PSA To people watching YouTube with AdBlockers

You might have noticed that even on Firefox (depending on your lists) YouTube may detect uBlock Origin on Firefox now

There’s already a workaround (found, again, here), but I figured I would use this opportunity to tell people that projects like Piped and Invidious exist, which both allow you to watch YouTube without loading their ads, with improved Privacy and (in the case of Piped) even Geoblocking-Circumvention and SponsorBlock out of the box.

They’re both great tools, and using something like LibRedirect you can even automatically go to Piped or Invidious when clicking/opening a YouTube link (and more).

Both don’t load ads, but unless changed in the settings Individous may still make connections to Google/YouTube to load the video(s) themselves.

Bit of a shameless plug for these projects, but I figured this is a really good time to show these projects as I often see people asking what they are in threads on here

flop_leash_973,

In my opinion anything that is just a frontend for Youtube is just a bandaid, and if they get to much attention Google will make using them increasingly untenable.

The real answer is moving to competing platforms outside of Googles control.

rush,

Currently that is quite hard, because despite YouTube being an utterly insane business model it has prevailed so far.

I would love for an alternative, I personally really like PeerTube and the Fediverse in general, but mass adoption ain’t there yet :(

newIdentity,

That’s not possible though. There simply is no content on other platforms and they generally aren’t as good as YouTube and probably never will be.

The only platform I could see to rival YouTube in the future is Twitch

spader312,

Nebula at least for educational content

clb92,

Nebula has about 10.000 videos, from only select creators. Youtube has around 1 billion videos, and everyone can upload. Nebula is not actually a Youtube alternative unless you’re in one of two specific target audiences:

  1. Already established educational content creator looking for alternative platform
  2. Person watching educational video content and not much else

I don’t see Nebula opening up their site to everyone and letting anyone upload content any time soon, and for that reason I don’t see them as a Youtube competitor at all. They’ve found their niche with curated quality over quantity.

Fun fact: The difference between 10.000 and 1 billion is… around 1 billion.

Double_A,
@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I wouldn’t really mind a smaller pool of videos, if it’s guaranteed to have a standard of quality.

I’d even pay for YouTube if they offered such a service, where they curate their creators. E.g. I sometimes like to watch repair channels where someone tinkers with something. I have a handful of channels that I like for that… but what if there are many more that I just can’t find?

AProfessional,

YouTube is insanely large in size and scope but…

The key is just a platform that actually pays creators.

Nebula is one I expect to succeed for its niche.

Something like Floatplane with direct subscriptions is an option too.

newIdentity,

Yeah haven’t thought of that, but they aren’t really YouTube alternatives. You don’t use them instead of YouTube, but as an addition.

euphoric_cat,
@euphoric_cat@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

there is odysee and peertube that I know are direct alternatives, the only thing is every competitor has the same problem of becoming an alt right echo chamber

newIdentity,

They aren’t as good as YouTube though and that’s the problem. YouTube isn’t great. It’s just the best platform like this that we have.

euphoric_cat,
@euphoric_cat@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

youtube… “good?”…??? odysee is actually pretty good besides the right wing stuff

newIdentity,

You’ve never uploaded a video to YouTube have you? Their creator tools are actually incredible and their stats are a good way to tune their videos. Of course you shouldn’t completely rely on them.

Also it isn’t just the content. I rather use YouTube over Odysse, even if it’s the same content. It’s such a better experience, especially on mobile. Odysee is on the level YouTube was 10 years ago.

Also making a free video streaming site isn’t really profitable. I don’t know if YouTube still isn’t profitable, but I’ve read reports from 2015 that it still wasn’t profitable.

It makes sense that they now try to push things that make them money. They wouldn’t push ads so hard if they weren’t desperate.

euphoric_cat,
@euphoric_cat@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

never cared about any of it, only talking about the viewing experience anyway

newIdentity,

But most people aren’t you.

euphoric_cat,
@euphoric_cat@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

most people aren’t uploading videos and even using those special tools, most people are watching

newIdentity,

Most people want a great discovering experience and viewing experience and a good looking and smooth UI.

