You might have noticed that even on Firefox (depending on your lists) YouTube may detect uBlock Origin on Firefox now
There’s already a workaround (found, again, here), but I figured I would use this opportunity to tell people that projects like Piped and Invidious exist, which both allow you to watch YouTube without loading their ads, with improved Privacy and (in the case of Piped) even Geoblocking-Circumvention and SponsorBlock out of the box.
They’re both great tools, and using something like LibRedirect you can even automatically go to Piped or Invidious when clicking/opening a YouTube link (and more).
Both don’t load ads, but unless changed in the settings Individous may still make connections to Google/YouTube to load the video(s) themselves.
Bit of a shameless plug for these projects, but I figured this is a really good time to show these projects as I often see people asking what they are in threads on here
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Unless people mass-migrate away from Chrome-based browsers (basically everything expect Firefox) Google will at one point enable their Web Environment Integrity thing, force all other browsers to enable it too because otherwise a lot of websites will stop working in them, and no alternative frontend will have access to the video streams anymore.
Web environment integrity is a non-starter because it offers avenues for bad actors to enforce “integrity” that forces malware to be loaded as well as legitimate page elements. However, that doesn’t mean Google won’t keep trying to stop ad blockers, alternative interfaces etc in the future.
Perhaps, but eventually there will probably ba a certificate authority alternative to Google. But I agree, we need regulation to determine to ensure that programs calling themselves web browsers will have to adhere to standards, and not be based on features that make certain websites work only on their browser. I think the backlash reaction to implementing “integrity” as a standard was really healthy. But there is still a lot of action to take on the regulatory front.
eventually there will probably ba a certificate authority alternative to Google
Which won’t matter (for access from third-party apps), because to be accepted by websites they need to prove their trustworthiness, so you can’t just use a different one to circumvent it.
It can be very similar to the TLS scheme we use today, where certificates are signed by regulated CA’s. The only difference is that currently there is no regulation to ensure that Google will build chrimium to trust other authorities for browser integrity other than itself. That is definitely a major concern. Fortunately, I don’t think that it is long term viable. First, Microsoft, Mozilla and Apple would be extremely unhappy with this scheme. That’s right off the bat. So there will definitely be resistance on that front because eventually it would do something like break youtube compatibility with Firefox.
Now, I do think that it is plausible that these organizations could come to a agreement that is still ultimately bad for web browsers. There fore, this should be considered by government regulators as something to pay attention to. I’m not too pessimistic about them doing this. There us political will to preserve the open internet, especially in the EU. It looks like the US is also set to re-adopt net neutrality rules. So, im just not as pessimistic about it.
The only issue is that in the short-term, alot of these services that are free are going to degrade. This is what we are seeing with youtube. That is too bad, but I am hopeful and optimistic that it will lead to a more open internet. The fact that we are having this conversation on a decentralized social network is a positive sign.
It still doesn’t matter. A website can choose which attestors to trust (if they had to trust all of them the whole thing would be useless), so Youtube can just deny access to the video streams to anything that isn’t a trusted browser environment, and anything third party like Invidious, Piped, Newpipe, Freetube… won’t be able to work anymore.
Well yeah. But those clients could ultimately just say they are firefox if Mozilla is open enough, which they tend to be. It ends when Google decides that stuff like YouTube should only work on chrome. That would be bad, and I think regulators would treat it as bad, especially the EU.
Just to be clear, I don’t think forcing this standard down everyone’s throats for naked commercial reasons is a good idea either.
IIRC the proposal includes some crypto-handshake verification to make sure the attestor is who it claims to be, so no, apps can’t just fake it. Or, if some of those secret keys leak and apps use it, sites won’t accept it anymore.
It’s a question of trust. Google will select the certificates they trust for the services they provide, and the entities that own those certificates will decide what do to with them. If they trust a certificate from Mozilla, and Mozilla agrees to make that certificate open to everyone for instance, than Google’s only choice is to stop trusting it. But if Mozilla decides that is the certificate Firefox will use, than Google has to choose kicking off Firefox as well as other third party apps. Same with Microsoft and Apple, but I think Mozilla is more likely to oppose this kind of standard rather than try to reach some kind of agreement with Google.
The other way that this could play out every browser dev makes some kind of arrangement. Very unstable when we are talking about competitors.
At the end of the day, it requires a level of co-operation with the browser developers and internet service providers that I don’t think a lot of people will go for, for various reasons. Especially not regulators. I guess I am just more optimistic about the open internet.
