[HN Gopher] FreeTube - A Private YouTube Client ___________________________________________________________________ FreeTube - A Private YouTube Client Author : night-rider Score : 177 points Date : 2022-11-27 20:01 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (freetubeapp.io) (TXT) w3m dump (freetubeapp.io) | the_third_wave wrote: | I'm using a private [1] Invidious [2] instance on all platforms | to gain access to Youtube content without feeding the beast more | than needed. The advantage of something like Invidious is that it | allows you to access subscriptions anywhere you can access the | 'net instead of just on those platforms where you installed | something like Freetube or Newpipe or any of the other | alternative clients. | | [1] private for now since my instance ended up being very popular | in Japan for some reason, this being rather odd given that I live | in Sweden. I'll keep it private for a few months and open it up | again to see whether traffic remains within reasonable bounds. | | [2] https://github.com/iv-org/invidious | lrvick wrote: | Freetube has built-in support to proxy all content via | Invidious. | ramonezy wrote: | I think as developers we have to be careful that we don't | overstep logical boundaries. Youtube provides a free service that | hosts immense volumes of video and creates an ecosystem allowing | creators to earn a living. It's selfish to use the services of | YouTube while removing their main source of revenue. If you have | a problem with YouTube's tracking, simply don't use it | Waterluvian wrote: | This is how I feel about all the bold circumvention of | paywalls. It's a legally fuzzy area in some cases, but to me at | least, it is basically people saying, "here, let me help you | steal!" | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | YouTube could kill all of this by simply forcing a login to | watch anything but they won't because they're cowards. | fijiaarone wrote: | That's rich coming from someone defending a site that existed | for a decade purely on helping people to steal copyrighted | content until they had a monopoly and were able to force | copyright holders to license it to them. | Dylan16807 wrote: | It's not usually very fuzzy. If a site wants a hard paywall, | they can set that up easily. But few sites want that. | lrvick wrote: | When you consume ads, tracking supported content, and money- | sorted content targeting, you are voting that it is okay to | give anyone the ability to modify your behavior, and of | others in your network and household. | | People are told their only options are to consent to | corporate behavior modification or be effectively ejected | from modern society. | | That is a bullshit choice and everyone should feel no guilt | for opting to consume content anonymously. In fact many | -need- to do this to protect themselves from politicians who | are unfriendly to basic human rights. | nonrandomstring wrote: | > It's selfish to use the services of YouTube while removing | their main source of revenue. | | The entire edifice of Capitalism, which we celebrate, is built | on selfishness. And yet you use the word here as if it were a | bad thing. I am confused :) | | > If you have a problem with YouTube's tracking, simply don't | use it | | Why "simply" avoid a problem when with some effort you can | improve it? In this case optimising the service to make it free | from ads and tracking appears to be an improvement. | _carbyau_ wrote: | The problem here is "network effect" leverage on society. | | When you choose not to use Youtube, you are choosing to not be | a part of a large part of society. This is isolating. Whether | that isolation matters to the individual in question is highly | variable. | | You might be able to easily forego it. But a kid - ostensibly | uninformed, not able to reason well enough and "not able to | consent" - who's teacher sets an assignment to write about a | youtube video has an overwhelming influence to "simply do it". | | Should large parts of society including institutions know | better and do better? Sure. But in practice they don't. | InCityDreams wrote: | >When you choose not to use Youtube, you are choosing to not | be a part of a large part of society. | | How would using freetube solve this problem? | sokoloff wrote: | It lets you watch the content otherwise available on | YouTube without all the ads and tracking that comes with | using the YouTube site or app. | throwaway0x7E6 wrote: | lol, lmao even | makeitdouble wrote: | This arguments stands in a fully rational market with fair | competition guaranteed by a controlling entity. | | Youtube doesn't have any competition at its scale, not using it | isn't a rational choice. Even school assignments will have | YouTube links to watch. I think we're at the point where your | statement sounds like a "if you don't