Does usage of third party youtube apps necessitate a VPN in the near future?
Greetings y'all. I've been using ways to circumvent YouTube ads for years now. I'd much rather donate to creators directly instead of using Google as a middle man, needing YouTube Premium. If even pay for premium for just a add free version, if the price wouldn't be so outrageous. I've So far used adblockers, Vanced and then Revanced.
Since the recent developments in this matter, I've setup Tubearchivist, a self hosted solution to download YouTube videos for later consumption. It mostly works great, with a few minor things that bother me but I highly recommend it. ReVanced also still works, but nobody knows for how long.
The question now is, if I should use a VPN to obscure my identity to Google. I don't know if I'm being paranoid here but I wouldn't put it past Google to block my account, if they see YouTube traffic for my IP address and no served ads. Revanced even uses my main Google account, so not that far fetched.
So far, or at least to my knowledge, Google has never done this but I think they just might in the future. So I'm planning on putting tubearchivist behind a VPN via gluetun.
What do you think? I'm eager to hear your opinions on this.
I can also add my docker compose, if there's interest and when I'm back on my PC.
I would say air on the side of caution. I don’t use any google services outside of YouTube so me getting my account banned would cost me nothing. I personally wouldn’t be hurt at all if my account was banned.
If you live in google world and suddenly and irrevocably losing all your google accounts/access/data would be painful you should go with a VPN. Google is a private company where you have no rights to appeal.
Lastly if you do live in google world you should consider getting out. Don’t let mega companies run your life by fear nor allure.
Edit: Don’t use free VPNs. If you are not paying you are the product.
You don't actually get banned, they just don't let you watch youtube videos until you turn off your adblocker. You can even sign out and never see the ad block blocks because its tied to your account only.
True but we don’t know what google does to accounts that are bulk download videos from their platform for offline viewing. It’s definitely against the terms of service.
Jup, that is precisely what I meant and why I advocate for people to be cautious, if they use their Google account for more things than just YouTube.
I'm in the process of degoogeling my live. I've never used it much, but my phone and the apps that I've bought over the years are tied to my account. I still use the calendar and have been to lazy to switch. Google maps too is a big plus. I've already gotten rid of cloud storage, as I selfhost nextcloud.
I use airvpn, which is recommended now as mullvad got rid of port forwarding.
It’s rough in some spots but doable. If you are looking for search replacement I found that paying for Kagi was the only way to go. Unlike DuckDuckGo and Bing it does not suck. I’m convinced the reason is because they don’t try to sell you ads.
Kagi was somewhat expensive, if I recall. 10 bucks for unlimited searches put me off, as I don't have a lot of money right now...
I don't see them blocking accounts. What would it achieve? Their goal is to monetize you. By taking you out of the equation, they can't monetize you anymore. You'll probably keep doing what you were doing anonymously or with a new account, so blocking you won't reduce costs either.
On the other hand, Google is collecting a lot of data. Maybe now they aren't using it very effectively, but sooner or later they might find a key to make YouTube Premium a viable option even for someone like you. By using YouTube and other Google services, you are providing key fragments.
You're probably correct on your assumption that Google also will lose something if they start banning accounts without warning.
You can also be certain that I, as well as other technically inclined persons, will try and get what they want through other means. A valid point.
Considering this, the only strategy I can see them using is some scare tactics. You will lose your Google account if you keep doing what you do, so give us money! This, however, will only work if they give people warnings, which they haven't don't yet.
Thank you for your input, much appreciated! I'll stick to a VPN for now, as it doesn't cost me anything. I'm just a cautious person.
WDYM "block your account" exactly?
You're being paranoid. Google isn't going to dick around blocking individuals.
I'm not sure how using a VPN would help in this situation if you are concerned about having your YouTube account banned? Would you being using that VPN while signed out and with cookies/site data cleared?
That would be the case, since tubearchivist requires no account and runs on my server, so no cookies as well.
They might do it, but there could also be a cost to Google if they started banning people's accounts based on uncertain behavioural metrics. I expect it would at least be a while before they'd go that far. But a VPN can't hurt.
I can't see Google doing this.
I don't think they would block your account, I think they would just block all youtube downloading methods at some point. I use mpv with yt-dlp to watch youtube and it sometimes breaks. I don't think a vpn would help in any way.
Didn't read your whole post... But have you tried tubesync? It's similar to tubearchvist if I recall.
I have not and I'll look into it tomorrow. Thanks!