What is your private way of watching YouTube videos when Invidious or Piped are not working?

I use https://freetubeapp.io/

I personally think Freetube is the best for desktop right now. Recently, there is also grayjay for desktop. The UI is still buggy IMO, but also seem promising.
- But GreyJay isn't libre.

Freetube and GrayJay

I've had a good experience with GrayJay. It's a bit young and missing features but it's never broken for me.
- Btw, they also have a desktop app, but it’s currently in beta.
  
  FreeTube is more stable for desktop.

At this point we should just start torrenting YouTube. Like fuck YouTube.

At this point we should just ditch YouTube entirely, but alas.
- I kinda assumed Vimeo would step up its social aspects when YouTube started ratcheting up its bullshit. Still waiting.
- At this point we should just ditch YouTube entirely, but alas.
  
  YouTube is great for downloading movie rips. They're out there if you know where to look. When you download a movie on YouTube, you're legally in the clear: Google is doing the copyright infringement. That's one big advantage over torrents.
Well PeerTube is p2p like torrents are (but with a simple streaming web ui), so basically just run PeerTube
- I love the idea of PeerTube it works really well the only problem is basically no one uploads to it so most of the people I want to watch just aren't there.

FreeTube is a useful project as it allows you to "fallback" on a non-preferred frontend.

https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube

This allows you to continue to use Youtube irregardless of which frontend is (potentially not) working.

In 'Settings > General' you'll want to select "Invidious API" as your "Preferred API backend" and specify your favorite invidious instance in the "Current Invidious Instance" field and click "Set Current Instance as Default". This locks FreeTube into the specified instance.

Then, when you notice that FreeTube is issuing notices to you about your favorite Invidious Instance being down, you can wander back to 'Settings > General'; hit the "Clear Default Invidious Instance" Button and wait as FreeTube magically contacts the "https://api.invidious.io/" page for you and selects a new, and hopefully online and working Invidious instance. (You may have to hit this button several times to roll a working instance, Hit the button, check the subs page and see if everything loads, repeat if it falls back on the Local API.)

When you run into instances where you can't roll up a good Invidious instance; the built in Local API is running a NewPipe Extractor like API directly from your FreeTube client. Not the best; but at least it keeps things working while you wait for the Invidious devs to fix things up; and it still reasonably preserves as much of your privacy as it can while doing this to the best effort it can.

...Sadly this doesn't work when Google manages a double combo of breaking both Invidious and NewPipe; but I have found that this is less often the case and the devs of either project are usually fairly quick about getting fixes out. Bless their hard work with a donation sometime maybe, if you can.

Close the door, turn off the lights, wear earbuds, pull a duvet over your head. Works every time. Might look a bit suspicious, but at least it's private.

Seriously though, it's getting pretty bad. I'm currently shifting my video watching habits away from YT. I have a feeling that sooner rather than later I may have to quit YT completely.

There are several way, honestly. For Android, there's NewPipe. The app itself fetches the YouTube data. For PC, there are similar applications that do the same such FreeTube. Those are the solutions I recommend.

If you're one of those, you can also host your own Invidious and/or Piped instances. But I like NewPipe and FeeTube better.

NewPipe needs VPN or Tor for privacy which usually gets blocked
- That really depends on your threat model. The app isn't monitoring your activity or has imbedded trackers. It pulls content directly from YouTube's CDN. All they (Google) know is your IP address, but nothing else. For 99.9% of people that's totally ok.
I've used freetube for a while and it seems like it's expierencing the same issues since I've been getting a lot of error messages lately.
- FreeTube also is based on Invidious instances, changing the instance may work, but better to set the SMplayer as extern player, then you can open the Video in this player which works almost always.
- Really? It's been working just fine for me.

New pipe android app. Been using it for years with no issues accessing YouTube.

Same problem if you use a VPN or Tor

I use grayjay as you can use a google account to bypass the "confirm your not a bot" but then have the ability to subscribe, comment, and save video playback without a google account.

Just firefox with ublock origin.

Freetube and Grayjay. Grayjay has a desktop app now.

i just search it on dukdukgo and use their viewer

You can still use yt-dlp with most of the invidious instances that are still up, but not displaying the video for some reason. Just copy the URL and use it with yt-dlp from the command line. All still works, sponsor block and all.

On my android phone I use either invidious with seal(yt-dlp wrapper app) or tubular (fork of newpipe with sponsor block).

seconding this
Freetube has an option to watch videos in a external viewer. I set it to be MPV which I set it to use yt-dlp to download which allows me to customize many things like video and audio quality, subtitles, equalize audio, etc. No need to copy and use the command line.
- How do you set this up? Link to guide?

I signed up for PeerTube, uploaded all my videos there, and updated my old YT vid descriptions that say "can't watch this video? Click here to view ad-free on PeerTube"

I host my own invidious

Why? That basically means they track you the same, but with lots if extra steps.

Unless you use a VPN and then you're back to the same problem again.
- I am not the full expert on the subject, but I assume the profiling is to a lesser extent. For one you don’t browse within a Google account.
  
  I also like the slimmed down UI and subscription management of invidious compared to yt.
  
  And don’t forget no ads and sponsorblock. Although some add ons like vinegar for safari get you pretty close to uninterrupted viewing.
  