like the Standard Oil | company just don't buy their oil" rehash. | lrvick wrote: | If there was a pay to anonymously support Youtube creators | directly with micropayments using only open source privacy | respecting software like LBRY does, I would use it. | | Sadly YouTube has monopolized a lot of content, has mandatory | tracking, and also censors and suppresses things and uses | algorithms to put people in maximally profitable filter bubbles | regardless of mental health. | | Ideally more creators will realize they can put censorship-free | tracking-free content on alternative services that give them | direct profits. | | Until then I use Freetube and Invidious exclusively to opt out | of tracking nonsense and avoid wasting my valuable time | watching ads. | | We should all starve adtech companies of revenue so creators | are incentivized to learn how to monetize in a way that | respects users rights and privacy. | schmichael wrote: | You can pay for ad free YouTube by paying for YouTube | Premium. No annoying micropayments. All the content with none | of the ads. | | It does not satisfy your anonymous requirement but very | little does. Most content creators appreciate (directly or | indirectly) the features a non anonymous platform provides. | Brian_K_White wrote: | Incorrect. I have premium and I still get all kinds of ads, | in the content itself, and of course premium means a login | which means not anonymous and absolutely "personalized" | content. | schmichael wrote: | If the content itself includes paid promotion then (a) | it's not individualized, and (b) the platform you view it | on (YouTube, FreeTube, Blu-ray, or VHS) doesn't matter... | ...so I don't think paid promotions from the content | creators themselves are relevant to the discussion? Your | only option is manually skipping the promotional content | which is usually really trivial to do. | | I have YouTube Premium and don't see any ads by | Google/YouTube. I'm not a heavy YouTube viewer though so | it's possible I'm missing something. | | Edit: just discovered sponsorblock and wooow am I | impressed at the lengths some folks will go to skip ads. | TIL | lrvick wrote: | YouTube premium requires I have a Google account, and | consent to Google ToS which includes them tracking my | behavior and using it to sell changes in my behavior as a | service to the highest bidder. | | Youtube Premium is not acceptable. I can use cash to buy a | book or a movie at a store and not have to reveal anything | about myself in the process. No targeting, no having my | personal data and behavior collected in centralized systems | and sold forever. | | The only acceptable model I have seen is what LBRY does, | where I can have an anonymous account and top up a wallet | of tokens which are used to support creators with | microtransactions. No tracking, no ads, but creators get | paid. | jsnell wrote: | You can opt out of ad personalization: | https://myadcenter.google.com/ | | But I get it, why pay for the content or the service when | you can just take it for free? | judge2020 wrote: | > which includes them tracking my behavior and using it | to sell changes in my behavior as a service to the | highest bidder. | | You can use Ad Block while using YT Premium. | Brian_K_White wrote: | no adblock blocks in-content ads, and if we are talking | technicalities and theory anyway, surely it violates the | tos. I'm not sure what this suggestion even meant to | accomplish now that I think about it. | joecool1029 wrote: | >no adblock blocks in-content ads | | Ever heard of SponsorBlock? | ahelwer wrote: | This sounds plausible enough until you examine it and realize | you're turning viewing ads into some kind of moral duty. | | "Have you witnessed the requisite quantity of behavior- | modifying media today, Citizen? Remember, we all have to do our | part. I see you only internalized five minutes' worth | yesterday. This is below target. Your beliefs and desires have | not been sufficiently altered to meet corporate goals. We | require greater acquiescence." | | If a company wants to paywall something then they can do that. | Maybe I'll pay for it. Advertising shits in your head. I don't | accept the modification of my mind as an acceptable form of | payment. | | "So don't use it" | | No. What are you going to do about it? Tell me I'm immoral? | lrvick wrote: | What is immoral is people being told to either give up all | privacy or stop using the internet. | | A true third choice does not exist, so we are left with no | choice but to create one. Strip the ads and remove the | trackers until alternatives like anonymous micro-transactions | are implemented. | | This needs to go down like DRM. When enough people voted no | to DRM by obtaining music via alternative channels, music | sales portals started dropped DRM letting people have | unrestricted