Smartest thing I've done this month: Disable the YouTube app

perishthethought@lemm.ee to Android@lemmy.world – 239 points –

I'm using a stock Samsung Galaxy 8 phone right now (with Android 10) and I disabled the YouTube app. I was basically sick of its s***. Since then, I never sign in to the app/site, and so may aspects of using the site are much better now.

  • Everything is faster, since they don't know me / aren't tracking as much.
  • I always open YT in Firefox Focus, which doesn't ever keep cookies or history each time I close it, so there's no history for YT to mine each time I visit again.
  • I'm pretty sure I see fewer ads since I don't have a deep history for YT to mine / target.
  • More random suggestions from YT means I am mostly broken out of the bubble caused by their tracking. I find new, interesting music, for instance, now, from the suggestions.
  • Hitting "back" in the browser means I go back wherever I was before, not to the YT home page (like the app used to do to me)

I still visit the site often, and appreciate all the good music and channels I watch, but now it's overall a much more positive experience, more like YT was a few years ago versus the horrible mess it's become recently.

I'd still appreciate any other tips anyone has for making YT visits even more enjoyable.

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Firefox for android supports uBlock which blocks all youtube add btw. I've been using the website as my YouTube client for nearly a year now

My Firefox for Android crashes about every 3rd time I open a YouTube video full screen. It finally got so bad that I installed Newpipe.

I've had some weirdness with youtube in the past too. For a few weeks firefox would refuse to go into landscape when i opened videos in fullscreen. Kinda cursed

I think Google intentionally breaks it on Firefox, but it's just a suspicion, I don't have any proof.

Doesn't have to be malicious. Most likely just don't test on it, or at least not a lot.