Live data from Hacker News

YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

github.com

391–400 of 463 posts

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#391
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels a bit overdramatic. You can remove videos from your watch history and, in my experience, YouTube will cease to give you recommendations based on them. You could also create a separate account used solely for watching videos with YouTube-dl instead of using your main one if you're worried about recommendations. I agree that it sucks that a workaround is necessary, but I don't think this particular one is wo…

is it just me, or are downvoters abusing their power to suppress divergent opinion?

I've noticed this happening also.

A little while back I posted something about how I found the right wing response to tech censorship funny, given that most sources on the right don't consider it real censorship. I then provided an example. I made no statement of opinion outside of saying I found it funny. The comment itself spent all day flipping between [-2, 2] points. What I found the most odd was that I never even said I agreed with the perspective in the example I cited!

I see the pattern has repeated itself here, how odd.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#392
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels a bit overdramatic. You can remove videos from your watch history and, in my experience, YouTube will cease to give you recommendations based on them. You could also create a separate account used solely for watching videos with YouTube-dl instead of using your main one if you're worried about recommendations. I agree that it sucks that a workaround is necessary, but I don't think this particular one is wo…

Does this work in practice? Most websites require text verification for accounts. With that they can just link separate accounts in the back end.

Maybe get a cheap MVNO SIM like Ting Mobile and use that to register?

I know I've had google accounts that didn't require any re authentication in the way of phone numbers for going on years so you can likely discard the number after you show you are human.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#393

As someone else mentioned in the comments, the "get cookies.txt" [0] extension works to circumvent the age restricted measure and i have been using it with success for weeks now. get the extension, export the cookies.txt file to a folder, then run youtube-dl in that folder with: youtube-dl --cookies cookies.txt https://youtu.be/id it works as of right this minute [1] and in my experience that cookie continues to work…

But I don't want to use the cookies, I used youtube-dl exactly to watch age-restricted videos without signing-in. I don't want YouTube to track which videos I watch and make history-based suggestions so I never sign-in and reset cookies often. I occasionally stumble upon age-restricted videos and feel curious what's there but I don't want any of them to influence what does YouTube believe my interests are so I just u…

> But I don't want to use the cookies, I used youtube-dl exactly to watch age-restricted videos without signing-in.

Yes, and I want a pony. We can absolutely discuss how useful or harmful age verification on the internet is, (and your points about tracking are certainly valid) - but fact is that Google implemented it.

It is not youtube-dl's job to circumvent that. Their responsibility is letting me download the videos to my hard drive that I can already view in my browser. They never advertised themselves as a tool to circumvent access restrictions.

If the new age verification broke youtube-dl in such a way that you couldn't download the video at all, I think the outrage would be justified - but that isn't the case.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#394
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue it's actually just part of a very long trend.

Compared to classical music certainly, but between the 60s and the 90s the average song length did increase again: https://www.vox.com/2014/8/18/6003271/why-are-songs-3-minute...

Almost certainly in large part due to "Stairway to Heaven" and "American Pie."

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#395
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has become the most valuable company in the world because they own everyone's computers so anyone that wants to publish commercial software has to bend over for them. They're not valuable because of any service they provide.

By "computers" I assume you mean "phones and tablets", because Apple is still a small minority of the world's desktops and laptops. Even then, ask yourself: Why do so many people pay $800 for an iPhone instead of $200 for some Android? They didn't become #1 by selling $99 developer accounts.

> Even then, ask yourself: Why do so many people pay $800 for an iPhone instead of $200 for some Android?

Because Apple has managed to make their mass produced commodity products be a status symbol.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#396
post #39
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course this is a youtube-dl matter. It could easily circumvent this by pretending to embed the video.

>It could easily circumvent this by pretending to embed the video. It doesn't work. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354599

It doesn't work anymore. It did when I wrote the above comment. Thanks for downvoting.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And for what? Is there an epidemic of video clips wrecking children's minds I'm not aware of? I mean... maybe. I have young children and have no desire to have them anywhere near YouTube for essentially as long as possible _because_ of that very concern.

Well it should be your responsibility to control what your children see online, on the web there are things fare worse than the one you can see on YouTube. I don't see why YouTube should ask your ID where most sites that host adult content doesn't.

The 100% adult content sites get blocked by school proxies or sometimes even ISPs. Because youtube is mixed content it has to implement access control on the site.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#398
post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this work in practice? Most websites require text verification for accounts. With that they can just link separate accounts in the back end.

It works for me in practice. YouTube definitely are capable of linking separate accounts in the back end, but in my experience they don't do so for recommendations. I have a separate account specifically for watching a given type of content and I don't receive any of its recommendations on my main account. Now, whether or not they use linking to give advertisements or sell data I'm not sure, but at that point they ca…

Yeah this is a very common strategy of language learners. Have a seperate YouTube account where you only watch content in your target language to keep the recommendations clean

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#399

As someone else mentioned in the comments, the "get cookies.txt" [0] extension works to circumvent the age restricted measure and i have been using it with success for weeks now. get the extension, export the cookies.txt file to a folder, then run youtube-dl in that folder with: youtube-dl --cookies cookies.txt https://youtu.be/id it works as of right this minute [1] and in my experience that cookie continues to work…

"... in my experience that cookie continues to work even if you log out..." Honest question: Should logging out invalidate the cookie for future use. If one of these cookies falls into the wrong hands it grants "evergreen" access to the account. No password needed. I have noticed this behaviour with both Gmail and Facebook. These evergreen cookies makes it very easy to check FB and mail using shell scripts without lo…

>Should logging out invalidate the cookie for future use

Yes. The act of logging out implies that you want the session terminated.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#400
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Privacy.com to make virtual cards for this purpose.

Does privacy.com still require a debit card? That was what put me off the last time I investigated their service.

Yes, their business model is charging merchants at credit card rates (~3%), and billing you at debit card rates (~0.1%).
Post reply on HN