copies of what they paid for. | throwaway0x7E6 wrote: | based | BurungHantu wrote: | More YouTube alternatives and privacy frontends: | | - https://www.privacytools.io/youtube-alternatives/ | | - https://www.privacytools.io/privacy-frontends/ | greenpizza13 wrote: | Why would people want this? | | YouTube creators make their money with ads, so this takes money | out of their pockets, too. | BLKNSLVR wrote: | Save time, save bandwidth, save privacy, minimise support for | Google. | | I'm intentionally not addressing the advertising revenue issue | as that becomes subjective very quickly, just attempting to | answer your question through my lens. | illuminerdy wrote: | I've been using FreeTube for quite a while now. It's great for | subscribing to channels that you don't necessarily want to infect | your regular YouTube feed and recommendations. | europeanguy wrote: | Why not just RSS? Don't get me wrong, I hate Google's monopoly | as much as anyone else, but in this specific case I don't see | the benefit of using some app for the subscriptions, vs rss | ekianjo wrote: | It goes beyond just feeds | MattDemers wrote: | Just to add, Freetube has support for comments, timestamp | segments, and other things that goes beyond RSS. | 2-718-281-828 wrote: | i use it every day and really like it. youtube gets almost every | aspect of ui and ux wrong. it's not even funny considering how | central it is to multimedia content. | sneak wrote: | It says Private right in the name, but on launch it immediately | phones home to GitHub and some VPSes. | ekianjo wrote: | Private from youtube as in you do not need a Google account | googlryas wrote: | YouTube.com doesn't require an account either. What exactly | is this buying us that you don't get from just opening the | site in incognito mode? | agluszak wrote: | But without account on youtube.com you cannot subscribe to | channels. With FreeTube you can. And also it is open- | source[1] | | [1] - https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube | fijiaarone wrote: | Once upon a time browsers had a way to bookmark web pages | and nobody knew it but you. | bogwog wrote: | Browser bookmarks != Youtube subscriptions | aliqot wrote: | all youtube channels can be added as RSS feeds natively. | [deleted] | wolfskaempf wrote: | You can still subscribe to channels and create playlists. | All of this is stored locally without an account. | s3p wrote: | I see this is based on Electron. Do you have any plans to release | a progressive web app? That would be a nice addition to | win/mac/linux apps | n4bz0r wrote: | People here talking about how they don't want YouTube to make a | profile of their preferences, and here I am, wishing YouTube had | a _better_ profile of my preferences. | | Lately, there is almost no new videos in my recommendation feed. | It's mostly either the things I've already watched or new videos | from the channels I'm already subscribed to. It really feels like | I've exhausted the internet at some point. This can't possibly be | true now, can it? :') | | Where do I opt-in for _more_ tracking? | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: | I found that disabling autoplay helped with this. I regularly | watch youtube while getting to sleep. It would end up | autoplaying previously seen videos all night, which I guess | trained it to think I loved rewatching the same videos over and | over. | Blue111 wrote: | ruminator1 wrote: | The goal of the YouTube algorithm is not to give you great | videos but keep you mildly entertained for long periods of | time. | | In my experience the 'suggested videos' next to the video | you're watching is more than good enough to get recs. | | I use newpipe and put all the videos I like in a playlist. So | everytime I want new videos I just scroll through the list, | click on a video and just try something from suggested videos. | charcircuit wrote: | Being shown great videos that are relevant to you is | correlated with increased time on the platform and | satisfaction which are some of the metrics YouTube cares | about. | | >the 'suggested videos' next to the video you're watching is | more than good enough to get recs. | | Which is also an algorithmic feed which optimizes for the | same metrics as the home page. | rodgerd wrote: | There is _a lot_ of effort that goes into gaming the algo. | Either that or YouTube 's devs are completely incompetent. | Either would explain why watching Stewart Lee videos gets me | Jordan Peterson recommendations, but I tend toward the former | rather than the latter. | echelon wrote: | Precisely this. | | I go to YouTube, see a whole lot of _nothing_ , and then I | promptly leave. It's an interest desert. | | I always read and hear of YouTube being lauded for its | recommendations, but to me it has always been the _weakest_ | video content site and social