Odysee feels laggy as hell.

HerrLewakaas,

Lemmy users are just delusional in that regard. You can’t just switch away from Google, its not the tech that makes in great, its the content. It’s the same with messengers, if your friends arent there how useful is that foss messenger really?

Thankfully the only creator I regularly watch that does non-educational videos uploads them on their own website. For everything else nebula actually is an alternative, although I’m not subscribed to it at the moment

sphere_au,

The alternative exists, but it costs money. Most big YouTuber accounts (at least the ones I’m subscribed to) post on either Nebula, Patreon or some platform like that. It would cost quite a lot to subscribe to them all, but still less than YouTube premium in my country. So in the worst case scenario where YouTube really blocks all ad free interfaces except paid use, that’s my answer. I don’t like it as I think a lot of the content is overpriced for what it is, but it’s better than having $$$ swallowed up by some mega corporation that is just interested in screwing authors and viewers over as much as possible.

Kevnyon,
@Kevnyon@lemmy.world avatar

It’s the same with messengers, if your friends arent there how useful is that foss messenger really?

This is so difficult. How many people would be willing to switch to Signal or Wickr for one friend? And then what if none of their friends don’t want to switch? And then the friends of those people, etc. Trying to switch workgroups, family, friends and all of their friends as well is a lost cause, it would never happen.

octochamp,

that’s why what we really need is guaranteed service interoperability!

pca.st/…/d79ca535-186c-4ee0-b658-165a148dcca5

Kase,

Maybe it’s unlikely for this to happen, but I wonder if it’d be possible for yt to go down like reddit did. Yt makes a series of bad decisions, so a lot of people move from there to similar platforms. The other services don’t have much content right now, but from what I here, neither did Lemmy before the “exodus.”

I get that reddit and youtube are very different types of platforms and that the whole reddit thing happened because of pretty specific circumstances, but idk, maybe something vaguely similar could happen.

Double_A,
@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

First reddit didn’t go down, despite having an user base which had some kind of a brain.

While YouTube has everyone as users. Even like the most normie, boomer, zoomer users that think YouTube is the internet. No way they are going to switch for ideological reasons, unless the app just stops working.

reinar,
@reinar@distress.digital avatar

Yt makes a series of bad decisions

It’s not like it’s making any bad decisions right now. Pretty calculated, I’d say - they feel safe market-wise, so they can increase amount of ads/fight ad-blockers/push people to buy subscription.

Kase,

Oh yeah I don’t disagree. The wording was unclear, but I meant that more in the future/hypothetical tense. It just seems like that’s what all the big social media sites have been doing lately, so I was assuming that yt’s quality will take a nosedive sooner or later, but I guess it’s unfair (and hopefully wrong) to assume that. Thx for the correction

reinar,
@reinar@distress.digital avatar

I get where you are coming from, however it’s important to remember that big players are not equal - they have really, really different people in the leadership. Elmo is just a too-big-to-fall clown with insane ego, spez is a manchild who took VC money like there’s no tomorrow and in the end had no idea how to provide ROI, but youtube is ran by very competent people with solid track record and deep pockets.

Maybe they are not too innovative business-wise recently… but they are good at catching up (except live streaming - screen layout is dogshit and nobody wants to get hyped in their tiny chatbox from a fucking google account with family photo as an avatar) and at leveraging what they already have, which is quite a lot, tbh.

SoBoredAtWork,

“go down like Reddit did” … But did Reddit “go down”? It definitely lost users and content quality dropped, but still, everyone I talk to (that isn’t a total nerd like us lemmings) still uses Reddit and has no idea what Lemmy is.

