For Nebula/CuriosityStream? I only remember I bought a combo membership near Christmas the last two years – they usually offer a year-long subscription for like $11 USD around the holidays. Look out for those, I really like CuriosityStream and find it’s worth it.
If you plan to get a new phone, get a Google Pixel and install GrapheneOS on it. By default, it doesn’t have any Google spyware services. It also has substantial security improvements compared to normal Android. It’s probably the most private and secure mobile operating system that currently exists.
Wait, why would this one app currently only being available on Android make switching a bad idea? Seems like a weird thing to base a decision that big on…
It’s more about the ability for such apps to exist. Other apps include Tachiyomi (manga reader) and similar apps that are not allowed because of the app stores terms of service.
Hopefully Apple will soon be forced to allow such apps to exist outside of their store. Freedom to install what I want is a main reason I switched back from an iPhone to a Pixel with GrapheneOS.
Thanks for the link. I’m surprised it survived Apple’s review process as I thought such apps weren’t allowed. Now I have a private YouTube altednative to recommend.
Tachiyomi relies on installing sources as additional apks because otherwise they’d have to update the app daily. This is not allowed on Play/App Store.
YouTube ReVanced and other patched apps are also great and not obviously not possible on iOS bexlcause of restrictions.
Open source licenses must allow free redistribution. FTL allows license suspension and termination at any time, without notice, for any or no reason.
Open source licenses must allow source code distribution. FTL allows restrictions to access the code at any time, without notice, for any or no reason.
Open source licenses must allow modifications. FTL allows modifications only for non-commercial use, or maybe not even that. FTL dodges the word modifications here, no clue.
Open source licenses must explicitly allow distribution of software built from modified source code. FTL forbids distribution of software built from modified source code for commercial use.
Open source licenses must not discriminate against persons/groups and fields of endeavor. FTL allows license suspension and termination at any time, without notice, for any or no reason.
The FTL enables the following practices:
Copyright holders can change the license terms.
Copyright holders can re-license everything.
Copyright holders can target specific groups and individuals with discriminatory license terms.
Copyright holders can close source everything.
Copyright holders can forbid specific groups and individuals from using their work.
My main gripe here is that the video sells a source-available software with severe usage restrictions as open-source. These restrictions may sound reasonable to people outside of the open-source world, especially to people who use similar wording in their own terms of service, but nobody would touch your software with a ten foot pole with a software license like that.
For the web, there is Piped (github.com/teampiped/piped) and Invidious (invidious.io)
NOTE: Only Piped proxies your videos, which means invidious allows connections directly to Google to load the video.
Android
On Android, there’s NewPipe and LibreTube which are well known by now.
NOTE: LibreTube uses Piped to preserve privacy and (somewhat) anonymity when watching, thus you’ll need to select some piped instance with it.
iOS
On iOS, there’s the web frontends and Yattee (github.com/yattee/yattee).
NOTE: Yattee is on the AppStore, but without any sources/instances by default. Look for “instances” in the settings and add a Piped API URL, like https://pipedapi.kavin.rocks to watch videos from YouTube with Piped+Yattee.
Desktop
On Desktop, there is all the web clients as well as FreeTube (freetubeapp.io).
NOTE: FreeTube has an option to proxy everything or just the videos through Invidious to preserve privacy. It is recommended to enable this.
Would like to add to this that invidious on web can proxy your videos like Piped does but you have to enable it in settings first, not sure when they added it but they have that now
GrayJay just came out into the testing phase. It not only supportsYouTubee but also Nebula, Odysee, Twitch, PeerTube and a few others with more to come. Works great so far. grayjay.app. Built by Futo, a nonprofit company which Louis Rossmann works for. His video here
It combines YouTube and Twitch into one platform in a really intuitive way. Has its own comment system and rating system for videos. No ads obviously. It’s a whole fucking thing and it’s incredible.
Dude it’s basically nothing. Mp3s have been/could be considered small for like 10+ years. It’s much larger than I think it should be but it’s not like it’s an unreasonable space hog. File sizes have been inflating steadily for years as internet speeds increase worldwide
Also PS You are looking at the universal APK, which contains the binaries for all CPU structures. OBVIOUSLY the one that’s meant for your phone will be smaller. Mine was like 170 mb
So what’s the actual problem is? It’s just a front end to other platforms, they will not lock you in and than break the app. You can use it and if it goes bad you switch to other front end. I would understand the ‘not free’ objections if it was a tool you introduce into our workflow that would later be hard to replace. Here there’s no lock in. What do you care if it can be forked?
Some people (including me) care about software freedom. The ability to fork and redistribute software while continuing to publish any changes to the code is great.
Not using an open source license but a source available license is not something that I like to see, but it’s their right to do so. There’re enough open source YouTube frontends like NewPipe and LibreTube.
PS: What I really don’t like is them using the term open source. Open source is a well known term that’s well defined. Source available describes exactly what this app is without implying the freedoms associated with open source.
With some tools open source has many advantages, with others it’s mostly about transparency. IMHO this case is the latter case. You won’t gain much by being able to fork it. I don’t like it when people criticize projects only because those don’t align with their personal philosophy. Don’t use it if you don’t like it but there’s really no good reason for others to avoid it.
All people have their priorities. For most people on this community it’s probably being free of cost but for some freedom is also important.
I also don’t recommend against using software that’s not perfect according to my personal philosophy, but I think it’s important to point out any advantages and disadvanages so that anyone can decide for themselves. As I said, most people on here won’t care about the difference between source available and open source.
it’s mostly about transparency
Good point. If they’d use the term source available I’d have nothing to say. The reason I’m so pedantic is because increasingly businesses try to gain good publicity by calling their software open source while using Business Source License and similar, which are source available licenses.
I’ll definitly follow this project and look where it’s going.
Seconding SmartTube on android TV. No ads, can automatically skip all sorts of content in videos (spoken ads, self-promotion, introduction segments, etc. etc. etc.) I dread the day it stops working.
Yes, your info is stored locally so you dont need to login to the YouTube API, i use newpipe to watch the videos and read some comments, not to interact or upload videos since that’s impossible on newpipe
Freetube, Individious, Piped, CloudTube, PokeTube, Tubo, Yattee are the main ones I know of. If you want be automatically redirected to alternative youtube frontends installed Lib Redirect.
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