network. It doesn 't do either | job particularly well, at least not in a way that engages me | for long. | | I like science and geopolitical content, but the typical | YouTuber treatment tends to pale in comparison to stuff you'd | read. | | From my perspective, HBO and TikTok win long and short form | video respectively, whereas Twitter, HN, and Reddit win 1:n and | n:m social. | JZL003 wrote: | what geopolitical and science do you read/follow? I can find | pretty alright science (either very high level or just papers | at some point, some industry niche websites strike a better | balance), but not that many geopolitical sites I feel good | about | lvass wrote: | Is boob tube 2.0 really better than the original yet? It | seemingly can't even stop showing bizarre things to children, | recommending good content seems very far away. It's probably | not even their business interest if you adblock. | TylerE wrote: | I've had a similar experience, and it's rather recent.. last | month or so. | MR4D wrote: | I think you might not be understanding the context of the | argument. | | Google has tons of information on you - way more than it needs, | and yet it still doesn't get recommendations as good as we | expect (as you rightly point out). | | So the issue is that it has tons of extra data than they need | because it * doesn't make their recommendation any better.* | | Gathering data for the sake of gathering data in todays world | of information privacy and hackers, leaks, etc. And that is | what they are doing. | | In my opinion (sample size of 1), YouTube is incredibly | simplistic in its recommendations. I find it very hard to | believe that they couldn't achieve the same quality with much | less info on me. | | For instance, my IP changes when I travel, but I'm an American | who speaks English, and yet YouTube insists in showing me local | ads in different languages when I'm in foreign countries, | despite having my home address (verified with my credit card no | less!!!) That's just laughable. | mhss wrote: | > Google has tons of information on you | | Do you have any good sources about this? what do we know for | sure Google know and track about us? I work for Google now, | but speak for myself here. In my time here (not much, less | than a year still) I've seen a huge focus on privacy and not | storing user data. Then again, I don't work on ads. However, | even before working at Google I was surprised that given my | liberal sharing of information on the internet, ad targeting | did not seem particularly more informed for me than "middle | aged male living in Canada" -\\_(tsu)_/-. | bogwog wrote: | > For instance, my IP changes when I travel, but I'm an | American who speaks English, and yet YouTube insists in | showing me local ads in different languages when I'm in | foreign countries, despite having my home address (verified | with my credit card no less!!!) That's just laughable. | | I bet those advertisers that are wasting money on ads that | you don't understand aren't laughing | nwienert wrote: | For years YouTubes top hero banner purposely loaded quite a | bit later than the rest of the page. | | I never noticed it, until I moved to Spain for a while. Our | place had slow internet, and I watched my roommates hit the | ad multiple times a day on accident because it loaded right | into where the search box was exactly as you'd naturally | click there. | Brian_K_White wrote: | I have seen that kind of thing a few different places and | I just plain decline to believe that it isn't done with | knowledge. | | Active items that are already clickable that change | location as a page loads drive me nuts, but these | particularly convenient examples add another dimension to | that. | FeistySkink wrote: | My banking app does that when doing a transfer, i.e new | field appear depending on a receiver. It catches me off- | guard every single time. Infuriating. | Brian_K_White wrote: | hah! 2 seconds later this is in my feed | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33765399 | guestbest wrote: | The tracking isn't for a better user experience for you but for | better targeting for companies | mrleinad wrote: | Well, that's not working either | makeitdouble wrote: | As it is a new development (been seeing the same thing happen | since a few months ago, and lot of people seem to have the | complaint), I'd assume YouTube is exactly taking account all | the data it has on its users, and are applying what they see as | the best strategy for their bottom line. | | I wouldn't expect more data or better profiling to bridge that | gap. | verisimi wrote: | Where oh where can I get a body cavity search?! Won't anybody | tell me? | charcircuit wrote: | It's easier and better to just make a new YouTube account or use | incognito mode. The only benefit I see from FreeTube is no ads. | This can be