  All said, probably not the best in regards to pure privacy.
Is there a good tutorial for doing that?
- Their own documentation

yt-dlp

Downside is that you'll have to regularly delete all the videos you've downloaded.

Use yt-dlp URL -o - | mpv - This way the video goes directly to mpv without using the disk, avoiding the need to delete. It should work with other viewers as well.
- Awesome, works with VLC as well. Thanks.

I download the videos I want to watch with yt-dlp. This applies to audio as well. I then add the videos to my Jellyfin server to watch them on the TV.

Hell, I'm having issues using the plain old YouTube website. It tries to make me sign in.

I think thats the point of this question. How to get around that because YT has become unusable.

Grayjay

What's the benefit of Grayjay over NewPipe, except for the fact that Grayjay supports other video platforms too?
- Grayjay is just plugins for everything, so if you want to add a new platform you can make it
- NewPipe is only on Android, no?

I pay a subscription to nebula and most of the creators i want are on there.

Actually, I have never used piped and invidious to watch the videos themselves. I use them just as subscription feeds and in case I need to search for some video, then I toggle a script I have, I copy the links to the videos I want to watch and I untoggle the script. Then the links I copied start playing on mpv. I don't like to overload piped and invidious services, which I would say is the main reason for them to be shut down, when I can watch/download the video through mpv-ytdlp on my own. Although, I don't know if that answers your question.

Yes its okay if you're using a VPN for downloading which makes your IP untraceable by Google Servers. Currently I am using freetube with VPN. But I need to choose a server that is not used by many for getting around 'you need to sign in' issue.

Freetube and newpipe for me. However I will say they just don't work sometimes. So then I just am left with my browser.

Grayjay.app

But it requires login when I tried to play some videos on youtube
- Check the settings. There should be some to allow restricted videos

I feel like most have misunderstood the point of the question, they offer to use newpipe, yt-dlp and the like, but those aren't private, they just allow you to watch without signing in, just as you could through the official website with maybe uBlock origin, you're still exposing your IP.
The only fitting suggestion I saw is that of downloading from invidious through yt-dlp, which sounds pretty neat, I had no idea you could when the web frontend is apparently not working

Yes I tried to using freetube with VPN this morning. I have to say.. Its pretty good. But the catch is you have to use a vpn server that is not used by many.
- Yeah that's also a good solution!
- Some invidious instances directly embeds the video from googlevideo[dot]com. This means google will get your IP. But in the setting you can choose an option to proxy the video for you.
I feel like most have misunderstood the point of the question, they offer to use newpipe, yt-dlp and the like, but those aren’t private, they just allow you to watch without signing in, just as you could through the official website with maybe uBlock origin, you’re still exposing your IP.

This implies invidious and piped hide your IP address, which I'm not sure is true.
- Piped always does, it's the way it works. Invidious is not always like that, at least if what is said in this issue is still true, it depends on the instance

Tubular on on mobile and trying to find a Non Electron app for pc

Searching Videos on FreeTube but watching these in the SMplayer, because FreeTube lists theVideos, but often don't play it. SMplayer works almost always, Also possible open the Video copying the URL in it. Another possibility is searching the Video with Andisearch and watch it there in the search results sandboxed and anonym with the random proxies which use Andisearch.

I found that switching my VPN server allowed FreeTube to work for me. I'm on Mullvad's South African servers atm, which are quite slow. If anyone knows of any unblocked Mullvad servers that are faster, lmk, but those were the first ones I found that you can use FreeTube with.

Most Netherlands servers work for me
- Which netherlands servers are working for you? I just tried literally all the wireguard ones and none of them worked.

Downie.app (MacOS) and yt-dlp (multiplatform).

I am not watching YouTube content while these are blocked. I will not watch stupid ads. I will not submit to shitty platforms that suck. Until these work again, there is no YouTube.

I'm finding other ways to fill my free time during the holiday break. I'll have a bevy of new content to watch when they're updated.

YTDLnis

You can watch, download video, download only audio.

Newpipe still up as of this morning. Hope it stays that way.

Vpn

I use a bot on mastodon named [email protected] . It sends me a link of new videos from creators I follow.I directly open the link with Tubular (newpipe fork) or freetube and download it to watch later.

On mobile, Firefox plus ublock works well. There are a few issues like losing your position if the page reloads, but it works pretty consistently otherwise.

I also use NewPipe, but Google breaks it fairly regularly.

Grayjay seems to be really stable compared to newpipe. I used it for 6 months now never break once. They also recently released a beta version for desktop which is quite promising

I personally use libretube (with piped proxy disabled in settings) with proton vpn. If it shows the "sign in to confrim your not a bot" mesaage I just swap vpn servers.

I discovered that I watch enough YouTube to warrant paying for a premium subscription. I've turned off viewing history (after one video, so the homepage renders).

This isn't a solution for everyone, but it works for me.

I use it enough but since Google is evil I use ReVanced and give the money to a better cause.

I wish we had some sort of way to copy videos from YT to PeerTube on some sort of on-demand way.

Like tell PeerTube the video you want, wait a few minutes, and then its available for everyone. Then it auto deletes after X days if it has had 0 views.

Edit: oh man, you could even have a Lemmy bot do this automatically when it sees a link to a YouTube video.

Vlc,potplayer, freetube

PipePipe on mobile works fine.