When people post YouTube links, is there a cool open source way to watch it on mobile without going through youtube, firefox, or downloading adblockers?

gimpchrist @lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 27 points –

When people post YouTube links.. is there a cool open source way to watch it on mobile without going through youtube? Because when I click on a YouTube link and I'm on my phone and it immediately gives me an ad it's pissing me off like in a huge way.. is there a way to bypass ads without an ad blocker on my phone

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Good question, horrible post title. Keep the clickbait titles outta here.

How is it a clickbait title

Because it doesn't do anything to indicate to a reader what the content of your post is. Titles should tell people what you're talking about.

Just change it to the first sentence of your post instead:

When people post YouTube links, is there a cool open source way to watch it on mobile without going through youtube?

On Android, install newpipe from f-droid and YouTube links should go to it automatically. No ads, lets you download videos, subscriptions are entirely local on your device, but right now display of comments is messed up. The last isn't a big deal for me. Ymmv.

NewPipe is awesome, and you can set it to automatically open Youtube links.

https://newpipe.net/

Seconding NewPipe. It's the easiest to get set up, and once you get it set up you basically never have to touch it again.

YouTube Revanced is more user friendly and has more features once it's set up, but the install process is more involved and updating it essentially requires you to redo the install process again. It's nothing crazy, but NewPipe is the "set it and forget it" option IMO.

i'm using it for a long time and always thought google wouldn't let you open youtube links in other apps.

i always copied the link and pasted it into newpipe. thanks to your comment i checked and diabled youtube automatic opening.

Tubular on F-Droid is a fork of Newpipe (which is great too), "A fork of NewPipe that implements SponsorBlock and ReturnYouTubeDislike"

It's my favorite front end so far.

Yes! You can use an alternative front end - you’ll have to watch in your browser.

There is a bot on some communities that will post the Piped Version. The other option is to use a version of Invidious which you can find here.

Clicking on a YouTube link will take you to the YouTube app if you have it. You’d have to copy and paste the link into the search fields of the above.

The other option is to use xvanced. I have not used it in a long time and I’m not sure of the current status but it should work.

On Android there are lots of ways. Newpipe or Grayjay is probably the easiest. Revanced is a little more complex but is also good. You could also use Firefox with ublock origin.

If you're on Android: Firefox Mobile with uBlock Origin.

I'm not putting Firefox or an ad blocker on my phone

Hate ads but don’t want an ad blocker? Sounds tough.

Did it make your day better to say that?

It was a neutral impact.

I made the comment because I don’t understand your motivation here. You’re making contrary statements while asking for a solution. I came to offer one, but decided not to because it’s ad blocker centric.

You don't have to understand my motivation. I'm not making contrary statements to what I need and want.. and people here on this thread have answered my question without being snarky about it... thank you though. I don't have to use Firefox or ad blockers on my mobile phone if I don't want to, and it doesn't have to be a Justified reason....thanks!

I'm not putting an ad blocker on my phone

Then you're not going to be watching YouTube without ads, I guess, and this was a pointless post. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Actually, with the help of the nicer people on this post I am now watching YouTube without ads on new pipe thanks so much for being a jerk though I hope it made your day better

Does it make you feel better that NewPipe doesn't call itself an ad blocker, even though that's what it essentially is but only for one specific thing?

It's definitely going to make me feel better to block you entirely from my life and never see you again!

If you're on android, you can remove the setting that opens YouTube links on the native app. My YouTube links always open in firefox, with unblock and in a private window. So no ads, no permanent cookies. Lately the quality has been going down as Google forces adblockers users to have a worse experience, but still works.

Another option other than new pipe is to download a YouTube apk and the revanced app. Ad free YouTube is what comes out of that.

This solution sounds easiest but also must technical haha I still don't know how to use apks or whatever I don't even really know what they are but I think I got it figured out anyway! Thank you for the replies

i watch youtube with revanced, no open source but no ads

If on Android, use UntrackMe. When clicking on any YouTube link, or even Reddit, Twitter etc., select this app to open the link with. It will automatically redirect you to a privacy friendly frontend. Link YouTube to Invidious. You can customise the instances you want to use.

