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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by mastermind@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world
Hello, Lemmy People's

If you're as addicted to YouTube as I am, you'll understand the countless hours we've all spent on the platform. Nowadays, YouTube has transformed into something quite different, with features that serve the mighty Google but may not be exactly what we're looking for. I've got just the thing for you - YouTube Tools/Extension!!

Android:

  1. ReVanced - It's provides additional features and customization options via patches. (There are many tutorials available for building an custom APK)

  2. ReVanced Extended - It's the same as OG ReVanced, but it provides additional extra patches.

  3. NewPipe - The lightweight YouTube experience for Android

  4. NewPipe Extended - A fork of NewPipe with SponsorBlock and Return YouTube Dislike functionality.

iOS:

  1. uYou+ - uYou+ is a modified version of uYou with additional features and mainly made for non jailbroken users!

  2. uYou+ Extra - It's the same as uYou+, but it provides additional extra features.

  3. YouTube Reborn - It's LillieH1000’s YouTube Reborn but, this fork does some improvements.

  4. YouTube Reborn Plus - LillieH1000’s YouTube Reborn but with even more features!

Desktop/PC:

  1. FreeTube - FreeTube is a YouTube client for Windows, Mac, and Linux built around using YouTube more privately.

TV:

  1. SmartTube - SmartTube - an advanced player for set-top boxes and tv running Android OS

YT Frontend:

  1. Invidious - Invidious is an open source alternative front-end to YouTube.

  2. Piped Video - An open-source alternative frontend for YouTube which is efficient by design.

  3. Libretube - An alternative frontend for YouTube, for Android.

This is a highly popular YouTube frontend, but there's even more to discover here LibRedirect also it's a web extension that redirects YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and other websites to alternative privacy friendly frontends.

Extensions:

  1. uBlock Origin - Free, open-source ad content blocker.

Currently, there's an annoying popup problem, but don't worry, you can resolve it with these simple steps.[1], [2], also checkout uBlock subreddit.

  1. Return YouTube Dislike -It's an open-source extension that returns the YouTube dislike count.

  2. SponsorBlock - Easily skip YouTube video sponsors. When you visit a YouTube video, the extension will check the database for reported sponsors and automatically skip known sponsors. You can also report sponsors in videos.

  3. Enhancer for YouTube - Take control of YouTube and boost your user experience! Chrome Web Store | Edge Add-ons

  4. BlockTube - It allows you to block specific channels and videos that you don't wish to see or get recommended with. Chrome Web Store | Firefox Add-ons

  5. DeArrow - DeArrow is an open source browser extension for crowdsourcing better titles and thumbnails on YouTube. The goal is to make titles accurate and reduce sensationalism. No more arrows, ridiculous faces, and no more clickbait.

  6. Unhook - Hide YouTube related videos, comments, shorts tab, suggestions wall, homepage recommendations, trending, and other distractions.

  7. RemoveAdblockThing - Removes The "Ad blocker are not allowed on Youtube"

Extra:

  1. PocketTube - Youtube Subscription Manager, The best way to group your subscriptions.

  2. YouT-ube - Add a - after the t in youtube, it's redirect to embed video type format to bypass YouTube's non-skippable ads.

  3. Video Bypass - Watch YouTube videos locally by clicking a button.

Besides these, there are plenty more tools/extensions and user scripts on Greasy Fork and Tampermonkey. If you discover any new and useful ones, feel free to drop a comment.

Thanks for reading.

Edit1: Added TV section.

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[-] Qkall@lemmy.ml 39 points 1 year ago
[-] danque@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Honestly smarttube is great. Wish I would've installed it earlier. You can connect with your Google account to see your history and playlists as well.

[-] Supercharger@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

Is there any risk to your Google account if you connect it from an unofficial app like this? Seeing my YouTube history is great and all, but getting my gmail account banned would be bad, to put it mildly...

[-] danque@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Used it for the last 6 months logged In. No problems so far I can see. But if you are unsure you can make a new account, and use a subscription manager to copy them over. That's is the best way.

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[-] Jocker@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

SmartTube is faaaaaaar better than YT official app for AndroidTV

[-] mastermind@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Yes, i forgot to add this into post! Now added

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[-] Aatube@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago

uYou+ is no longer maintained, though uYou+ Extra is.

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 year ago
[-] mastermind@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago
[-] deluxeparrot@feddit.uk 13 points 1 year ago

CastSponsorSkip - SponsorBlock for Google Cast devices. Runs on your local network and skips sponsored sections using the SponsorBlock api.

[-] Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago

YouTube changes their detection scripts twice a day

This turns out to be the reason I kept getting the notification despite all my efforts to evade it. You just need to keep updating it as explained there. Also learned, that I don't need to update every list, just the quick fixes part.

[-] Paradox 8 points 1 year ago

https://github.com/dmunozv04/iSponsorBlockTV

Docker container that you run on a computer on your network, such as an RPi, and add your YouTube playing TVs and Chromecasts and consoles and such. It watches what you're playing and provides sponsorblock skipping for them automatically

If you're using Linux and have podman v4.4 or higher installed, you can use this container file to load it as a systemd service:

[Unit]
Description="Sponsorblock for networked youtube clients"
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

[Service]
Restart=always
TimeoutStartSec=900

[Container]
Image=ghcr.io/dmunozv04/isponsorblocktv:latest
Volume=/etc/containers/config/sponsorblock:/app/data

You'll need to generate the config file by hand the first time, follow the instructions in the GitHub wiki above

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[-] zbb@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

For Roku, there's the Invidious frontend Playlet.

