[jchw]

I recommend ReVanced if you're going to use YouTube on Android device.

https://revanced.app/

This should also leave you on a slightly older version of the app, too, which might bypass any recent issues with updates. But, it has a ton of useful builtin features, like bring-back-dislikes and sponsorblock.

[jraph]

NewPipe [1] and its derivatives like Tubular that include SponsorBlock (and dislikes, but I don't use this feature) are also great.

They let you follow channels and build playlists without a Google account and play stuff in background.

You can find those apps on F-Droid by adding the relevant repositories.

[1] https://newpipe.net/

[2] https://github.com/polymorphicshade/Tubular

[k4rli]

Revanced is not bad with Sponsorblock + hiding shorts. Haven't tried but I don't see why it couldn't be used without logging in.

I do appreciate NewPipe for helping cut down on YT feed scrolling and just focusing on subscriptions. For a while I'd completely migrated to NewPipeSponsorblock but that fork became unmaintained and at the time there didn't seem to be an alternative.

[miah_]

Grayjay is also excellent.

https://grayjay.app/

[cholantesh]

and SmartTube (https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube) if you have an Android TV.

[phoronixrly]

Bold of you to risk your Google account by accessing it through a patched client... No amount of complaining on HN will bring it back when Google decides to banhammer all people who break their TOS in such a stupid way.

[fallingsquirrel]

1. Why would you ever login to youtube in the first place?

2. There's strength in numbers. Between adblockers, foss clients, and youtube-dl/yt-dlp, there are probably tens to hundreds of millions of people watching youtube this way. If YT banhammers everyone for that they would end up banning a sizable fraction of the earth's population all in one day. Even Google isn't stupid enough to do that.

[phoronixrly]

Why would you bother to use or even more so patch the official youtube client if not to sign in to your account? It's objectively shitter (bloated, buggy, full of dark patterns) than the open-source alternatives. NewPipe/PipePipe work beautifully without an associated account...

[xigoi]

To watch NSFW videos?

[jchw]

I already downloaded copies of all of the data I care about, and keep as much stuff as possible completely disconnected from my personal Google account. I'm also a Xoogler that is completely aware that Googlers use these things too (including youtube-dl, lol.)

I guess it is good to keep people aware of the possibility, but I do also want as many people as possible to join in. If they want to ban all of us, that's fine by me. Sincerely.

[thelastparadise]

YouTube no longer has a monopoly on internet video distribution. If you notice, all the major platforms now have good support for direct posting of videos.

Further, it's now easier than ever to decouple one's online life from google and so anyone not doing so is taking unnecessary risk.

[deely3]

TLDR: its you own problem if you Google account become permabanned.

[ocular-rockular]

Or you could just use a burner account and avoid this.

[tjpnz]

I'm a Premium subscriber but am seriously considering stopping that in favor of Revanced or Newpipe. Presumably they both let me disable shorts permanently versus bullshit like only being able to hide them for thirty days?

[jchw]

What's crazy is I'm using Revanced with a Premium account. I'm more than happy to pay for YouTube even as much as I don't love Google, but I'm still going to opt for the vastly better experience if I have the option.

As far as I know, you can indeed disable Shorts in ReVanced. The defaults in ReVanced may need some tweaking to your liking, but there's quite a lot of options.

[k4rli]

Revanced enables completely hiding shorts.

[miah_]

Just use Firefox.

[jchw]

On desktop I do! (Though I use the Librewolf patches rather than vanilla.) But you can't use background video playback on mobile devices without the app (to my knowledge) and I don't think picture in picture works, either. Plus, I generally recommend Fennec F-Droid on Android rather than the stupid shitty version of Firefox that compromised Mozilla puts out these days.

[yellow_lead]

And ad blocking!