UNWILLING_PARTICIPANT,

I was going to try and contradict you, but I guess most of the people I know well IRL are also total nerds

SoBoredAtWork,

Yeah. I introduced my wife to Reddit (she knew of it but didn’t use it until I kinda showed her how great it is (was)). Now her family and friends use it too. They all heard about the drama but didn’t seem to care or understand and they all still use Reddit.

fosstulate,
@fosstulate@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

You should refer her to Cory Doctorow’s writing, namely his concept of enshittification. He’s one of the most effective political communicators alive today. If anyone can get her to understand the import of the issues surrounding Reddit’s Simple Jack routine, it’s him.

SoBoredAtWork,

I know the term enshitification, so maybe I’ve already read his stuff. I’m going to check it out more. Thanks!

Kase,

Y’know, good point. I haven’t actually been on reddit since the blackout, so I probably shouldn’t be confidently basing any theories on just what I’ve heard about now-reddit from other people, lol. Thanks for the correction.

I guess my idea of how much reddit “fell” and how much Lemmy/Mastodon grew is a bit inflated, probably because I spend all my internet time here now.

SoBoredAtWork,

(copy/pasted my response to another comment)

Yeah. I introduced my wife to Reddit (she knew of it but didn’t use it until I kinda showed her how great it is (was)). Now her family and friends use it too. They all heard about the drama but didn’t seem to care or understand and they all still use Reddit.

DeathsEmbrace,

I use noscript don’t have this problem.

rush,

well duh, the detection uses JavaScript.

DeathsEmbrace,

I don’t get it you guys are all about privacy and this or adblockers but you still willingly allow Javascript?

rush,

please read up on threat models. If you need that amount of privacy/security that’s fine, but many don’t.

yum13241,

Because LITERALLY EVERY WEBSITE THAT HAS A WORKING BUTTON THAT UPDATES ITSELF requires JavaScript.

Omega_Haxors,

Everyone should use script blockers. Flat out only way to reliably block the boatloads of malicious scripts that litters the internet.

iminahurry,

Do any modern websites run with no script? I figured with most websites based in JS frameworks like react and Vue, hardly anything would work with noscript

TalkingCat,

You enable the minimum necesary for the website to do what you need.

Rolive,

Good idea. I will soon as well.

dangblingus,

Using FF with UBO, absolutely no problems. “May detect”? I’m pretty sure they either can or can’t. They’re not going to detect some FF with UBO and not others. The only thing that may affect whether or not you’re detected is if you’re using a VPN or other encryption.

rush,

uBlock Origin’s default lists with both Firefox and uBO being on their latest is currently undetected. By that I mean they’ve already released fixes.

rush,

They will actually, as they’re looking for specific things to be blocked/altered using JavaScript that is easily affected by enabling certain custom lists. In case you don’t believe me, you can look on uBO’s official statement regarding this.

turbowafflz,

Well it detects it for me and I am neither using a VPN nor any additional encryption. I’m guessing it’s just their normal thing of slowly rolling out changes instead of to every user at once.

filefly,

Congrats, you’ve managed to make a post in which nothing makes sense

deweydecibel, (edited )

I will gladly accept my usual downvotes to remind people Sponsorblock is only hurting the content creators, not Google, and given there’s absolutely no threat of malware or tracking from a sponsored in-video ad, you have no need for it besides entitlement and a disrespect for the people that are already getting fucked over by Google in the first place.

librecat,

I don’t know about you, but when I watch a video I’m not there to watch an ad.

Also don’t forget about the bad companies and scams (example: Established Titles).

macaroni1556,

Not being a youtuber I don’t know, but do sponsors even know that you’re using sponsorblock? How could they tell?

Morgikan,
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

I don’t think they can really. I don’t work in that stuff, but skipping isn’t included in YT analytics from what I’ve read. I would bet they rely on something like average view percentage to just make assumptions. For example, if a content creator places the sponsor bit in the first 10% of the video, and average view percentage for that video is 80%, then it is assumed the sponsor bit was watched. I wouldn’t be surprised if sponsors require some form of transparency in analytic reporting for content creators to get paid.

