Google is constantly making changes that break it, the developers fix them quickly... but if your distro doesn't keep the newest version in their repo then you'd have to install it from their git repo.

Generally they have a patch for any breaking changes within the day.

I had to go iOS because of… reasons,but you can sideload modded youtube app, with sponsorblock. exactly as on android,but with many headaches like token expiry every week and other bullshit issues like google not allowing IPAs directly in github repos.

Lame, but it can be done.

Yeah, horrible innit? When I used to go to the cinema as a kid in the 70s and 80s, you'd get maybe ten minutes of trailers before your film. And I never minded that, I don't dislike watching trailers. These days, totally different. Last time I went to the cinema there was maybe half an hour of ads. Some trailers, but mostly just advertisements for crap.

It is so fuckin disrespectful to their customers. If I wanted to see all that bullshit, I could have stayed home and watched it on TV. Except I don't watch TV because the experience is so poor - largely because of ads.

I understand that cinemas have been struggling ever since covid, even before, and I understand that advertising revenue pays the bills. But cinema isn't cheap, for me it's an occasional treat when there's something I really wanna see on the big screen. I do not want to spend that much money and get treated like a fuckin farm animal being fed crap. Wankers.

I can't be alone in feeling this way, who wants to pay to see ads? Who thinks that sounds like a great evening out? It ruins the experience, and it's insulting, by the time the movie starts I'm angry. I'd rather pay a bit more and just have a couple of trailers.

I recently went to a small autonomous cinema with a mate and saw Mulholland Drive. Great experience, comfy seats, could bring in drinks from the bar, no fuckin ads. But for new films there aren't many options. So I don't often go to the cinema.

Sorry for this long and bitter diatribe! You just hit on something that really pisses me off too.

Yeah, rumble seems like the only viable alternative and they got lambasted for hosting so much right wing conspiracy nuts when it first launched lol

Go 20 minutes late my dude

If you want to give it a try again, get mpv and yt-dlp installed in your system then activate from Freetube settings the external player button, which you'll be able to click from search or from a vid page

I use it consistently with few issues. Once in a while, usually on Thursdays (when it seems YT rolls out changes), something breaks, but the devs are quick to fix it. The last issue I experienced was when YT transitioned to SABR, and it was out for a day or two before they had things working again. I am at least perfectly capable of going without for a day once every two months.

It's also one of the projects I've used to learn more about how fixes are worked on in FOSS. I will typically run nightly builds also - I find it pretty cool to follow an issue and once they push a fix I can instantly grab that fresh build without waiting for it to be packaged.

WE WOULDNT BE BLOCKING ADS IF YOU REGULATED ADVERTISERS LIKE YOU ARE TRYING TO REGULATE VIEWERS.

I still would.

I keep noticing people in this thread recommending UBlock Origin, with others replying that they eventually got a popup to turn off their adblocker.

This is usually followed by replies mentioning they just click X (or add a UBlock filter on the popup), and go on with watching Youtube. No problem, right?

According to Ublock Origin's Redd*t Post, that is just the first warning stage; eventually the presentation of their anti-adblock message becomes more intrusive until you receive the "The in-player message. Playback is stopped."

I should know. I get that message on any Youtube video (while logged in), and it doesn't go away for several hours.

That said, my workaround (extremely hacky) was to find the RSS feeds for all of my channel subscriptions, and then add them to FreshRSS.
That section of my RSS feed essentially acts like a Youtube subscription page, but not tied to an actual account.

On my computer: I watch them in a private browser Firefox profile I've dedicated solely to Youtube (and has all of the extensions already installed, of course).

On Android: I watch them using NewPipe.

Oh good, we're not up to having to provide bone marrow (yet).

Wasn't aware of this, that's awesome. Unfortunately it would need to be able to cast to various HTPCs and be easy enough for my family to use to fully replace YouTube in my house.

And it has an Android fork (FreeTube Android), and can have playlists, subscriptions etc. synced across devices with Syncthing. It does sometimes result in sync conflicts though, but if you reload it before using it on a device, you will be fine. Most sync conflicts I get are for history, and that's fine by me to lose some history.

Can I add 4. the integrated video downloader actually downloads videos, in whatever format you would want, and with no internet connection required to watch them. This to me is still the biggest scam 'feature' of Youtube Premium. You can '''download''' videos, but not as eg. an mp4, but as an encrypted file only playable inside the Youtube app, and only if you connected to the internet in the last couple of days can you play it.

That's not downloading, that's just jacking my disk space to avoid buffering the video from Youtube's servers.
That's not a feature, that's me paying for Youtube's benefit.

I cancelled and haven't paid for Premium in years because of it. When someone scams me out of features I paid for, I don't reward that shit until they either stop lying in their feature list, or actually start delivering.

Because of the desire for infinite growth. The line must go up

Ublock orgins on Firefox has worked for me so far on both pc and mobile. No warnings.

I do also have umatrix on pc, but I can't really recommend it for everyone since it requires some setup on every web page which most people would find too annoying.

They do have chapters which could allow creators to separate sponsor ads into a skippable segments. Some of them even actually do it.

Previously I had the warnings until uBlock killed them. Only one has made it through in recent times, we'll see how things keep going.

uBlock on mobile Firefox gets rid of all the ads though.

That, and Revanced isn't difficult to set up, you don't even need root:

1. Disable stock youtube app
2. Download Revanced manager
3. Grab the recommended .apk version of YouTube from APKMirror
4. Patch it with Revanced manager
5. Install it

And you're done. Update once every 6-12 months or so.

Why bother to pay if you're just going to get ads anyway

if this happens to me I just won't watch youtube anymore. It's mostly garbage content anyway.