I’m using this all the time myself. There is no login to YouTube required and it supports adding subscriptions and doing everything important you can do on YouTube.

And the best part is no ads whatsoever.

  • FlashMobOfOne
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    31 year ago

    I’d argue that Brave is the best way. The adblock is seamless and requires no add-ons, and you retain the full functionality of the site.

  • with chicken
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    116 days ago

    It looks realy good, but it wouldn play on my Fedora Setup. It keeps showing this : SyntaxError: Unexpected token ‘<’, "<!DOCTYPE "… is not valid JSON and other API things that i dont understand? What schould i do?

    • @1984@lemmy.todayOP
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      216 days ago

      That can happen if you have an old version. Happened to me a few times also. It just means YouTube changed something so you need to update and see if its been fixed.

      Go to freetubeapp.io and make sure you have installed the latest version which is 0.23.5 beta right now.

      • with chicken
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        116 days ago

        I just downloaded it from the store. Flatpack. Is there a difference? Thank ypu for helpinh me

        • @1984@lemmy.todayOP
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          216 days ago

          Yeah there are some differences. Flatpaks are not updated when you update your system but you can run the “flatpak update” command to update all your Flatpak apps at once.

          After install, it should just work. :)

  • @doodledup@lemmy.world
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    591 year ago

    Am I the only one that hates third-party clients for Desktop? They all have terrible UI and UX. Firefox + UBlock + Youtube is the way to go. For the phone it’s NewPipe or Grayjay.

    • @daq@lemmy.sdf.org
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      21 year ago

      I use the same combo on my phone without any issues or ads. Why use a client on the phone?

    • @xthexder@l.sw0.com
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      111 year ago

      Personally I still use the Firefox + uBlock + SponsorBlock + YouTube combo on my phone too. Maybe if I watched more YouTube on my phone it’d be worth figuring out an app with a better mobile UI, but I like that it’s a consistent experience anywhere I watch from.

    • @helenslunch@feddit.nl
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      101 year ago

      LOL the only terrible UI is the YouTube one. I dunno how people deal with all the garbage content and vertical videos that are relentlessly crammed down your throat. Not to mention the completely fucked search function.

    • @Kanda@reddthat.com
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      21 year ago

      I use Firefox with ublock on desktop, works like a charm. My favourite on android is YouTube revanced

    • @Psythik@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Don’t forget about Enhancer for YouTube, SponsorBlock, and DeArrow! They’re all a must-have for desktop YT.

    • @fross@lemmy.world
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      31 year ago

      Revanced app had the superior UI/UX.

      Not because if taste, but because it is the YouTube UI that then allows you to add and remove stuff from the UI, getting away from all the user-hostile stuff. If you want to.

    • @leadore@lemmy.world
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      311 months ago

      Firefox + UBlock + Youtube is the way to go.

      Unless you don’t like Google tracking everything you watch on youtube, that is.

      • @person420@lemmynsfw.com
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        111 months ago

        Let’s be real, no matter how you’re watching YouTube, if you’re accessing the video directly and not cached through a third party server, Google is still tracking you.

    • @EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
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      411 months ago

      I used to think it is redundant too, but now see it as a quality-of-life difference. Because I can track my subscriptions and watch history, as well as have playlists. That is a massive improvement over folders of bookmarks.

      • @dan@upvote.au
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        211 months ago

        ReVanced isn’t a third-party client though. It’s patches applied to the official client.

    • @PenisDuckCuck9001@lemmynsfw.com
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      211 months ago

      If you use ublock origin and watch a lot, they’ll eventually put your ip address on a list where you have to log in to watch anything. Newpipe seems to be able to circumvent this but yt-dlp can’t. I haven’t tried freetube but maybe freetube can circumvent that.

  • I agree; between it and Tubular, YouTube is usable again.

    That said, someone pointed out that higher resolutions are not viewable on FreeTube. I hadn’t noticed this until they mentioned it, and now I notice it constantly. I don’t know why, but it’s demonstratable: find a 4k video on Tubular, and open the same video on FreeTube, and only lower resolution versions are available.