I also would figure that YouTube, as it has no bearing on their revenue, is probably not going to add in analytic features for Skip just for the sake of some third party.

SnipingNinja,

Pretty sure you can see the parts people see more on average (otherwise I assume the viewer interest graph on the track bar wouldn’t be a thing)

rush,

I use sponsorblock not for sponsors, but for things like non-music parts of MVs or interaction reminders tbh

xtremeownage,

Sorry… watching a sponsored video for world of tanks for the 10th time, or simply safe, or whatever other garbage is there isn’t going to make me want to purchase it.

I value my time… If I didn’t use sponsor block, I’m still going to skip right past it… This, just does it for me.

DrVerlocher,

And I still don’t give a damn! There are two scenarios in case of sponsors.

  1. The creator already got paid for the ad before the video. or
  2. The creator is payed by percentage of their affiliate link.

It doesn’t matter if I skip for number one, obviously. Number two could be an argument. But 99% of those sponsors are borderline scams anyway, so I really don’t care, because I will never buy something off a sponsorship like that. Not NordVPN (which still tracks you btw…), nor Raid, nor any other crap.

Additionally, SponsorBlock also gets rid of those annoying reminders to “like and subscribe” barely a second into the video, and other such annoyances like fillers or those dumb spoilers that show the best parts of the video right at the start.

SponsorBlock isn’t the issue. It is a symptom of Googles unfathomable greed and the creators/consumers collective Stockholm Syndrome. I value my time more, than hearing the same five sentences about World of Tanks, Raid or any other braindead “game” repeated 500 times.

The only sponsors I don’t skip are the ones from InternetHistorian. He at least puts effort in and makes it fun to watch.

mayo,
@mayo@lemmy.world avatar

Before I found sponsor block I would just lazily skip large sections of videos. The app is just more convenient.

seyrine,

Agreed. If any content creator makes an effort in their ad spots (Jay Foreman, How to Drink, and the aforementioned Internet Historian) then that automatically gets whitelisted on sponsorblock.

And often the ads for stuff like Raid or similar stuff can be jarring, with the audio louder than the actual video or beginning with some random sound that “captures your attention”. Thank goodness for sponsorblock.

CileTheSane,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

YouTube: makes ads more and more intrusive.

People: block annoying intrusive ads.

This guy: “YoU’rE jUsT hUrTiNg ThE cReAtOr!”

Companies will keep making ads worse and worse until people stop putting up with it. I’m not going to put up with their bullshit so that the content creator can get 0.0001 cents from my view. If you want to support the creator that’s what Patreon is for.

Auli,

I mean people don’t have to watch Youtube. Also all this shit about ads and then blocking them but still watching Youtube does nothing. People actually not using the platform might make a difference.

HonorIsDead,

Sponsor block says it’s skipped about 18hrs since I started using it. No way I’m going to stop using it when I have a choice.

hottari,

You are entitled to your own opinion but it’s because of Google’s content monetization strategies that user-generated videos now include native content ads. Content creators are following the money. I don’t have to agree with them, Google or your nonsense opinion.

Psythik,

SponsorBlock is useful for more than just skipping sponsored segments, you know.

I use it mostly to remove the “hey guys” and “like and subscribe” bullshit that is in literally every. single. video. It’s irritating and I’m tired of hearing it.

Also, the “skip to highlight” is useful for those of us with ADHD. It keeps the less interesting videos interesting. Not everything needs a 20 minute intro before they get to the subject of the video.

