Just like the title says; I’m interested in being able to sleep to YouTube without ads, but I don’t fuck with their business practices and they don’t deserve my money. Unfortunately, I’m also a very inexperienced pirate and I’m unsure where to look.
Edit: for clarity I’m using a OnePlus 7 Pro with earbuds
If on Android, NewPipe is a great app. Blocks all ads and let’s you create playlists and stuff.
Firefox mobile with Ublock add-on installed is good too.
This. Unlike ReVanced that requires a bunch of hacks* to work, Newpipe is easy to simply download and install.
Has all the features premium youtube has, and unlike Vanced, it uses Youtube’s API to serve the content, which means Google can’t shut them down (They tried, and lost the case).
Because Newpipe simply doesn’t use the advertisement API, you’ll never* see ads in Newpipe.
HOWEVER. Please keep in mind Newpipe is currently in spaghetti code form, and that means fixing a bug causes more to appear. They’re working on a complete rewrite, aka Newpipe 2, but it’ll take a while. In the meantime, you may encounter some issues if you’re on the road for example.
I’ve had Newpipe shit itself almost always while biking, due to constant mobile connection tower changes. For those errors you need to open the app up again, and press play. It unfortunately doesn’t respond to bluetooth play/stop signals in that state.
Have you tried Revanced Manager? I’m not rooted and can pretty much just download the proper version from apkmirror, select it from storage, and run the patch and then install it.
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Its v18. 25.40 with revanced extended now
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I second this, I’m not very good with tech but I figured out revanced in like 5 minutes and haven’t had any errors or issues.
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I use ViMusic for the music part
💀
ViMusic, and yep, I got it via F-droid
What issues do you have with ReVanced? It works great! The only thing that’s kind of a pain in the ass is that if you’re rooted using KernelSU, you have to repatch the app every time you reboot. Fortunately I usually only reboot once a month when the new OTA gets released for my phone.
I’ve had issues that I’ve been able to work around.
I have previously had the error, “settings could not be applied”, which I worked around by uninstalling my YouTube updates, installing the recommended version and clearing revanced manager data. I now get an error about not being able to load the original APK. I work around this by deleting the two apks in /data/abd/vanced before patching.
I’m rooted and have to repatch on each reboot. Not complaining, just want to share my experience in case it helps others.
I love revanced, and feel so thankful for it. I can’t afford YT premium, without revanced I would miss out on so much great content.
Sounds very much like my experience: a wonderful project, but not without its flaws that are kind of annoying, but not a big deal for the price. :)
Newpipe is also focused on privacy so they won’t support cast feature
revanced just works ™ though. everything aorks seamlessly and it allows yoi to get yt recommendations.
I’d rather not be on the receiving end of Google cracking down on ReVanced users. It’ll happen eventually.
they’ll just sue or dmca the developers again
or just keep breaking the app, like they’re doing right now. (issues are usually resolved in less then 4 days though)also if they already have you addicted to YouTube it’s much more beneficial to force you off revanced back into official app rather then banning hundeds of thouthands of channels.
Is Newpipe available for iPhones? Can’t seem to find it in the App Store…
No, and it’s not available on the official Play app store for Android either.
You can install it via APK or the F-Droid open source appstore. I haven’t found anything to replace it on iPhone at all.
Damnit. Thank you.
If I remember right there’s an app named Yattee for iOS devices, but I don’t know how to install it. Maybe that could work?
Brave browser eliminates the ads on iOS.
The “Vinegar” app for iOS blocks youtube ads as well as adding various playback improvements.
https://apps.apple.com/au/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303229
When vanced went dark I downloaded a bunch to try. Libretube, newpipe, clipious, and pipepipe.
Mostly I’ve been using pipepipe. A fork of newpipe. It has seemed faster and less buggy from the start. It opens invidious links. It just seems to work better.
While libretube has the best import/export options (it can import playlists and bookmarks etc) it can be incredibly buggy and clunky.
How can we get Newpipe? Is it on the app store?
Grab something like Neo-Store for easier FDroid app management. Comes with a bunch of useful repositories included like Bitwarden, Newpipe. Also more user friendly interface.
Install the fdroid app from their official website, then download newpipe from fdroid. This way the app will automatically update whenever needed through fdroid app store.
The best thing is that you can turn off the screen, so you can truly use it as a music player.
the Firefox solution is the best, you can even have the floating vid thing
its even better than the main app, with no ads
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For revanced you can download the recommended version of youtube off apkmirror, and microg can be installed without issue.
Not true. Untick MicroG component when installing and select root install. It runs on stock Google setup same as standard YT app.
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Really lmao? It was requiring root because google won’t give your app with different package name the account details. Which android version and is original youtube pre installed/still there?
What?
Is your original youtube app still installed in your phone or not?
I have an uprooted Fold 3 with both stock YT and ReVanced installed with no issues other than I sometimes open the wrong one via app redirects.
Interesting. But that would mean google play services is giving all apps to access accounts, which is probably bad. And that was the exact reason why microg building for non root existed.
Ignore ReVanced, go for LibreTube. It uses Piped in the backend to access YouTube, and it’s got a really nice user interface on Android.