    • paw
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      41 year ago

      Can it be used on a “normal” android phone or just android tv?

    • @jetliswar@lemmy.world
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      291 year ago

      Ive been using it for years now and holy shit. Even if it doesnt blocked ads and even youtubers own ads, the app itself is FAR superior than anything what this vanilla youtube app is supposed to be.

      • PopShark
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        211 months ago

        Even just having Sponsorblock built-in changed my life!!

      • @Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        161 year ago

        Even if it doesnt blocked ads and even youtubers own ads

        You mean even if it didn’t? Because it definitely DOES and you’re absolutely right about the rest

        • @jetliswar@lemmy.world
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          111 year ago

          Yes thats what i mean. Even if it didnt then still the app is SUPERIOR IN EVERY WAY than vanilla youtube. But it does block everything. Its a godsend.

    • @dan@upvote.au
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      11 months ago

      I love this app and would use it even if it didn’t block ads. The user experience is just so much better than the regular YouTube TV app. I’ve sent a few donations to the developer to thank them for their work.

    • @helenslunch@feddit.nl
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      111 months ago

      Unfortunately it doesn’t work without a login. Also the search function stopped working entirely for me recently.

  • @Imhotep@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    FT-Sync (in beta) has just been released.
    Also on the dev’s website (in French)

    I think Linux only, and between desktop clients, no mention of Android.

    Also manual install, but it’s not too hard.

  • povario
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    441 year ago

    The best part about FreeTube unlike other Third-Party clients is that it retains a better YouTube-like suggestions system for any videos you wanna watch next. Discoverability is still a very important thing for me

  • Moe
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    181 year ago

    For some reason like recommendation algorithm, I still use youtube premium.

      • @dan@upvote.au
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        11 months ago

        If you use premium, the creators still get paid by YouTube for your views. If you use an ad blocker, they don’t get any money from your views.

        When you see an ad on YouTube, the creator gets 55% of the revenue and YouTube gets the remaining 45%.

        • @EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
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          111 months ago

          If I want to support the creator, I would rather donate directly or subscribe to the person’s Patreon. YT Premium just gives no extra features for Youtube itself so could not justify paying.

          • @NecroParagon@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            For some reason I doubt that’s a common practice with people hellbent on not seeing ads and not paying for the service.

            Color me surprised if I’m wrong about that.

            I use youtube music everyday as well as downloading videos on my phone to play without wifi. So maybe I do use some premium features, which may make me biased.

            • @EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
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              11 months ago

              I don’t subscribe to anyone, but have donated to the authors I like, just as I did to the FOSS projects I use. One blogger even has a site where you can tie your donation to a specific video of his.

              And for Youtube Music - RiMusic does just what you described but does not require a Google account or a recurring payment.

        • @null@slrpnk.net
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          101 year ago

          If only someone would write an article about it with those details in it.

          Oh well.

  • ThePowerOfGeek
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    1 year ago

    No Android version of it yet, eh? Damn.

    ETA: I previously tried Vanced, but it didn’t work correctly.

    • @Pringles@lemm.ee
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      51 year ago

      NewPipe stopped working for me some time ago, switched over to rvx which seems to work fine.

      • bruhduh
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        211 months ago

        Try pipepipe, they update more often than OG newpipe/tubular

      • lemmyvore
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        161 year ago

        It stops working occasionally but they release fixed versions pretty fast.

    • @Nima@leminal.space
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      111 months ago

      i would like to say I prefer Newpipe, but those guys have a pretty annoying bug that’s been going on for years now and it’s still not been fixed.

      If you watch a video and then go back to a list and scroll up to the top, the app crashes.

  • zkfcfbzr
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    1 year ago

    I would like Freetube 100x more if it had a web UI instead of a non-browser interface. A web UI with a companion extension to automatically redirect YT video links to it could be so seamless.

    If it’s hosting a server on the local network that would also provide a perfect solution to not having any way for view history or settings to automatically sync between different devices.