Rukmer,

It’s good to keep in mind, but I mean do you sit there through 1-3 minute ads not skipping forward? I don’t watch much television, I mostly watch YouTube. So I watch a lot of it. What good is watching an ad going to do if I’m never going to buy anything from them? Once or twice, I’ve needed or wanted a product or service I thought might be promoted on YouTube, I went and looked for a creator to get a link/code from. But I think I did that two times in the past 9 years of being an avid YouTube watcher, and those times I was not buying the product due to ads, just thought I’d support a creator since I was going to make a purchase. I don’t have sponsor block (I use NewPipe and I don’t feel like learning a new app), but I just skip all the ads by tapping the skip button a bunch. They’re often 2 full minutes.

rbits,

I’m going to skip the sponsor anyway, SponsorBlock just makes it way easier. I don’t have it on auto skip though, because 1: Sometimes they mark segments as sponsored that still have interesting stuff, and sometimes they do good sponsor segments, and 2: Maybe sometimes I’ll be willing to watch it. For example, I always watch the end segment of Jet Lag.

So it ends up being not very different from skipping the sponsor. And besides, I never bought/used anything from a sponsor segment before SponsorBlock.

randint,
@randint@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz avatar

Hello there fellow Jet Lag enjoyer.

Thorny_Insight,

When the sponsor is baked into the video itself, there’s no way for the advertiser to know how many of the people who watched the video, skipped past the sponsor. The only way they know wether their ads are working or not, is by seeing how many people used the discount code from said channel. If you’re the kind of person going thru the effort to install additional software on top of adblocker to get rid of this sponsored content aswell, I think it’s quite safe to assume you weren’t going to buy their product anyways.

Also if you’re still feeling bad about it, just donate few bucks directly to the content creator. That’s way more than they’re ever going to profit from you watching ads anyways.

yuunikki,

deleted_by_author

    •
    grumpyrico,

    Watching Videos without adds and keeping your data private is the point.

    Glad i can help

    yuunikki,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    grumpyrico,

    Just get premium then … Sorry to tell ya

    yuunikki,

    As if I’d pay for YouTube

    grumpyrico,

    You’re funny

    rush,

    me when I loose my downloads — locally saved downloads from YouTube — after 3 days of inactivity

    rush,

    No, but subscriptions can be imported manually.

    The point is to not load tracking tech YouTube ships with as well as staying relatively anonymous.

    worsedoughnut,
    @worsedoughnut@lemdro.id avatar

    I’m all for this post, but I feel like someone needs to ask: What features from Youtube am I losing out on by using these alternate front-ends? (instead of just continuing the cat-and-mouse game between uBlock Origin and Google while at leat preserving the same features and UI that we’re already very mu ch comfortable with)

    rush, (edited )

    You lose:

    • Your existing YouTube account, which can only be manually imported (subscriptions)
    • Account-Based/Algorithmic Homescreen recommendations
    • Some higher resolutions (e.g 4K) (very dependant on instance, I don’t have a list of instances with their max resolutions)
    • The UI will be somewhat different, but not necessarily hard to navigate
    • probably more random stuff idk
    BrioxorMorbide,

    Unless people mass-migrate away from Chrome-based browsers (basically everything expect Firefox) Google will at one point enable their Web Environment Integrity thing, force all other browsers to enable it too because otherwise a lot of websites will stop working in them, and no alternative frontend will have access to the video streams anymore.

    sphere_au,

    Web environment integrity is a non-starter because it offers avenues for bad actors to enforce “integrity” that forces malware to be loaded as well as legitimate page elements. However, that doesn’t mean Google won’t keep trying to stop ad blockers, alternative interfaces etc in the future.

    spark947,

    Perhaps, but eventually there will probably ba a certificate authority alternative to Google. But I agree, we need regulation to determine to ensure that programs calling themselves web browsers will have to adhere to standards, and not be based on features that make certain websites work only on their browser. I think the backlash reaction to implementing “integrity” as a standard was really healthy. But there is still a lot of action to take on the regulatory front.