Newpipe, Libretube, Clipious. Those are front ends for youtube. I would recommend reading about them and cheling them out.

Nice

Libretube and Clipious are not fronts ends, they just use Piped and Invidious front ends respectively.

Great question, I usually close those immediately.

So do I you have to press it like three times or four times to close it and it's really making me super stupid irrationally angry at a dumb phone and I'm so mad about it haha

Meh. The phones give us less and less control and plenty to be annoyed over; but the ads are greedy, evil Google's fault. I'm taking heat over their horrible air ai (see what I mean? And it did wait until I couldn't see the word anymore!) autocorrect and/or packet loss on my phone. I really am biding my time, until I have time and money to switch to Fairphone or find alternative software that works with my hardware. Frankly, I wouldn't have a smartphone at all, if I didn't need it for certain things. Best of luck in your future endeavors, friend.

Same, so many websites need text verification now its so annoying

I don't know why you don't want to go thru YouTube or use an adblocker but if you have uBlock Origin installed on your Firefox browser as you should then it automatically blocks YouTube ads aswell.

I have ad blocker on my computer but when I'm on my mobile phone everything just sucks

You can install ad-blocker on Firefox mobile aswell. Atleast on Android you can.

They're probably talking about the YT app. Its ads cannot be bypassed with uBlock Origin.

So, among the other options, many communities here have a bit that drops piped links for all YT links.

Yeah I'm liking all the suggestions it's a pretty cool thread haha little bit overwhelming but I'll get through it I think F Droid is going to be my best bet

I wonder if you clicked and held the link if it would give you an "open with" prompt where you could choose an app like NewPipe or if you could have it auto redirect to a Piped source

Ooh cute idea I'm going to try that.. Wait tho, you said an app.... is new pipe good for YouTube? Do you have a better recommendation?

https://grayjay.app/ if you're on android

edit: Firefox on Android also allows add-ons, so you can install ublock origin in the firefox android app and probably watch ad free that way as well.

You know what's super creepy? A robot just responded to a post I made on a YouTube link and recommended piped as an open source alternative haha that shit was freaky as fuck lemmy is cool

Grayjay is not open-source, though, by the way. It's source-available, i.e. you're allowed to look at the source code, but you're not allowed to do anything with it.

Oh yeah there's lots. I feel like a lot of people use ReVanced but I've never tried it. I use NewPipe because it allows me to locally export my subscriptions and use the open source frontend Invidious on desktop.

A bit of a personal preference. I imagine one of the piracy megathreads would have a list of community favorites. FMHY or the one on dbz0 would be worth looking at.

I found all of the open source frontend to be slow and unreliable.

So I just use firefox with uBlock origin.

You could pay for the service 🤷‍♂️

Users are already paying with their personal information. Paying for YouTube is like tipping your Landlord.

Video hosting is expensive.

Just as personal information is on a large scale. YouTube/Google/Alphabet chooses selling our information as their core business model. As far as I'm concerned, they "don't care" about the money they get from YouTube Premium.

YouTube runs at a loss still I believe? Low res is probably supportable, but 4k etc gets expensive.

I agree with you on that point: Video hosting (or more accurately: bandwidth) is extremely expensive. This is why YouTube is basically a monopoly, despite most of its users being annoyed with it (I presume).

And isolated, without the rest of Google and Alphabet, it may not be profitable, despite all of the ads it feeds us. But from my understanding, YouTube is yet another data aggregator Google uses to make money. Indirectly I bet YouTube is very valuable for Google, even if YouTube itself is not profitable.

You're call to live homeless in spite 🤷‍♂️

Why am I or would I be homeless? Because I don't tip my Landlord?

I'm not paying a shitty company for a shitty product

Yet you are using it 🤷‍♂️

YouTube is great you'd never pay for it.

I get my content, in a great app, plus yt music for my entire family for $120 a year. That's probably 400 hours worth of content for my entire family.

Good for you? Why are you so fucking pissed off at me? I'm just going to block you.. I don't have to justify my reasons on this planet for the way I am to you. If I don't want to pay for YouTube I don't have to pay for YouTube, and I'm still allowed to use it, get out of here.

No one is pissed at you. You just seriously over reacted

Calm down sir. You're acting like they just threw your dog down a well.