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How long until Google says “fuck it” and outright starts banning adblock users? Considering how deep a lot of people are into the Google ecosystem, this is potentially devastating. Imagine losing access to you email, photos, etc., with no way to appeal. Good luck if you want to actually speak to anyone human at Google.
I’m already in the process of decoupling from gmail for this exact reason.
I’ve decoupled the most important things, but there’s just so much stuff that is still using my gmail.
It took me a couple of years to migrate away from Gmail but it was completely worth it. People lose their Google accounts for any and no reason at all. People don’t realise how many important accounts would be lost without access to their email. Now, with my own domain, I can move hosts at any moment.
Any email services you recommend?
Fastmail and Proton. Don’t shoot me but iCloud is actually a good option if you’re already in the Apple ecosystem. Personalised domains are included if you’re paying for any iCloud tier, even the very cheap one. That will support personal email domains for the whole family. For families I think it’s the best value. iCloud also includes other things like cloud storage/backup, “hide my email,” and private relay.
Losing access to your banks. Banks in England send you an email link to confirm your access.
Set u a forward from the Gmail address to the new one, and maintain the account at least minimally. As a reference, I have an account created at least 14 years ago still forwarding email. Should be enough time to change the profiles.
in case of a bank Im sure you can just walk to a physical office and get your account linked to another email
things will get hard with things like steam
În uk there’s many online only banks
I migrated my Steam library off Gmail last month. You’re allowed to change email addresses.
I had this exact thought. I’ve since bought a domain name, moved my email over to tutanota, did a takeout request, and installed DeGooglified LineageOS on my phone. I went nuclear. Fuck Google - remember when their motto was “Don’t be evil” ? Ha!
I don’t think they’d ever ban users, but this game of cat and mouse will continue forever. They’ll make the service worse and worse, while alternatives like Rumble and Odysee will get more and more users.
That said, back up all your Google data, and migrate to your own email domain. Millions of people all over the world lose access to their Google accounts each year for any and no reason at all. All it takes is a capricious algorithm. They don’t have any customer support at all.
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unlikely especially if they’re paying for other services. they’ll most likely prevent playback
There’s plenty of stories online
. It’s all automated and if it decides you’re bad, you’re out. No questions asked, no appeals.
Googlesearch it up and you’ll find many more.
Has Google considered making their advertising engine better? Allow us to skip every ad. Allow us to block all those fucking cryptocurrency scam ads. Forcing me to watch an ad for a company that I’m not interested in guarantees that I will hate that company and never buy their product even if I need it. I will go out of my way to buy something from a company that hasn’t tried to ram their advertisements down my throat. If ads weren’t so fucking terrible I might agree to watch them.
Thank you, this is an exact point I was making earlier today in a different conversation.
Google has two decades of information about me. Just as one random example, I’m hooked into their mapping app so they know everywhere I go and on what schedule, and can infer what I buy.
Not once in 20 years has Google advertised something to me that is in line with my interests and needs. Google knows I go to the cigar store every Monday to replenish my supply, and they’ve never suggested to me a product or service that can save me time, money, or make it more convenient.
Google’s ad system seems to shove garbage products in my face like black label shit from China (raycon, manscaped, etc) and products/companies that do not operate in my region.
How hard is it to know everything about a person, and still fail to advertise one single thing that is useful to them over decades??!
While you’re right that Google isn’t very good at targeting ads, I don’t think more accurate ads is what we want.
It’s what I want.
I worked for years in tech, and adjacent to marketers and sales people.
I know from direct experience that people want relevant advertisements for things that will solve a problem in their lives.
Going back to my example, I would very much appreciate an advertisement for a cigar store that will either give me a discount, introduce a new product to me, or deliver my product on my schedule.
I also make and buy mechanical toys, and I’ve had an interest in them for decades. I would really appreciate an ad that highlights a new collection of mechanical puzzles.
But instead I get badgered by Google ads for things that are nuisances and of no relevance to my life.
Instead of sharpening service for the professional barber clippers I own, because Google knows I cut my own hair, I get advertisements for Manscaped.
I steadfastly maintain there is an opportunity to advertise to people in a helpful way, but Google doesn’t do it.
Or in my country: most ads are in only one of the main official languages but not the one in my region so it’s wasteful for them.
I wish PeerTube gained enough traction to be the competition of YT. I hate that Google think they know you better than yourself and uses that broken algorithm to send you thing you don’t want to see. If I tell 5 times I don’t want something a correct algorithm would say “I’m not sending you any more of this” instead of trying other 100 times to make you swallow the videos they want.
Absolutely agreed, I would love for peertube to take off
Youtube is just the database with video. Just use a different frontend. The problem is if I actually want recommended videos but without Google knowing about it, then it is hard due to the massive amount of videos. Only Google have the money so scan everything.