    BrioxorMorbide,

    eventually there will probably ba a certificate authority alternative to Google

    Which won’t matter (for access from third-party apps), because to be accepted by websites they need to prove their trustworthiness, so you can’t just use a different one to circumvent it.

    spark947,

    It can be very similar to the TLS scheme we use today, where certificates are signed by regulated CA’s. The only difference is that currently there is no regulation to ensure that Google will build chrimium to trust other authorities for browser integrity other than itself. That is definitely a major concern. Fortunately, I don’t think that it is long term viable. First, Microsoft, Mozilla and Apple would be extremely unhappy with this scheme. That’s right off the bat. So there will definitely be resistance on that front because eventually it would do something like break youtube compatibility with Firefox.

    Now, I do think that it is plausible that these organizations could come to a agreement that is still ultimately bad for web browsers. There fore, this should be considered by government regulators as something to pay attention to. I’m not too pessimistic about them doing this. There us political will to preserve the open internet, especially in the EU. It looks like the US is also set to re-adopt net neutrality rules. So, im just not as pessimistic about it.

    The only issue is that in the short-term, alot of these services that are free are going to degrade. This is what we are seeing with youtube. That is too bad, but I am hopeful and optimistic that it will lead to a more open internet. The fact that we are having this conversation on a decentralized social network is a positive sign.

    BrioxorMorbide,

    It still doesn’t matter. A website can choose which attestors to trust (if they had to trust all of them the whole thing would be useless), so Youtube can just deny access to the video streams to anything that isn’t a trusted browser environment, and anything third party like Invidious, Piped, Newpipe, Freetube… won’t be able to work anymore.

    spark947,

    Well yeah. But those clients could ultimately just say they are firefox if Mozilla is open enough, which they tend to be. It ends when Google decides that stuff like YouTube should only work on chrome. That would be bad, and I think regulators would treat it as bad, especially the EU.

    Just to be clear, I don’t think forcing this standard down everyone’s throats for naked commercial reasons is a good idea either.

    BrioxorMorbide,

    IIRC the proposal includes some crypto-handshake verification to make sure the attestor is who it claims to be, so no, apps can’t just fake it. Or, if some of those secret keys leak and apps use it, sites won’t accept it anymore.

    spark947,

    It’s a question of trust. Google will select the certificates they trust for the services they provide, and the entities that own those certificates will decide what do to with them. If they trust a certificate from Mozilla, and Mozilla agrees to make that certificate open to everyone for instance, than Google’s only choice is to stop trusting it. But if Mozilla decides that is the certificate Firefox will use, than Google has to choose kicking off Firefox as well as other third party apps. Same with Microsoft and Apple, but I think Mozilla is more likely to oppose this kind of standard rather than try to reach some kind of agreement with Google.

    The other way that this could play out every browser dev makes some kind of arrangement. Very unstable when we are talking about competitors.

    At the end of the day, it requires a level of co-operation with the browser developers and internet service providers that I don’t think a lot of people will go for, for various reasons. Especially not regulators. I guess I am just more optimistic about the open internet.

    jlow,

    Is Libredirect working good for you? Every few month I turn it on for a couple of services (YT, Wikipedia, Reddit, Github, Twitchan) and turn it off after a few days because I can’t be bothered trying to find instances that work, it’s just a constant pain for me.

    rush,

    It works well, services not working is more about websites trying to block these tools, and I try to be understanding of the issues.

    jlow,

    Yeah, fair enough.

    p000l,

    mpv and yt-dl user reporting in. What ads are we talking about?

    Churbleyimyam,

    What is your process for watching a video? For me to do it like this I currently have to copy the link, open a terminal, download the video with yt-dlp, navigate to the file, open it and then watch it. And then usually delete it. I’m curious if there is a faster or simpler way…

    gkpy,

    mpv has an integration with ytdl (and forks), which should let you just open the url and stream it directly

    akrot,

    Isn’t the speed limited though? Last time I checked it buffered for so long, the watching experience was not continuous.

    bort,

    yt-dl has a speedlimit. yt-dlp has not.

