I really hope the answer is “yes,” but gosh-darned if I can find one. The FreeTube app still works as long as my VPN is off, but as for Invidious . . . (also, sorry if this has already been covered earlier).

  • kixik@lemmy.ml
    102·
    3 days ago

    What works for me is freetube on desktop, and tubular/newpipe on AOSP.

    • kixik@lemmy.ml
      1·
      2 days ago

      Ups, I just got to enjoy piped and in particular pipeline on gnu+linux and libretube on AOSP.

      Pipeline in particular allows to totally avoid electron (freetube), and in both cases the piped instance is the one communicating with youtube, not me, :) And both applications support sponsorblock (tubular does, but newpipe doesn’t). But not talking directly to youtube is a win. Did I mention dropping another electron app, :) ?

      But… I installed pipeline from AUR, because I don’t like flatpak… Not sure if other user repos offer it as well…

  • wuphysics87@lemmy.ml
    2·
    23 hours ago

    I use invidious to search, copy the link, and use yt-dlp to download the video. You can get 1080p that way. If I wasn’t lazy, I would write a script

  • N0x0n@lemmy.ml
    6·
    2 days ago

    Self-hosted piped/invidious still working great if you want to follow this route. Everything from no-ads/sponsor block/comments works without any issues.

    One downside however, is that you’re exposing your own public IP to Google/YouTube :/.

    • Hirom@beehaw.org
      2·
      2 days ago

      YouTube has blocked a bunch of IP ranges, including residential ones, forcing people to use an account to watch videos. So self-hosting isn’t an option for everyone.

      • N0x0n@lemmy.ml
        1·
        1 day ago

        Oho? Didn’t knew that. Thanks for the info ! Do you know what caused the residential IP block ?

        • Outside of EU?
        • To much API calls from the same source?
        • Something else?

        I mean, I don’t see way they would block residential IPs with normal api calls from the same source. Or are they full enforcing the account thing on everyone?

        • Hirom@beehaw.org
          3·
          1 day ago

          I don’t know. My ISP doesn’t know. And I won’t bother interacting with Google’s non-existing support.

          My solution is moving away from YouTube whenever possible, for instance subscripting to podcast instead when a creator has a podcast with the same content.

  • Alas Poor Erinaceus@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    That reminds me, I think I remember reading on the FreeTube page that they recommended using a VPN with it (this was before the current issues with Mullvad); anyone know why? Are FreeTube users in any danger of being hunted down by Sundar Pichai & co.?

      • Koantig@mamot.fr
        5·
        2 days ago

        @Nonbinary_Sahrah
        My recent experience: YouTube keeps on asking me to sign on (I never do) if I’m on the vpn. I’m using mullvad.

        It sometimes works if I change location and always works if I turn off the vpn.

        ( I don’t know if it’s specific to mullvad though)
        @zdhzm2pgp

    • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.orgEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      the reason might be is that freetube can only proxy your usage over a server when using invidious, otherwise it needs to connect to youtube directly, making it possible for them to track you by IP (and by logged in users using yt from the same IP)

  • communism@lemmy.ml
    4·
    3 days ago

    I’d like to know if any of these frontends work with Mullvad VPN, because all the Mullvad servers I’ve tried have been blocked. Even on youtube.com I’m getting throttled to the point where all videos are 360p. Ridiculous, but I’m not turning my VPN off just for YouTube videos.

      • communism@lemmy.ml
        3·
        3 days ago

        Yeah, I was also using FreeTube when Mullvad got blocked. Mullvad’s South African servers worked for me for a while but they’re now blocked too, and I’ve tried a bunch of countries and all blocked. Annoyingly even yt-dlp is blocked with Mullvad on now, so I can’t even use that to watch YouTube.

    • scrooge101@lemmy.ml
      2·
      2 days ago

      For me it usually works to change server/country if a video is not working. Sometimes it takes 2-3 tries, and it is annoying.

  • comfy@lemmy.ml
    5·
    3 days ago

    I still use Invidious and Piped for searches and looking at comments, but they are currently broken (as far as I’ve seen).

  • vortexal@lemmy.ml
    6·
    3 days ago

    I don’t think so, YouTube’s new method for blocking third party clients seems to be difficult to work around. I have the Linux version of the NewPipe app and that seems to be working but I don’t use VPNs, so I don’t know if that would work for you.