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YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

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201–210 of 212 posts

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#201

Vote with your wallet. Tell your favourite content-creators to consider alternatives alongside youtube (like peertube), and promote the alternative platforms, until the network effect pays off.

The thing is none of the alternatives provides as smooth playback as youtube.

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is disingenuous - we were all watching flash video for about a decade before that. And before that we were watching (terrible ~160x120) video in realvideo* or asf format using browser plugins, since maybe 1997-1998, certainly before 2000. * tangiential rambling old-person side-note: RealPlayer was a weird early example of a piece of software that was actually _better_ on Linux: The windoze version was notorious…

You could watch those in backgrounder windows/tabs too.

You still can.

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#204
post #193

Vote with your wallet. Tell your favourite content-creators to consider alternatives alongside youtube (like peertube), and promote the alternative platforms, until the network effect pays off.

Google gave an official response in the article: background play is limited to Premium users, so anyone experiencing this behavior is already not using their wallet.

Still.

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#205

Newpipe remains one of the best solutions for background playback. They do tend to move pretty quickly to patch "fixes" that YouTube throw in now and again. It's also useful for video backups if you need to preserve them for any reason.

For me it's Grayjay, NewPipe doesn't want to load videos whenever I try it, but Grayjay has been the most reliable out of any alternatives that I've tried.

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#206
post #66

Revanced allows you to patch the official Android YouTube apk to enable this feature alongside many others, including a block, Sponsorblock, and dislikes. https://github.com/revanced/revanced-manager Rossmann's Grayjay app offers the same functionality in a separate standalone client. It has a paid pro mode, but is free software. I use this on devices that I haven't signed in with Google. https://grayjay.app/

I feel like saying that there's a paid pro mode is a bit disingenuous.

You can buy a licence to support the app and the development, but the feature set is identical if you pay or not.

A big difference.

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#207
post #36
post #32

What a shame. What's the point even? I'm not going subscribe to YouTube premium anyway, and even less install and use the YouTube app. What happens with this move is just that I will just use YouTube less. I believe that's the case for most people who chose to use YouTube in a browser precisely for background playback. As an example: knowing that I won't be able to keep the sound playing for the 5 minutes in between…

The point is that youtube is an ad-funded service, and if you're not watching the ads, Google is losing money on you.

This is about background playback, not adblocking. They can still play ads.

Re: YouTube blocks background video playback on Brave and other browsers

#208
post #192

Background playback is a feature of the browser and operating system, not YouTube. Consumer laws should prevent Google doing this. We need an anti-DMCA to make circumvention, bypassing, or disabling of user’s device or OS features illegal.

Consumer laws should regulate free content delivery?

Yes, they should regulate any product or service offered by profit making companies to consumers, regardless of whether they are provided “free” of charge or not.
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