    sounddrill,

    Even vlc does this iirc

    Churbleyimyam,

    I got it working with yt-dlp. I had to reinstall mpv as a flatpak from flathub; it wouldn’t work with a package install from my repo or a flatpak from fedora. I think at least as of yesterday it needed to be a very up-to-date release. Posting in case this helps someone else.

    p000l,

    There are many browser extensions to choose from.

    brax,

    Your link to “Piped” doesn’t work for me on mobile. I think you accidentally put some asterisks at the start of it.

    rush,

    weird, my formatting might be messed up

    Try again in a bit, I’ve tried to fix it :)

    brax,

    Yeah, it’s good now 👍

    code,
    @code@lemmy.world avatar

    How long until Google says “fuck it” and outright starts banning adblock users? Considering how deep a lot of people are into the Google ecosystem, this is potentially devastating. Imagine losing access to you email, photos, etc., with no way to appeal. Good luck if you want to actually speak to anyone human at Google.

    ilikekeyboards,

    Losing access to your banks. Banks in England send you an email link to confirm your access.

    shneancy,

    in case of a bank Im sure you can just walk to a physical office and get your account linked to another email

    things will get hard with things like steam

    ilikekeyboards,

    În uk there’s many online only banks

    mister_newbie,

    I migrated my Steam library off Gmail last month. You’re allowed to change email addresses.

    Usul_00_,

    Set u a forward from the Gmail address to the new one, and maintain the account at least minimally. As a reference, I have an account created at least 14 years ago still forwarding email. Should be enough time to change the profiles.

    BaardFigur,

    I’m already in the process of decoupling from gmail for this exact reason.

    I’ve decoupled the most important things, but there’s just so much stuff that is still using my gmail.

    JasSmith,

    It took me a couple of years to migrate away from Gmail but it was completely worth it. People lose their Google accounts for any and no reason at all. People don’t realise how many important accounts would be lost without access to their email. Now, with my own domain, I can move hosts at any moment.

    whereBeWaldo,

    Any email services you recommend?

    JasSmith,

    Fastmail and Proton. Don’t shoot me but iCloud is actually a good option if you’re already in the Apple ecosystem. Personalised domains are included if you’re paying for any iCloud tier, even the very cheap one. That will support personal email domains for the whole family. For families I think it’s the best value. iCloud also includes other things like cloud storage/backup, “hide my email,” and private relay.

    JasSmith,

    I don’t think they’d ever ban users, but this game of cat and mouse will continue forever. They’ll make the service worse and worse, while alternatives like Rumble and Odysee will get more and more users.

    That said, back up all your Google data, and migrate to your own email domain. Millions of people all over the world lose access to their Google accounts each year for any and no reason at all. All it takes is a capricious algorithm. They don’t have any customer support at all.

    mister_newbie,

    I had this exact thought. I’ve since bought a domain name, moved my email over to tutanota, did a takeout request, and installed DeGooglified LineageOS on my phone. I went nuclear. Fuck Google - remember when their motto was “Don’t be evil” ? Ha!

    darkkite,

    unlikely especially if they’re paying for other services. they’ll most likely prevent playback

    code,
    @code@lemmy.world avatar

    There’s plenty of stories online like this one. It’s all automated and if it decides you’re bad, you’re out. No questions asked, no appeals.

    Google search it up and you’ll find many more.

    MapleEngineer,
    @MapleEngineer@lemmy.ca avatar

    Has Google considered making their advertising engine better? Allow us to skip every ad. Allow us to block all those fucking cryptocurrency scam ads. Forcing me to watch an ad for a company that I’m not interested in guarantees that I will hate that company and never buy their product even if I need it. I will go out of my way to buy something from a company that hasn’t tried to ram their advertisements down my throat. If ads weren’t so fucking terrible I might agree to watch them.

    ours,

    Or in my country: most ads are in only one of the main official languages but not the one in my region so it’s wasteful for them.

    Krudler,

    Thank you, this is an exact point I was making earlier today in a different conversation.