replicated by just using an adblocker. | | Having watch history and other data tied to an account is more | convenient since you can access it anywhere and YouTube can | recommend videos for you to watch which is a killer feature that | FreeTube lacks. | ekianjo wrote: | Nope. No ads as in no sponsor ads either. You cant replicate | that with an adblocker. Also it prevents youtube from making a | profile out of what you consume. | pessimizer wrote: | > No ads as in no sponsor ads either. You cant replicate that | with an adblocker. | | https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sponsorblock/ | | https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sponsorblock- | for-y... | ekianjo wrote: | That's not your typical adblocker. That's an extra one that | you have to trust to give access to all of your website | data, on top of that. Freetube uses the API, I prefer that | approach to trusting random extensions that get automatic | updates. | timbit42 wrote: | Does it support SponsorBlock? | femboy wrote: | Yes. | mardifoufs wrote: | Can't believe your name wasn't taken before two weeks ago! | system2 wrote: | Unlike reddit, the nicknames are not too vulgar. That must | be the reason why. You can find many others not taken. | soheil wrote: | How is this any different than running youtube in a Firefox | container? I feel like it's a lot of reinventing the wheel if you | have to do things like Sponsorblock, Adblock, etc. all over again | instead of just relying on your current browser setup. | lrvick wrote: | You can route all traffic through community invidious instances | so Google can not even track what content is consumed by your | IP. | | It also automatically skips all ads, even sponsor segments in | videos. | | You also avoid needing to have a Google account to keep up with | subscriptions, and you avoid content suppression as the | sponsor-prioritized advertiser-friendly algorithms are turned | off. | judge2020 wrote: | > so Google can not even track what content is consumed by | your IP. | | "Google uses IPs to track you" has been theorized since 2010 | or maybe even before, but I've never seen any study or | evidence that it actually does so. So, so much of the | internet is built on NAT, shared IP space, and short-lived IP | addresses that it really doesn't seem like there is any ROI | in having engineers keep their IP correlation tech in service | and tracking its efficacy. | cuttysnark wrote: | IP addresses are frequently kept and stored to show users | their active sessions. Are you sincerely doubting that a | company like Google doesn't or can't use this information | in other ways that support their core business? You don't | have to call it "tracking", but I can't think of a better | name. | emaro wrote: | You don't have to execute YouTubes javascript to watch videos. | lakomen wrote: | We need one to replace vanced on Android and Android TV. We have | ad blockers for browsers on the desktop. | Bilal_io wrote: | Revanced has been in development since Vanced stopped | development. | | Their client takes a different approach, and it not only | patches YouTube clients, but also Twitter, TikTok, Spotify and | Twitch to name a few. | SkyPuncher wrote: | S Tube is fantastic on AndroidTV. | poulpy123 wrote: | Looks nice. Can it import/export subscription with newpipe ? | illuminerdy wrote: | Yes, but when I tried, it was kind buggy. May have improved | since then. | ekianjo wrote: | yes they have compatible json exports | 3np wrote: | Looks like it: | https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube/pull/2604 | arbol wrote: | Now we just need an Android version of this! | ekianjo wrote: | Its called Newpipe | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | I love NewPipe and use it heavily on my phone and Shield TV. | | https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe | capex wrote: | My biggest gripe with Youtube right now is how they've left | channel subscription just as a long list. I have hundreds of | subscriptions, and they are clearly around a few of my | interests... | causi wrote: | I need to get around to figuring out how to build ReVanced before | Youtube Vanced stops working. | Zuiii wrote: | One and only one question: | | Can it limit video search to only the channels in my subscription | list? | | Youtube seems to have had this feature at one point but it was | removed. The only option is to search each channel specifically | (a tedious task if you hundreds of channel subscriptions). | | If you can provide this incredibly useful but imposible-to-do- | manually functionality (search all subscriptions), you'll have a | UVP that will make people like me immediately switch. | causi wrote: | If you've seen the video before you could search your view | history. | walrus01 wrote: | I would encourage anybody interested in this