And Google can pull the plug on the database whenever they want, just like Reddit or Twitter did with third party apps.
Yes, they can, like any other company or organization can. But they can’t remove the humans producing. That means the humans will just go anywhere else. Youtube is a standalone product that they probalby want to keep as I think it pays for itself with that amount of ads.
Piped.video
Do any of Piped/invidious/freetube work in 4k? Every time I try these out the quality options seem quite bad. I would be happy to self host if it meant working 4k videos. Are there instances that do 4k, or is this just a limitation of the tech?
It proxies content, so whatever it can get from YouTube should be displayable, my guess is that its possible but most instances do not enable it for bandwidth and performance reasons
I use noscript don’t have this problem.
Good idea. I will soon as well.
well duh, the detection uses JavaScript.
I don’t get it you guys are all about privacy and this or adblockers but you still willingly allow Javascript?
please read up on threat models. If you need that amount of privacy/security that’s fine, but many don’t.
Because LITERALLY EVERY WEBSITE THAT HAS A WORKING BUTTON THAT UPDATES ITSELF requires JavaScript.
Everyone should use script blockers. Flat out only way to reliably block the boatloads of malicious scripts that litters the internet.
Do any modern websites run with no script? I figured with most websites based in JS frameworks like react and Vue, hardly anything would work with noscript
You enable the minimum necesary for the website to do what you need.
I was having really bad time with the constant adblocker warning pop-up yesterday so I disabled all other extensions, restored uBlock Origin to the default settings aswell as cleared the catche and updated filter-lists. Then I cleared all Firefox cookies and restarted it. This morning I did not get the warning unlike the few past days, so far so good. I’m sure this isn’t a permanent fix, but for those of you still struggling with it, these are the steps you might want to try.
Your link to “Piped” doesn’t work for me on mobile. I think you accidentally put some asterisks at the start of it.
weird, my formatting might be messed up
Try again in a bit, I’ve tried to fix it :)
Yeah, it’s good now 👍
I just use newpipe on android and freetube on linux.
Thanks for the info. I’m on Linux and I’ll check that out.
I just want to point out there are some plugins and scripts to use Youtube from VLC. The “Library” then works as a search frontend. It is supercool though I can’t find the link at the moment. I remember I had to download some scripts manually and place them into my VLC-Installation. Another bone: Massively reduced CPU power. Playing a Youtube-Video in Firefox needs like four times more power. Really nice if you work on battery.
Aw man this sounds excellent, pls do tell if you end up finding the info :)
No account access, not for me. I’ve curated this account for many years and I really like the feed of videos and creators I get. Until one of them can use my account, I’m going to keep battling the ads.
you can subscribe on piped
I can subscribe, or I can transfer over 15 years of subscription, watch history, saved videos, etc? Because those are very different things and I’m only interested in the ladder.
You can definitely transfer subscriptions and saved videos, but I don’t believe there is a way to transfer your watch history. Google allows you to download XML files with details of the former, but not the latter.
That’s the case with Invidious anyway, I don’t use piped.
I’d also like to point out that mpv has youtube-dl built-in (and can also use the cooler fork, yt-dlp). You can open YouTube links directly in mpv and they will play with no bullshit. It can even pull 4K streams.
There are browser plugins that let you open links directly in external programs like mpv, although they are a bit of a hassle to set up (especially if you are on Ubuntu with their godforsaken Snaps).
If you really want to kick mpv up a notch you should check out the uosc UI for mpv: https://github.com/tomasklaen/uosc
Ooh, never heard of this before and it looks super cool. Thanks for the tip!
Libredirect is really nice. Question: Can it bypass the front page without being turned off, then back on for links opened in tabs etc? Can’t work out if it can.
The extension menu has “redirect” and “back to original” buttons (or something similar, can’t check cuz I’m on mobile rn)
You could use this to visit the homepage and then let new tabs/videos redirect
Thank you all for the great suggestions. I’ve been using NewPipe on my phone for a while now. Do any of these YT alternatives come with support for 1440p resolution? I noticed Invidious is capped at 1080p and sometimes struggles to maintain a stable nitrate at high resolution.
On newpipe if you go to settings > Video and audio there is an option for show higher resolutions.
Thank you for your response, but I was thinking more about the desktop implementations. Resolution is fine on my phone but I would like to max out my 37" WQHD screen.
I haven’t found a good alternative to going directly to YouTube when it comes to resolution offerings on desktop.
Both take resolutions and streams directly from YouTube, my guess is that it may vary a bit depending on the settings the instance host set.
