If it can hide videos with overexpressive faces on the title cards, I'm in.
I use the dearrow extension to nuke the title cards
Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube
11–20 of 138 posts
Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube
#12I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of Google and I don't have a lot of respect for the YouTube selection algorithm. However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly. There is an unwritten social contract here. Google is willing to host and organise a vast number of videos because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may fr…
Exactly. But I would like to take it a step further -- anytime you visit a page anywhere on the internet, there is an unwritten social contract that you will not block ads or trackers. For this reason, adblock in itself is unethical and basically equivalent to piracy. Additionally, actors like Mozilla who build tracker-blocking tech into their browsers should be held accountable for encouraging this disgusting behavior.
Don't like the ads? Don't visit the site then. Simple as that.
Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube
#13I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of Google and I don't have a lot of respect for the YouTube selection algorithm. However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly. There is an unwritten social contract here. Google is willing to host and organise a vast number of videos because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may fr…
Exactly. But I would like to take it a step further -- anytime you visit a page anywhere on the internet, there is an unwritten social contract that you will not block ads or trackers. For this reason, adblock in itself is unethical and basically equivalent to piracy. Additionally, actors like Mozilla who build tracker-blocking tech into their browsers should be held accountable for encouraging this disgusting behavi…
That argument MAYBE worked 25 years ago when ads genuinely paid for hosting costs and nothing else.
But now it's intellectually dishonest at best. We're not serving static images with hyperlinks anymore, either, but full-blown malware that tracks people against their will.
So who's really being unethical here? The amoral ***** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to protect their privacy from being raped?
Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube
#14I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of Google and I don't have a lot of respect for the YouTube selection algorithm. However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly. There is an unwritten social contract here. Google is willing to host and organise a vast number of videos because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may fr…
>this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly
it's not ugly at all: parasites deserve their place in the ecosystem right alongside carnivores.
What I don't like is people like this who broadcast and evangelize as if google will allow it to keep happening. I'd rather it survived longer hiding under the radar.
"hey everybody I discovered a secret hack to get a free donut with your coffee!!!"... how about just keep doing it yourself, donuts for life?
Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube
#15In the age of LLM's, I with there was some way to automatically pull videos about particular topic, extract the information out of the transcript (skip the clickbait as well) and deduplicate. I spend so much time watching videos just to conclude "ah right, it's actually based on the same info previous 3 videos"
this is my dream for AI to help with. "I read all the news you showed me yesterday; from now on, just show me anything that I didn't already read [referring to content, not sourcing]"
Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. But I would like to take it a step further -- anytime you visit a page anywhere on the internet, there is an unwritten social contract that you will not block ads or trackers. For this reason, adblock in itself is unethical and basically equivalent to piracy. Additionally, actors like Mozilla who build tracker-blocking tech into their browsers should be held accountable for encouraging this disgusting behavi…
That argument MAYBE worked 25 years ago when ads genuinely paid for hosting costs and nothing else. But now it's intellectually dishonest at best. We're not serving static images with hyperlinks anymore, either, but full-blown malware that tracks people against their will. So who's really being unethical here? The amoral ***** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to pro…
> But now it's intellectually dishonest at best. We're not serving static images with hyperlinks anymore, either, but full-blown malware that tracks people against their will.
> So who's really being unethical here? The amoral *** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to protect themselves?
No one is forcing you to visit sites with "malware", you are equally as free to visit an alternative site that doesn't have ads or trackers. And call it what you will, that "malware" is essential for the web as we know it to survive. How else will Google be able to maintain the monopoly on video hosting if they can't harvest and profit off the data off freeloading users?
Also, for YouTube there is a simple solution: it's called YouTube Premium. You see no ads and you get great perks to boot. And Google promises to respect your privacy so long as you use YouTube Premium.
Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube
#17I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of Google and I don't have a lot of respect for the YouTube selection algorithm. However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly. There is an unwritten social contract here. Google is willing to host and organise a vast number of videos because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may fr…
> this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly it's not ugly at all: parasites deserve their place in the ecosystem right alongside carnivores. What I don't like is people like this who broadcast and evangelize as if google will allow it to keep happening. I'd rather it survived longer hiding under the radar. "hey everybody I discovered…
That definitely seems like the least ethical response to finding a free donut loophole? Unless it's not a loophole at all, but just a marketing tactic deployed by the coffeemaker.
Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube
#18I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of Google and I don't have a lot of respect for the YouTube selection algorithm. However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly. There is an unwritten social contract here. Google is willing to host and organise a vast number of videos because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may fr…
Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful".
Sounds like they can't really complain if someone took that information and made it universally accessible :)
Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube
#19I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of Google and I don't have a lot of respect for the YouTube selection algorithm. However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly. There is an unwritten social contract here. Google is willing to host and organise a vast number of videos because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may fr…
As a content creator with seven years experience, hundreds of videos and thousands of hours of content: just charge me a fee to host my videos. I'd pay $100/month, possibly more, to run a YouTube channel without.
Why is running ads the _only_ choice? Why can't a creator opt to pay to host videos on their channel with limitations? $10/month? That's 30 videos in HD max. $100? 300 videos in 4K... etc. ... or whatever.
As a content creator with seven years experience, hundreds of videos and thousands of hours of content: I use Freetube. Please use it until abusive adverts and practices aren't a thing anymore.
Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube
#20I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of Google and I don't have a lot of respect for the YouTube selection algorithm. However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly. There is an unwritten social contract here. Google is willing to host and organise a vast number of videos because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may fr…
The social contract was to show ads. Gathering people's data even on websites they don't even own was not the social contract. Google broke the contract and to suggest otherwise is gaslightling. Google can either start blindly showing context-relevant ads with no tracking or they can eat the loss from those willing to use free services.