I’m using a stock Samsung Galaxy 8 phone right now (with Android 10) and I disabled the YouTube app. I was basically sick of its s***. Since then, I never sign in to the app/site, and so may aspects of using the site are much better now.
- Everything is faster, since they don’t know me / aren’t tracking as much.
- I always open YT in Firefox Focus, which doesn’t ever keep cookies or history each time I close it, so there’s no history for YT to mine each time I visit again.
- I’m pretty sure I see fewer ads since I don’t have a deep history for YT to mine / target.
- More random suggestions from YT means I am mostly broken out of the bubble caused by their tracking. I find new, interesting music, for instance, now, from the suggestions.
- Hitting “back” in the browser means I go back wherever I was before, not to the YT home page (like the app used to do to me)
I still visit the site often, and appreciate all the good music and channels I watch, but now it’s overall a much more positive experience, more like YT was a few years ago versus the horrible mess it’s become recently.
I’d still appreciate any other tips anyone has for making YT visits even more enjoyable.
YouTube Revanced or Revanced Extended is also a must just for the sheer QoL improvements.
I just want to disable Shorts!
Ublock Origin is also able to block YouTube shorts
I removed shorts and for a while my life was better until I got arrested.
Maybe the “No pants subway ride” will be held next year. You should join them. :p
yeah this solves pretty much all problems people have with modern youtube on android.
I always open YT in Firefox Focus, which doesn’t ever keep cookies or history each time I close it, so there’s no history for YT to mine each time I visit again.
This is not true. Google doesn’t much care about cookies; they employ far more effective means of fingerprinting.
I tried LibreTube from FDroid and it doesn’t seem to load any videos. Is that a known issue (I have a Pixel 6)?
You might want to change the Piped backend instance in the settings. Google is currently trying to IP-ban all Piped servers, just find an instance that works well.
You need to click on the three dots, then select settings, go to ‘Instance’ and at the top you can hit ‘Choose…’ to change the Piped instance.
I haven’t experienced any issues with adminforge.de.
Firefox for android supports uBlock which blocks all youtube add btw. I’ve been using the website as my YouTube client for nearly a year now
A Firefox install without uBlock is half baked. Also, Firefox Preview let’s you use any addon, including Sponserblock.
My Firefox for Android crashes about every 3rd time I open a YouTube video full screen. It finally got so bad that I installed Newpipe.
I’ve had some weirdness with youtube in the past too. For a few weeks firefox would refuse to go into landscape when i opened videos in fullscreen. Kinda cursed
I think Google intentionally breaks it on Firefox, but it’s just a suspicion, I don’t have any proof.
