, i am also putting this down for others. Do not let a monopoly dictate what is “the normal way” to do things.
What a great idea! I love Bash scripting, so I’ll look into doing this myself for fun tomorrow.
I also like to grab a bunch of content all at once and then watch at my leisure.
If you’re tech-inclined you might like pinchflat or Tube Archivist, which can archive channels/playlists in the background with video metadata automatically, which you can then use with JellyFin.
Need to be comfortable with /c/selfhosted@lemmy.world type setups, however.
I’d vote for Pinchflat. Tube Archivist is good software but very heavy.
I run a Plex server for my movie and television library. I just watch YT videos once and delete them, mostly in the background while I do other things. But I’ll look into both tools regardless because automation is always interesting to me. Thanks for the tips!
TubeArchivist is kind of an all-in-one software for you to watch YouTube videos in so its own web interface and is pretty heavy. But PinchFlat is very lightweight and is actually designed to be used with your Plex server being the medium you watch your videos on. So I’d recommend starting with the latter, as it’s kinda built for your exact use case.
This is an interesting way to watch YouTube, and I have some questions about your system around watching the videos.
- How do you plan out downloading and watching the videos? Do you download at the time of watching, or do you just download as many videos you like when you get the chance?
- What do you do with the videos after watching?
I download when I have free time to fill / kill. I watch one genre of videos and periodically check on a number of channels that have that content. I watch each video working down the list deleting them as I consume them. In the rare case that I want to save something, I toss it in an unmanaged directory of internet content.
My Plex library is where managed content lives. Stuff from the internet doesn’t deserve that level of care (in my system of data management).
Thank you for sharing your workflow.
AdGuard pro, SponsorBlock, DeArrow, and Untrap for YouTube. I only rarely ever see a brief part of a sponsor ad, and never see YouTube’s own ads.
Untrap lets you modify nearly anything about YouTube like even removing the view count and channel avatars, among many other options.
mpv youtube-URL works just fine without even loading the crappy scripts to show a banner like that. Manage your subscriptions with a RSS feeder and you don’t need an account to follow creators.
Hasn’t happened with Bing yet.
Get a cheap (Argentina, Egypt, Ghana, India, Ecuador) premium… There are dozens of instructions on how to get it through a VPN.
Nah. I’m just gonna steal it all for free. Thanks, tho.
In Argentina family premium plan is 5 euros
Wait yt premium has different rates in different countries? Anyway hosting a free to use service like youtube cost a ton in storage and bandwidth, contrary to nebula. I would rather support it as it doesn’t do DRM and other too much user hostile stuffs (I’m using free software clients for long time, no issue. I’ll continue after premium too as official client isn’t that good). But ofc first I would like to know actual budget and ad money cash flow to see if it needs help really or just a marketing tactic to pump up revenue in typical corporate fashion.
Anybody has such income-expense data source for youtube?
A lot of companies have regional pricing. Some regions jist have way lower buying power and as such cannot afford 60$ games as it can be quite a significant sum of their income as compared to us.
Pretty sure this doesn’t work anymore. They stopped it a few months back.
YouTube is canceling accounts in other countries in waves at the moment. My account in Vietnam (I live in Germany) will also be canceled in mid-January 2025. I would have to add a Vietnamese credit card, which would be a bit much work for me.
It works for me! I have a german account with YouTube family prem sub through Peru.
Oh, might have just been Australian Google accounts then!? Definately tried 4 or 5 different countries and no dice here. If anyone from Au knows of a working country, I’d be happy to hear it! 😁
