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ReVanced

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171–180 of 248 posts

Re: ReVanced

#171
post #69

It always suprises me how unwilling the tech community is to support creators on YouTube. You're not hurting YouTube by blocking ads, you're hurting the people who get ads from their videos. Just pay for Youtube Premium - its no different than Spotify or Apple music price-wise and people shell out for that without thinking every month.

No. If your business model is ads, I won't support you. I'll find a way to block your ads and I'll tell everyone who will listen how to do the same. I don't appreciate being brainwashed just so creators can get paid.

> If your business model is ads

But... The point is exactly that the business model is either ads or you pay directly. Your response is that because there's the ad option ( which let's face it, the vast majority of people prefer), you wouldn't pay to remove ads? That doesn't really make any sense.

You can't rail against ad-based business models and not accept the only possible alternative.

Re: ReVanced

#172

I decided to be a translator for this project - that's the best contribution I can do as I know nothing about android - it seems like a good cause for the following reasons: - I know of people who live in countries where YouTube Red isn't available, I pay for YouTube red myself and it's life changing. I want them to be able to experience this too in a way or another - I feel like Google might have done the right thin…

My guess is YouTube is well aware of the fact that new ones are going to pop up. I'm guessing they did the math and realized that YouTube Vanced became big enough that it was worth shutting down and removing it from the limelight while minimizing the Streisand Effect.

> Maybe the strategy should be, introduce better features instead of taking them away and think about monetizing differently?

As a Vanced user, I do agree that the app is objectively superior than the YouTube app. Customizable toolbars, better dark mode, disabling thumbnails auto-playing, more video control options etc. But 99.99% of people used Vanced to get rid of ads without paying, and that isn't something YouTube can compete against. No amount of "good features" would've caused people to abandon Vanced and switch to vanilla YouTube (well, unless they reduced or removed ads, which would be detrimental to their business and creators).

Every Vanced user should've known that this was a fight club situation, where if Vanced got big enough it would have to die.

Re: ReVanced

#173
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're not distributing the patched application, I don't see why this is any worse than using an unauthorized YouTube client.

They were distributing it.

Revanced is not distributing it. Aissen said this is piracy, not Vanced.

Re: ReVanced

#175
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Or you know, paying a few bucks for the music via Premium subscription. Or you know, not lecturing people off your high horse on giving their hard earned cash to your corporate overlords on top of their private data, and instead, letting them use the internet as they please. A few bucks here and a few bucks there adds up significantly for those not on Bay Area wages and getting hit by rampant inflation and energy pr…

That's some serious mental gymnastic you have going there just to avoid paying musicians a few bucks to listen to their music. Don't worry, pirates have gone through these mental gymnastics to feel better about their entitlement since the time Napster appeared. Still doesn't change the fact that the author of that post refuses to pay a shitty 12 bucks per months to get access to all the music he wants and pay both th…

That's some serious mental gymnastics there, too. I refuse to pay for YT premium because of the abusive relationship Alphabet/Google/YouTube has with my family, my devices, and me.

Bless the musicians, every one.

Re: ReVanced

#176
post #39
post #5

Apparently Vanced was a patched YouTube app for Android, removing ads, adding a dark theme and YouTube Premium features (probably more ?). It was discontinued two weeks ago: https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/13/22975890/youtube-vanced-a...

best part of vanced was the ability to background youtube so you can listen to music with the screen being locked

NewPipe does this, too :)

Re: ReVanced

#177
I hope they get a version without MicroG requirement again. I like having an additional YouTube app installed that’s logged out without immediately getting the ad-infested free version. I used NewPipe in the past for that but that is constantly buffering for me and I don’t have a lick of experience with Android development to resolve that.

Re: ReVanced

#178

I have a feeling that any piece of closed-source software that becomes important enough will inevitably be reverse engineered by highly motivated people. This is doubly so for Vanced: The original team took pains to not release the source, but it merely took a few weeks for someone else to reverse engineer the reverse engineered codebase. I've worked on preserving a few games with decompilers long after the original…

I don't know much about the topic so forgive my ignorance, but aren't Android apps written in Java/JVM language? Meaning decompilation should be really straightforward, I remember IntelliJ having a decompiler, many times I would accidental open a `class` file and it would suggest decompilation. This kind of code was still hard to read, but it was Java, not bytecode.

It's all relative, I'm sure, and I don't have any experience with decompilers other than this one: https://www.benf.org/other/cfr/, but, if you look at the change log there you will see that "really straightforward" is an unfortunately optimistic outlook. :)

Re: ReVanced

#179
post #129

side note, on iOS, I uninstalled youtube app and use the site in safari with an ad blocker.

Check out Vinegar (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303...) It is so good I am almost afraid to mention it and it get too popular. No affiliation at all with the product, just a happy user.

(edited to remove incorrect statement)

Re: ReVanced

#180

I have a feeling that any piece of closed-source software that becomes important enough will inevitably be reverse engineered by highly motivated people. This is doubly so for Vanced: The original team took pains to not release the source, but it merely took a few weeks for someone else to reverse engineer the reverse engineered codebase. I've worked on preserving a few games with decompilers long after the original…

I don't know much about the topic so forgive my ignorance, but aren't Android apps written in Java/JVM language? Meaning decompilation should be really straightforward, I remember IntelliJ having a decompiler, many times I would accidental open a `class` file and it would suggest decompilation. This kind of code was still hard to read, but it was Java, not bytecode.

Generally it's not too hard to decompile. But whether the code is any way readable or easy to modify is another question.
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