[-] ryan_@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I use the iOS app Yattee to stream content from invidious instances and it works great

[-] ugmug@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

I'd recommend the Vinegar Safari plugin on iOS. It replaces the YT video player with a basic HTML video player (in Safari), which prevents ads.

[-] EqMinMax@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago
[-] Moneo@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

For anyone that has an LG smart tv: https://github.com/webosbrew/dev-manager-desktop

You can install an ad free yt app with this tool. Apparently there are issues where you need to re-enable dev mode every 24 hours, but I have not had any issues.

[-] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago

It'll take a google search to find it, but there is a linux shell script you can run on a computer on the same network as the TV to automatically renew dev mode if you need that.

[-] Moneo@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah I was planning on using that but somehow the tool enabled dev mode for an extremely long time.

[-] Marmanvii@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

You can also use IFTTT to update it automatically, the tool itself tells you how to do it

[-] WYLD_STALLYNS@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 year ago

Not sure if anyone has mentioned Vinegar on the iOS AppStore.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/

[-] Mirodir@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 year ago

BlockTube

By now it allows to block (remove) other things: Auto-generated playlists, Explore page, Shorts, Movies and a few other things.

I mostly use it to block content about stuff I don't want to get spoiled on. It supports regex so it's fairly easy for me to very rarely see anything that would diminish my experience from a specific piece of media (assuming I don't forget to do it in the first place...).

Just want to add that Enhancer for YouTube is also available for Firefox.

[-] Vaeril@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago
[-] Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I too used it for few years almost, but I disabled it recently and to be honest, I think I'll prefer it with thumbnails. While some of them are quite clickbaity, they're still generally pretty descriptive. DeArrow would give the best of both worlds though.

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[-] bluetardis@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

iOS also has Vinegar, an extension for Safari that is on the App Store. It will also work with Safari on M1/m2 Macs.

[-] Snapz@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

This is probably a no.... But does anyone have any solution for using the YouTube on roku TVs with some of these YouTube enhancements in place?

[-] mzesumzira@leminal.space 2 points 1 year ago

Since it wasn't a direct answer maybe you missed this comment

[-] Skimmer@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 year ago
[-] Baku@aussie.zone 4 points 1 year ago

There's also TubeArchivist which is sort of like a self hosted YouTube. It can pull videos automatically from channels you subscribe to and download them through yt-dlp and has some organisational capabilities too

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[-] retiolus@lemmy.cat 4 points 1 year ago

For me the best option on Android is LibreTube with a nice-working piped instance!

[-] HughJanus@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago
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[-] nucleative@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I have some mixed feelings about doing this for some creators. Blocking sponsors and all the ads from some creators takes more from creators than it does from Google, right? Isn't it the potential monetization that drives many YouTubers to keep creating content? And won't some give up with no financial support?

Are some of you guys blocking all the ads but subscribing to their Patreon?

[-] micka190@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

To quote Adam Millard (not verbatim):

If you've paid me $5 on my Patreon, I give you permission to block all ads on my channel, since you've already done more than anyone watching ads.

Ad revenue is almost nothing unless you have a massive channel, and if you have a massive channel you're already making sponsorship deals. As far as I know, most sponsors only care about total view count on the video. SponsorBlock isn't as high-profile as ad blockers (yet).

[-] ichbinjasokreativ@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I used to agree, but then everybody gave me the same NordVPN/RAID:ShadowLegends read and it got as bad as other kinds of ads.

[-] ours@lemmy.film 4 points 1 year ago

Feel free to whitelist creators you like. My favorite (Red Letter Media) don't give a fuck thanks to Patreon.

It can also skip intros and other repetitive aspects and a hotkey allows you to unskip segments.

[-] Chee_Koala@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I do some patreons, I guess about 30 % of my large YouTubers. Did so even before YouTube started the mass enshittification(when I was still premium), but paying patronage to them all is too much. I like the way Peertube operates in that regard. Bandwidth is lower (that's fine) and when a video goes viral some clients will get swapped to P2P mode to offload the host. Checked floatplane and nebula, but the floatplane prices are just too high. I'll probably get nebula for this year and then evaluate my options again for the next year.

[-] Wyvven@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I assumed since sponsorblock just fast forwards the video (which a lot of people do manually) then the YouTuber is still ok? Do they not get paid just for uploading the sponsored content to begin with 🤔

[-] Interstellar_1@pawb.social 3 points 1 year ago

Seems like LibreTube should be in the Android category.

[-] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

This thread is a gold mine - thanks for putting all that together!

[-] Dasnap@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Is DeArrow still locked behind a license key? I know it was fairly simple to share them around but it did seem to greatly hinder the extension's use, compared to their SponsorBlock project.

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[-] chrisbit@leminal.space 2 points 1 year ago

Worth pointing out that the current version of Return YouTube Dislike doesn't seem to be working while you're logged in. I'm sure it will be fixed soon.

[-] lea@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

LibreTube, a Piped client, should be added to the Android section. Allows logging into your Piped account to sync your subs, includes SponsorBlock/DeArrow/RYD, and has one of the best interfaces I've seen of any YouTube app (including the official one).

[-] Supercharger@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

If you had to pick one of those iOS clients, which would you pick?

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this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
528 points (98.2% liked)

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