    Google has two decades of information about me. Just as one random example, I’m hooked into their mapping app so they know everywhere I go and on what schedule, and can infer what I buy.

    Not once in 20 years has Google advertised something to me that is in line with my interests and needs. Google knows I go to the cigar store every Monday to replenish my supply, and they’ve never suggested to me a product or service that can save me time, money, or make it more convenient.

    Google’s ad system seems to shove garbage products in my face like black label shit from China (raycon, manscaped, etc) and products/companies that do not operate in my region.

    How hard is it to know everything about a person, and still fail to advertise one single thing that is useful to them over decades??!

    datavoid,

    While you’re right that Google isn’t very good at targeting ads, I don’t think more accurate ads is what we want.

    Krudler,

    It’s what I want.

    I worked for years in tech, and adjacent to marketers and sales people.

    I know from direct experience that people want relevant advertisements for things that will solve a problem in their lives.

    Going back to my example, I would very much appreciate an advertisement for a cigar store that will either give me a discount, introduce a new product to me, or deliver my product on my schedule.

    I also make and buy mechanical toys, and I’ve had an interest in them for decades. I would really appreciate an ad that highlights a new collection of mechanical puzzles.

    But instead I get badgered by Google ads for things that are nuisances and of no relevance to my life.

    Instead of sharpening service for the professional barber clippers I own, because Google knows I cut my own hair, I get advertisements for Manscaped.

    I steadfastly maintain there is an opportunity to advertise to people in a helpful way, but Google doesn’t do it.

    jack,

    Piped.video and LibreTube never work for me, very unreliable.

    smollittlefrog,

    In LibreTube, you can go to

    
<span style="color:#323232;">Settings > Instance > Disable Piped proxy
</span>

    I only ever had issues with the piped proxy, not with the app itself.

    aradgus,

    for piped i just use an other host from that list and it works totaly fine github.com/TeamPiped/Piped/wiki/Instances

    rush,

    Piped.video is the official instance, but there’s more

    piped.adminforge.de and piped.smnz.de have relatively high uptime and quick fixes in my experience.

    jack,

    Thanks for the hint, much better

    CubbyTustard, (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    elltee,
    1. Choose instance: github.com/TeamPiped/Piped/wiki/Instances
    2. Click instance link
    3. watch videos
    4. ?
    5. profit

    You can create account on a per instance basis.

    Cheers

    over_clox,

    I can’t comment on how Piped works, but I can tell you how it doesn’t work. Piped does not access or utilize your Google account in any way. 👍

    This comment was posted from a device that’s never been logged into any Google account in the first place.

    Tanya,

    What email account provider do you use? Would be interested to get free of Google. .

    shish_mish,
    @shish_mish@lemmy.world avatar

    Proton mail is excellent and comes with a decent VPN that is free for personal use.

    SimplePhysics,

    If you want to get away from just Google, you can try iCloud or whatever Microsoft calls their Mail product now. If you want to get away with big tech run products, I recommend Proton. Of course you can always go full tinfoil hat and host your own email server with your own domain, but that will set you back at least 7 bucks a year, even if you for the cheapest register (Cloudflare, they don’t add their own fees at all, so you can’t really go lower).

    over_clox,

    Unfortunately I still use Google, just not on this particular phone or my tablet. I’m still in the process of gradually de-Googling myself.

    I’ve heard Proton is good though, it’s on my radar in the future… proton.me

    Also, not for daily use, more as a throwaway email for sites that have no business asking your email… www.dispostable.com

    Tanya,

    Thank you, I will look into it!

    rush,

    It doesn’t use the APIs at all, which is also why Google can’t Cease & Desist them for not complying with API terms

    ChiefSinner,

    Just always browse incognito/private. I haven’t gotten hit yet. I strive for a leave no cookies behind type browser.

    Trail,

    That’s a setting in Firefox.

    rush,

    Librewolf is Firefox configured with many privacy-related settings out of the box, uBlock Origin and it clears all data on exit by default.

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