Have you been using the Invidious ad-free alternative YouTube front end? [What do you think of it?]

[Arlen Holder]

Have you been using the Invidious ad-free alternative YouTube front end?
o *Invidious: A Private Front-End To YouTube*
<https://greycoder.com/invidious-a-private-front-end-to-youtube/>


Apparently it has...
o No ads
o No need to create a Google account to save subscriptions
o Does not use any of the official YouTube APIs
etc.
<https://github.com/omarroth/invidious>
<https://gitlab.com/repomaa/invidious>
<https://www.invidio.us/>
<https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/8wvazc/invidous_alternative_frontend_to_youtube/>
<https://liberapay.com/omarroth>

I was searching for new apps to install & test, as I am wont to do, when I
ran into "untrackme", which itself referred to both "nitter" and
"invidious" as privacy-aware twitter & youtube front ends.
<https://forum.f-droid.org/t/untrackme-vs-untrackme-lite/9750/3>

Having no need for Twitter, and already using, at least on Android,
NewPipe freeware <https://f-droid.org/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/>
for complete unfettered access to ad-free privacy-aware YouTube videos, I
wondered if this "invidious" app is a good YouTube replacement for either
Android or for Windows (or for both)...

Without knowing much more about the app, I ask, in general...

Have you been using the Invidious ad-free alternative YouTube front end?
o What do you think of it so far?
--
Note: The article above also mentions "FreeTube"...
<https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube>

[T]

I just use uBlock Orgin in Firefox and Vivaldi or
just use Brave Browser. Blissfully ad free.

[Arlen Holder]

On Wed, 27 May 2020 11:05:35 -0700, T wrote:

> I just use uBlock Orgin in Firefox and Vivaldi or
> just use Brave Browser. Blissfully ad free.

Does it allow you to anonymously subscribe to a YouTube channel?

[T]

No, but I don't care as I do not subscribe to
any of their channels. I just do a search if I
want a particular channel.

[Arlen Holder]

On Wed, 27 May 2020 11:39:15 -0700, T wrote:

> No, but I don't care as I do not subscribe to
> any of their channels. I just do a search if I
> want a particular channel.

Fair enough.

The main goal is to watch any YouTube video WITHOUT any ads.
The next goal, of course, is to do so privately.

After that, the rest is gravy, e.g.,
o Being able to download the video or strip out the audio, etc.

If others have experience with YouTube alternatives, please advise.
--
Usenet is a wonderful polite public potluck of useful adult discussions

[Todesco]

On 5/27/2020 3:32 PM, Arlen Holder wrote:
> On Wed, 27 May 2020 11:39:15 -0700, T wrote:
>
>> No, but I don't care as I do not subscribe to
>> any of their channels. I just do a search if I
>> want a particular channel.
>
> Fair enough.
>
> The main goal is to watch any YouTube video WITHOUT any ads.
> The next goal, of course, is to do so privately.
>
> After that, the rest is gravy, e.g.,
> o Being able to download the video or strip out the audio, etc.
>
> If others have experience with YouTube alternatives, please advise.
>

I've been using adblock plus in firefox and I don't get any ads imbedded
in the videos. I also don't subscribe. However, on my laptop, I never
put in ABP and do get the ads. But, I usually don't watch youtube
videos on it anyway.

[Arlen Holder]

On Thu, 28 May 2020 07:34:49 -0400, Todesco wrote:

>> If others have experience with YouTube alternatives, please advise.
>>
> I've been using adblock plus in firefox and I don't get any ads imbedded
> in the videos. I also don't subscribe. However, on my laptop, I never
> put in ABP and do get the ads. But, I usually don't watch youtube
> videos on it anyway.

Hi Todesco (and T), and anyone else contributing to this helpful thread.

Thank you for that purposefully helpful on-topic technical information,
which T echoed, which is that a specific browser with a specific extension
also works well to block YouTube ads, which, I readily admit, is the
primary goal after all.

Since every thread is designed to add to our tribal knowledge,
and since the extremely high cost of freeware is in finding and testing the
best one, I, for one, very much appreciate your helpful insight.

To summarize the helpful advice so others benefit from every action...

Advice from T:
o <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/>
o <https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm>
o <https://brave.com/download/>

Advice from Todesco:
o <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/>

Advice from Others?:
o <https://f-droid.org/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/>
o <https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube>
o <https://www.invidio.us/>

What other YouTube alternatives exist that are:
a. Free
b. Eliminate YouTube-generated ads (the yellow bar stuff)
And, potentially:
c. Do other nice things (e.g., anonymous subscribe, audio strip, etc.)?
--
The high cost of freeware is in finding the best ones to use.

[Alan Baker]

On 2020-05-27 11:03 a.m., Arlen Holder wrote:
> Have you been using the Invidious ad-free alternative YouTube front end?
> o *Invidious: A Private Front-End To YouTube*
> <https://greycoder.com/invidious-a-private-front-end-to-youtube/>

You get that you're advocating stealing, right?