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Show HN: Firefox add-on to open YouTube videos in alternative front ends

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Re: Show HN: Firefox add-on to open YouTube videos in alternative front ends

#121

Post by doctor_radium »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #100
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that DRM are part of the web standards, and TPM are generalized, it's game over. I predict youtube will escalate this way: - Pump up aggressive anti ad block measures. - It will fail, so they will enforce DRM so that they have control. - It will not be enough, so they will ask to only serve DRM to "trusted browsers". - And it will not suffice, so the trusted browser will have to run on a trusted OS checked by har…

Yup. Only way we can possibly win is by writing computing freedom into actual law. Make it literally illegal for them to use cryptography to violate our freedoms. Service providers should be required by law to interoperate with our computers, no matter what software we choose to run. If we reverse engineer their little apps and make free software versions, they should have to suck it up. We used to be able to buy wha…

I'm thinking about a corollary to Net Neutrality (which is allegedly coming back thanks to the new Biden-appointed FCC commissioner) which states that public web sites need to be accessible by the public. I've ranted about this a few times on HN. This isn't about working around bugs and quirks in umpteen different versions of umpteen different browsers, but making sure we don't start actively coding hard stops again: "Your browser is too old" messages, endless Captchas, purposely giving one browser a clearly worse or even unusable experience. Incompetence would be embarrassing but not illegal. Whenever I find the time, I really want to send the FCC a registered mail packet with my proposal and lots of examples of why this is already necessary.

And yes, the web sites will need to suck it up. You can't choose your visitors...which may occassionally be a bot or screen scraper.

Re: Show HN: Firefox add-on to open YouTube videos in alternative front ends

#122

Post by karaterobot »

I just use the FreeTube desktop client, because even if you get around the anti ad-blocking stuff on YT, you're still left with the increasingly terrible UX. No doubt they'll block FreeTube and Invidious sooner or later, but until then I don't even need to worry about the Youtube website at all.

Re: Show HN: Firefox add-on to open YouTube videos in alternative front ends

#123

Post by hombre_fatal »

Fnoord wrote: post #103
atleta wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lookig at it source (the page downloaded when you open a YT link pointing to a video), it's almost certain that YT doesn't load without JS. It's not an html page with some extra functionality implemented in JS, it's a web app that builds the web page you see from JS. So firefox can't do much about it without actively trying to circumvent YT and YT specifically. I don't think browsers made the turn you mention. It's m…

If youtube-dl (or its successor) can do it; so can a browser (extension). Whether the browser should natively allow this I leave up to the browser devs. > Also, you can't have an ad-free experience if the price of using a service is that the ad is delivered to you. On YT you can buy a subscription and you'll see no ads. But sure, most sites don't offer this. Websites have various models: non-profit, donation-based, a…

What’s the difference between tracking and ad revenue? If you refuse to even let them serve you ads (and won’t pay for premium) what exactly are you contributing to those who create the content that you want? Or is that just the creators’ problem?

Re: Show HN: Firefox add-on to open YouTube videos in alternative front ends

#124

Post by pchangr »

ryandrake wrote: post #40

It would be nice if browsers were able to get around all these kinds of shenanigans directly, instead of having to always reach for extensions and addons and endlessly participate in this cat and mouse game. After all, the browser is supposed to be the user's agent. Its job is to do what the user wants and fetch the content that the user asks for. Somewhere along the path, we've made a terrible turn and allowed the b…

DuckDuckGo browser does this by default

Re: Show HN: Firefox add-on to open YouTube videos in alternative front ends

#125

Post by unixfox »

redder23 wrote: post #68
marttt wrote: post #64

For a few years, I've been using the Redirector add-on [1] to redirect Yotube URLs to various Invidious instances. No ads, and easy to tailor the visual experience to your needs. Here's my Redirector rule: Youtube Redirect: https://www.youtube.com/* to: https://invidious.protokolla.fi/$1 Hint: Youtube > Invidious instance redirection Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hipBryeDc0E → https://invidious.protokolla.…

The issue is that Invidious only supports 720p

Not true, please consult the documentation: https://docs.invidious.io/faq/#table-of-contents

Re: Show HN: Firefox add-on to open YouTube videos in alternative front ends

#126

Post by Fnoord »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #123
Fnoord wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If youtube-dl (or its successor) can do it; so can a browser (extension). Whether the browser should natively allow this I leave up to the browser devs. > Also, you can't have an ad-free experience if the price of using a service is that the ad is delivered to you. On YT you can buy a subscription and you'll see no ads. But sure, most sites don't offer this. Websites have various models: non-profit, donation-based, a…

What’s the difference between tracking and ad revenue? If you refuse to even let them serve you ads (and won’t pay for premium) what exactly are you contributing to those who create the content that you want? Or is that just the creators’ problem?

