Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 135 posts

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

#81

Post by zeta0134 »

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…

I've long since blocked the recommendation content. No sidebar, no end-of-video overlay, no homepage content at all. Just a search box, thanks. (And even that's gotten functionally useless over the years; external search engines are much better at finding that one video I remember seeing but can't seem to convince YT proper to actually show me.)

Then again, I curate my subscriptions. Nobody I follow posts more than once every couple of weeks or so. Most days my subscription page looks the same as it did yesterday, so when I do have a new video to watch it's more like a rare treat.

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

#82

Post by JodieBenitez »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #79
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…

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…

> And we will all have lost.

Or we will all be gone elsewhere ?

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

#83

Post by rglullis »

ploum wrote: post #19
username135 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for libredirect

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?

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

#84

Post by ftk_ »

Here's how I use youtube, usually without opening web frontend at all:

Install mpv and yt-dlp.

Use play-with addon to open youtube or other video links directly in mpv.

Periodically convert youtube subscriptions into OPML using an userscript.

Import OPML into freetube or other RSS reader to check for new videos.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/play-with/

https://github.com/theborg3of5/Userscripts/tree/master/youtu...

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

#85

Post by Jach »

Krasnol wrote: post #33

I'm using ublock Origin and have never seen any of those. For those with ubO who still see them, cleaning the cache and updating the filters within ubO seems to help. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...

I've yet to encounter these also. I've assumed it's just been luck with the A/B testing.. But perhaps it could also be that I've never allowed doubleclick.net scripts to run in NoScript, or that my ublock-origin setup has taken care of itself, or that because I've actually participated in youtube's other non-premium monetization schemes (channel memberships) from which they take a 30% cut and they want to upset somewhat paying users last.

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

#86

Post by _Algernon_ »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #79
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…

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…

Youtube just isn't valueable enough (in my mind), to get away with that.

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

#87

Post by BiteCode_dev »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #86
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…

Youtube just isn't valueable enough (in my mind), to get away with that.

The new generation knows mostly the web through jailed devices called "smartphones".

They will have no idea, and just assume that's how things are.

HN bubble strikes again.

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

#88

Post by BiteCode_dev »

JodieBenitez wrote: post #82
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…

> And we will all have lost. Or we will all be gone elsewhere ?

Who? The people paying thousands of dollars for locked down mac devices they never modify, the ones giving all their data to social network and clicking on ads or the ones sending money to the NPC streamers to watch them licking an imaginary icecream?

HN is the opposite of their market.

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

#89

Post by pbhjpbhj »

pmontra wrote: post #60
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…

How could that work, given that a web site can change its working every day? Each site can have its passionated circumvention developer that maintains an extension like this. Is it reasonable to expect that each browser can do the same for each website? And is it reasonable to expect it for Google's Chrome?

It is within Mozilla's reach to spend an extra $200k on compatibility [hacks] for each of the top ten websites. Their CEO could easily take a $2M wage cut and still be overpaid.

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

#90

Post by mandmandam »

atleta wrote: post #57
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…

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…

> 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.

Just to be very clear, those are not the only two possible options.

YouTube - and Facebook, Google, Whatsapp, etc - are extraordinarily simple concepts. We don't need private corporations running them for profit. In fact, it's turning out really bad for us.

Post reply on HN