It also automatically blocks ads, skips sponsored segments, supports downloads, PiP, background playing, subscriptions, comments, live videos.
It doesn’t rely on shady alternative G services running in the background, doesn’t need you to modify any official APKs, it’s open source, and you can customize elements you want or do not want to see from YouTube. Give it a go.
EDIT: And here are some bonuses it’s got over alternatives: customizable sleep timers, channel groups, subscriptions synced automatically with your desktop browser (via Piped), the ability to proxy and reroute your traffic to YouTube, full Shorts support, live comments for broadcasts.
The problem is that LibreTube, NewPipe and others do not login or sync with your account. I really miss being able to save a video to my watch later playlist on my desktop, and later on watch it on my phone and it’ll be marked as watched everywhere
With LibreTube that’s only partially true. It doesn’t sync with YouTube, but LibreTube on Android will sync with your favorite Piped instance on desktop, so if you also browse YouTube on desktop using Piped, you’ll get that experience of a synced subscriptions list. You can use Google Takeout to easily migrate from the main YouTube to Piped with all your subscriptions active.
With NewPipe you’re correct - there’s no sync. You can import from Google, but there’s no mechanism to sync with a desktop version.
Agreed. I need the youtube recommendations
If you need account specific recommendations and subscriptions, you should give Youtube Revanced a go.
That’s perfect! This is probably the one I’ll go with. You’ve been a big help my friend :)
Why ignore ReVanced?
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Would be nice if I could sync my browsing history in a way that what I watch on desktop using my Piped account gets all merged, in a secure and private way of course.
How does LibreTube respond to fast-paced mobile connection changes?
I’m not sure, but one workaround is to download the video ahead of time when you have a solid connection.
One thing I’ll mention for those like me that use the feature regularly, you can’t cast natively from LibreTube.
Revanced. It’s an universal dex patcher, primarily targeting Youtube.
it can remove ads and tracking and customize ui.Didn’t Youtube nuke this app? A few months ago I started getting a message that I need to download the official app to watch Youtube videos.
they nuked Vanced because they distributed a modified apk. Revanced is completely different, and it allows you to patch your own youtube apk with no ads, etc, avoiding legal issues. -> https://revanced.app
Newpipe, on F-Droid.
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💀
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That sounds sweet. Is it available on Android?
it’s available through f-droid on android devices. I won’t recommend just downloading from their website because it gets updated frequently as some youtube updates break their scraper.
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Revanced on mobile phone, Smart tube next on TV.
NewPipe, LibreTube or just Firefox with ublock Origin
Use the sponsorblock fork of newpipe https://github.com/polymorphicshade/NewPipe
That’st favorite solution
Firefox plus ublock origin, then just open youtube.com
I’ll try this out
If you’re willing to sacrifice the perks of using YT with a Google account (commenting, uploading videos, history and playlists saved in cloud, paid content, mostly anything else that might require an account), then I’d recommend NewPipe (especially the fork that incorporates SponsorBlock).
Despite the sacrifices, you don’t actually need Play Services in order to use the app, and the playlists/history stuff is made up by storing that locally in your device. It’s FOSS under GPL, too!
It also lets you watch other stuff that isn’t on YT (Soundcloud, CCC, Bandcamp, PeerTube and most likely others that I forgot), and even lets you download the stuff on them!
I use newpipe from the FOSSdroid repo
To me YouTube vanced with sponsor block, still works pretty fine.
Why? Vanced has been dead for over a year. Revanced has taken it’s place and is actually maintained.
revanced.app
I use LibreTube: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.libretube/
But I heard that NewPipe is also very good: https://newpipe.net/
NewPipe has the nicer layout for sure, but you have to use a fork for SponsorBlock, which means its behind on other fixes, most notably some audio track issues.
Thanks for the links
I’m looking for a browser on Android which will let me use Ublock Origin and NoScript.
For now I use Brave and a DNS filter on my mobile, it works well for YouTube
I use vanadium and adblocking on VPN , DNS adblock works as well. Bromite is a good option as well. The thing about putting Firefox on android for privacy/security reasons have a big issue , webview is chromium based . So basically you just get Firefox on top of everything webview has.
I see. That makes sense - I wonder if there are ROMs with a gecko-based implementation of WebView.
Well, I don’t use WebView much, if at all, so I suppose it’s fine for the most part. I might even disable it at this point
FIREFOX!
Will I have to manually harden Firefox, or is there a hardened version like Librewolf for Android?
Fennec. Idk if its hardened enough or not tho
Thanks, I’ll take a look
There is Mull
Thank you, this is exciting.
Firefox will let you use both
Will I have to manually harden Firefox, or is there a hardened version like Librewolf for Android?
firefox beta, you can use any desktop extensions by enabling an experimental feature.
Just normal Firefox stable works too. They have a Limited selection of extensions, but ublock and noscript are both available.
You can also create an extension collection and add that - it lets you add almost any extension to mobile, though I think collections only work on beta or nightly I might be wrong though.
Never heard of extension collections. Might be a beta thing.
@Plagiatus @vox have you tried librewolf ?
I have not. But reports from a year ago suggest that it’s not what it claims to be. I’m also happy with Firefox as it is. I’ll stay with Firefox for now, thank you for the suggestion.