Tracking data can be used long-term to profile and manipulative you as well as sell your soul to the devil. Whereas ads are a result of tracking data. If you want to combat ads then you want either no ads or you don't want relevant ads, and you achieve that by avoiding tracking.

One could say: "Google will keep my tracking data secure, because it is in their primary interest to do so in order to be the primary benefactor to their ad revenue." Sure, that holds some merit. Til Google figures a way to circumvent your ad blocker, til Google sells your data to a third party ("partner"), til Google gets hacked (and they were hacked by the NSA).

Data is a toxic asset; I rather give them nothing. But I do understand then they don't want me as customer. Which is why I do have YouTube Premium. But I pay an equivalent to ~2 EUR/month in Indian rupees to keep my family (especially my children; I got NewPipe x SponsorBlock x Return YouTube Dislike [1]) advertising free. And as much tracking free as possible while still using Android TV (too user-friendly to give up on) thanks to Pi-Hole and strict Google account settings [2].

Anyway, yeah, it is the creators problem. All too often creators do have a Patreon or Onlyfans or whatever, or they 'borrowed' the content anyway. Though they do get a hit, so it might be Google's problem. Cause they still get hosting and platform for free.

[1] https://github.com/polymorphicshade/NewPipe

[2] https://myactivity.google.com

Re: Show HN: Firefox add-on to open YouTube videos in alternative front ends

#127

Post by Krssst »

loveparade wrote: post #48

I don't care as much about the privacy as I care about not messing up my Youtube recommendations. Any time I accidentally click on or hover over some BS video my front page is full of clickbait spam and I need to manually clean up my watch history. I guess (?) it works for monetization, but the UX of YouTube and their pushing of clickbait content has become horrible over the past few years. I just wish they stopped t…

You can disable autoplay of videos on hovering in your YouTube settings. I disabled it and hovered videos stopped being added to my watch history.

https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/130441859/how-to-d...

Edit: not sure if the above page is up-to-date. On my side the setting is in "Settings - Playback and performance - Integrated playback" (setting name could be different, my interface is not in English so I translated the entry names)

Re: Show HN: Firefox add-on to open YouTube videos in alternative front ends

#128

Post by dsp_person »

Here's several options for opening with either mpv or saving with yt-dlp:

https://github.com/Thann/play-with-mpv (chrome) https://github.com/Baldomo/open-in-mpv (chrome and firefox) https://github.com/MasterDevX/mpvnet (chrome and firefox)

Re: Show HN: Firefox add-on to open YouTube videos in alternative front ends

#129

Post by iamjackg »

tgv wrote: post #102
petree wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it is definitely more expensive than I would like. But you still have the option to watch the ads if you don't like paying a sub. Expecting it to be completely free is unrealistic though.

Sure, but then the logical step would be to charge producers and get them to charge viewers, either directly or via ads. But we all know that will result in the demise of the platform, so that's a no-no for both youtube and producers. Your subscription money doesn't go to the producers anyway, or only little of it, so the $14/mo is for a large part Google's profit.

I'm not sure I would say your $14 doesn't go to the creators: they get paid per minute watched when the user has Premium. A while ago Lon Seidman published a video discussing his YouTube earnings, and he mentioned that Premium is actually much more remunerative for creators compared to traditional ads.

Re: Show HN: Firefox add-on to open YouTube videos in alternative front ends

#130

Post by ploum »

rglullis wrote: post #83
ploum wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also use libredirect but it has this annoying bug where the reddit redirect will randomly stop working and the only way to solve it is to completely uninstall the extension (not only disabling) then reinstall. But I can’t stand anymore to be on Twitter or Medium so it is a must. I also use it for Youtube, stackoverflow. I’m a bit confused by the current project because there are litteraly tenths of Youtube->invidio…

> reddit redirect will randomly stop working One of the goals from https://github.com/mushroomlabs/fediverser is to mirror reddit discussions into different Lemmy instances. This coming week I'm planning to work on the part that lets you connect your reddit account to a respective Lemmy instance and migrate your posts. Would you like to try it out?

I don’t have a reddit account nor a lemmy one but good luck, your project is much needed!
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