sort of thing to | search for yt-dlp, which is a fork and continuation of the | YouTube-dl project. | | CLI tool to download and mirror YouTube videos and audio to local | disk. | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | You can even stream twitch. | | For example, I've used: | | $ yt-dlp -o - <twitch channel> | vlc - | ipaddr wrote: | Can it save video content through browser addons or build in | functionity? | ekianjo wrote: | it uses yt_dlp under the hood to save video afair | ajvs wrote: | Built in but I don't find it reliable, I instead opt for yt- | dlp. | sourcecodeplz wrote: | I don't mind Youtube making a profile of me and recommending | similar things. But then again I use youtube to watch channels | I'm subscribed to and maybe once a week I watch the recommended | stuff. | colinsane wrote: | i just find the youtube login process terrible. my browser | doesn't persist cookies, so i have to re-login every day. not | problematic for most sites that use a single login form (like | HN) and play nice with a password manager. | | but for Youtube its: | | 1. go to login page. | | 2. enter username, hit enter. | | 3. enter password, hit enter. | | 4. at the 2FA page hunt for the "other method" option and click | it. | | 5. select "authenticate with Google Authenticator" (i.e. OTP). | | 6. enter TOTP code, hit enter | | 7. select either "use this method in the future" or "no" -- | they don't take effect because no cookies. | | sure, it's self-inflicted on behalf of me not persisting | cookies. but a 7 step login process? get real. | | 3rd party clients like this solve that. in theory i could also | whitelist youtube cookies to be specifically persisted, but | figuring out how to do that would be a lot more troublesome | than just using a 3rd party client. | InCityDreams wrote: | My cookies dont persist. I do steps 1, 2, and 3 - almost | daily. And that, to me, is a pain. As you say, "self- | inflicted" - i can't help but think of the guy-on-the | bicycle-meme. No snark intended, but your steps 4-7 (2fa+) | seem remarkably...unnecessary for youtube? | ThePowerOfFuet wrote: | It's not just YouTube; they are signing into their Google | Account. | colinsane wrote: | yeah, if Youtube wasn't connected to my old gmail account | which secures way too much of my life, i wouldn't use | 2FA. now that you point it out i should rather create a | separate account specifically for Youtube, which wouldn't | need 2FA. | jayshua wrote: | I had the same pain until I started using Firefox containers. | Now I can persist cookies for just YouTube without keeping | them for any other sites or making the Google cookies | available to Google when I'm browsing other sites using the | non-youtube container. | 31337Logic wrote: | MattDemers wrote: | I love Freetube, and try to contribute to people directly if I'm | going to use Freetube. | | It'll truly become killer when I can save multiple playlists, | like I can on Newpipe. Sadly right now you're stuck with one | playlist of "Favourites", and then copy-pasting a playlist link | from YouTube to queue things up. | mirkules wrote: | I use Musi on iOS. Ability to play in the background, save | playlists locally, no YouTube ads (just ads on screen in the app | while music plays in the background, for non-paid versions), and | no link to your YouTube account. | | https://apps.apple.com/us/app/musi-simple-music-streaming/id... | elashri wrote: | The app is tracking location and user information | comprev wrote: | I've looked in iOS settings and can't see anything other than | mobile data on/off and Siri? | elashri wrote: | Apps now require to report what they collect and what | tracking they are using. This information is available on | app store page of the app. | varenc wrote: | I see that in the app privacy report, but it doesn't ask | for location permission. Not really sure what to think. | Perhaps it's just tracking/logging your IP's geo location | and that alone is enough to require disclosure? | squarefoot wrote: | Is there something similar built as Kodi addon? I made heavy use | of its YT addon in the past, then a few years ago Google revoked | their free API keys so that anyone wanting to watch YouTube | videos had to login using their personal API key (which I don't | have and don't plan to get) with all privacy implications. I can | watch videos on a PC, so why do I have to give my credentials to | do the same on Kodi? In both early 2021 and early 2022 I spent | hours in bed every day because of severe health issues and being | able to watch my favorite channels would have helped a lot to | kill that time. | mongol wrote: | The Kodi Youtube addon can play videos without API key. On | Android you can share a Youtube URL to the Yatse remote control | app and it will play on Kodi ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-28 05:00 UTC)