Comment by themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works on YouTube on TVs is cramming ads down your throat even when pausing videos

Android: revanced manager

Pc: firefox+ublock+dearrow+sponsorblock

AndroidTv: smartTubeNext

I haven’t seen an ad in years

There are better alternatives for Android like NewPipe, Tubular and LibreTube

For PC, you can use FreeTube

I wouldn’t call them ‘better’ alternatives. They’re easier to install for sure. Personally, I’ve used revanced, newpipe, and libretube and love them all. I stuck with newpipe, since that’s what my family uses now, and it’s easier to troubleshoot when I have it too. And revanced takes some steps, more than just “install this package, done”.

And revanced takes some steps, more than just “install this package, done”.

It depends. Personally I patch it and then share the patched apk with friends and family, so for them it’s literally just “install this package, done” without compromising security.

I thought about doing this, but didn’t want to essentially be their maintainer. I do that enough at work lol

Tbh I share an apk twice a year on a shared Whatsapp group and that’s all the “maintaining” I do, so I don’t care that much. I’ve had worse

not gonna lie, a little envious that your family knows how to install from apk, that would be my first bottleneck. They would hit the first scare screen and raise the white flag

That’s fair. It’s more of when google breaks YouTube for the custom apps, that people start to get all pissy lol

just make sure you either install it for them or let them know to only install this app not any app. getting them in the habit of installing any apk from email/text is bad news bears

I’d say they are objectively better, because are independent, free & open source apps, instead of relying on patching Google’s proprietary software.

They aren’t better IF you enjoy most of YouTubes features. Usability is key, and messing around with Revanced manager twice a year has been worth it easily.

Being OS doesn’t suddenly make worse UX better.

I appreciate your viewpoint, as it’s a part of what makes the software development community so great. I don’t necessarily agree with it, personally, since they all rely on proprietary backend (YouTube), but I truly do appreciate it.

I just don’t want any proprietary software on my devices (for many reasons, most importantly privacy and user freedom). I can use a VPN to privately connect to the YouTube backend, but things get much harder when the proprietary spyware is actually on my device.

I don’t disagree with this point. Calling them objectively better however, is not covering the whole story imo. They are objectively better if your goal is to deproprietarize (not a real word) as much as possible. But if your goal is to just block ads as seamlessly as possible while still keeping all other features in YouTube, then those FOSS apps drop to subjectively better.

Which one of those do I pick if I actually want to be logged in and have Youtube keep track of my watch history, automatically synchronized between devices?

If you want to use YouTube for that, it seems like ReVanced is your only option. But you can also create an account on a Piped instance, and have your playlists synced. LibreTube is the only app that supports this.

Revanced with MicroG. I use YouTube 50/50 on mobile and Shield (SmartTube) and if my watch history, subscriptions etc. didn’t work, I wouldn’t be using it.

Obligatory post mentioning that Freetube exists on Android as well. With Syncthing, I sync history, playlists and subscriptions. It’s brilliant.

I know that it exists, I don’t think it’s a particularly good solution on Android though. There are native apps like the ones I mentioned before.

Btw syncing an SQLite database with syncthing sounds painful. How often do you have to deal with sync conflicts?

Now do Android TV! All I want is to be able to allowlist channels for my kids but block everything else. I know an htpc is a better option but I’m lazy.

Pipepipe, its like Tubular but more reliable ime

What’s the difference between smart tube and smatttubenext?

it’s the one after

Smarttube next is the bleeding edge beta version, it gets fixed much faster and supposedly has more bugs though I’ve never ran into one

SmartTube is so good. You get it for no ads; you keep it for all the dope features. It’s like YT way back in the day with more advanced shit for anyone that loves tinkering with all the fiddly bits.

iOS DID have Yattee, but it’s basically unusable at this point unless I’m doing something terribly wrong on my end. Every time I try to use it, even when signed in, I get errors no matter which back end I use.

I use the Orion browser with uBlock Origin installed and get 0 ads on YouTube.

Brave can also block YT ads, but I’m not so sure about the extensions. If all you care about is blocking ads, brave is good enough. If you care about sponsorblock and many other FF extensions, Orion is probably way better.

It doesn’t work, because it relies on Piped/Invidious. Both are currently broken, because Google is trying everything to block third party clients/APIs/proxies for YouTube.

This is my exact setup and couldn’t be happier with it.

what’s the best way to get smartubenext/apks onto google tv with chromecast these days?

I run:

Android: LibreTube

PC: Freetube (w/ Firefox redirect plugin)

AndroidTV: SmartTubeNext

This is literally the only way I will view content on YouTube.

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