This whole "Sign in to prove you're not a bot" thing is pissing me off

Free VPNs will get that a lot.

Even in paid VPNs, you still have to change servers until you find one that works.

Proton VPN (despite CEO controversies) is probably the best one to get around that, since they have 11000 servers.

I got this message when not on vpn. Changed it to a eastern block country and it disappeared instantly.
- I had this problem for a while. When my kid hit a certain age, he was good enough to search out what he wanted to see on YouTube, he kept getting into stuff he didn't need to see. I tried various YouTube replacements, age restrictions, It was dicey there a number of creators that he watched that weren't exactly kids material but provided educational value.
  
  I eventually ended up scripting some stuff to pull down new videos from his YouTubers on a daily basis. At some point or volume they would start blacklisting my IP for capcha.

Pop-ups begging for my email are worse. I've started putting "admin@<their domain>" as the email and signing them up for everything.

I dismissed one today with [email protected]. Then I found step 2 was a paywall. I really fucking hate those popups that ask for an email without telling you there's a paywall next, sometimes there's something I think I want next but the paywall tells me I don't, but then they've already got my email even though I haven't signed up.
[email protected] is another viable solution, if not as directly effective.
[email protected]
I usually go with gofuckyourself@<their domain>

When I was signing up for something, (maybe Lemmy?) I got caught in a CAPTCHA where I had to identify street lights. Every time I clicked one the picture would change and there would be more street lights. Eventually I gave up, clicked Submit and it let me in.

Yeah I hate that too. For me it's always bicycles, buses or motorcycles. All the fucking time.
- They've been using us the whole time to train their AI autopilot driving technology.

I am less annoyed by YouTube being shit and more annoyed by 3rd party websites clinging to YouTube for their video hosting needs because it is free. I'm also annoyed by the degree to which scrappers and other automation tools have made "Are You A Bot?" filters necessary to conserve the (relatively) limited resources of big retail web front-ends.

Like, fuck YouTube, sure. But they're not putting these blocks up for the thrill of it. They're trying to limit served content to actual humans rather than automated engines intended to juice view counts and harvest "free" data for AI training.

Meanwhile, at least 90 percent of comments on Youtube are made by bots.

On the Internet, 90 percent of statistics are made up.
Dead internet theory is real, at least on youtube.
- Its a self-perpetuating cycle. Set aside the normally deplorable state of YouTube comments. Once you hit a critical mass of "Neat!" and "I liked it 💖🇺🇸🎆" and "Prussy en bi0" comments, why the hell would you bother reading much less participating? Then human interactions tank and its Oops! All Bots! in short order.

I started using FreeTube on both desktop and android and never have to sign in anymore. I also get a lot of cool features that aren't available in YouTube.

Anybody know the difference between FreeTube, LibreTube, and NewPipe? Are there even more?
- These are all unique and different projects with their own codebases, devs and issues. If you want to learn more, try searching for their official git repos. If you want to see a quick list of YouTube related apps, with screenshots, feature lists, and links to the project pages then I suggest using F-Droid with the IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repo enabled, and just searching youtube.
  
  For a bit more details on how yo do that check out my other comment https://lemmy.world/comment/15622037.
Ok. I wanna make this happen on Android. I am a complete dummy and the only thing I ever got off github had like step by step written instructions somewhere. What do I do?

Do I just download the freetube-0.23.2.13-Android.apk (latest release) from the releases site... Or do I need to build it first or something from the link you provided? Building it seems extremely daunting.
- You can totally just install the latest release straight from the git repository. However, how often will you remember to check if there is a new release? If you want your apps to stay up-to-date you have 2 options. (Ordered from least effort to most effort)
  
  F-Droid (minimal setup, slower releases)
  
  Install F-Droid or one of the many 3rd party clients (I like Droid-ify the most right now)
  
  enable the IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repoin the Repository settings of the F-Droid client
  
  install FreeTube Android
  
  Obtainium (moderate setup, quickest releases)
  
  Install the latest release of Obtainium directly from the git repo
  
  go to app configurations search for Obtainium and click on the add to Obtainium button so that Obtainium can update itself when there is a new release.
  
  In Obtainium, click on Add App. Then insert the release page URL for FreeTube Android (https://github.com/MarmadileManteater/FreeTubeAndroid/releases) as the value for App Source URL, then click the Add button next to it and you are set.
Interesting, I do use Freetube on laptop but it's been finicky about when it wants to work lately. I figured it was more of YT blocking bs.

I tried Newpipe for Android and it wouldn't work, so I went to the fork PipePipe which does work better, but at some point I had to login so it could use my API because YT blocked that too. Plus PipePipe can scan NicoNico videos and Bilibili videos.

How good is Freetube on android?
- I love it and yes, sometimes youtube makes a breaking change that any dev needs to find a work around for.
  
  I use freetube on both because I can manage subscriptions better on it, and export to newpipe or freetube desktop easily. Freetube also includes sponsor block which is great.
  
  I also keep newpipe on my phone as a backup since sometimes it works when freetube doesn't. I auto-update freetube from fdriod but let obtainum auto-update newpipe straight from their git repo so I know I got a good chance if having at least one working app.
  
  I haven't tried pipepipe, it's been a long time since I watched a billibilli vid. (BGM!!!)
This is the way.

Are you a bot? Because that's the kind of post a bot would do.

You're in violation of the 84' treaty on account of illegal thoughts.
Beep Boop.
- ...and that's exactly what a bot would SAY!

I was trying to recover my Steam password last night and failed so many of those "check all the boxes with MOTORCYCLES" that it stopped even letting me try anymore. Fucking broken bullshit.

I've failed those before, probably because I move rather mechanically. I've tried deliberately putting delays and random mouse movements while don't them.
- Lol I've had the same thought. On ones that make you click all the squares that have a bike or whatever, I always click a wrong one and then unselect it. Ya, that's totally human behavior now.

Piped is working again. I use it and Newpipe

I use revanced and nexttube
But do either of them allow like embedded links to be shared?

Bots are a problem. No single measure completely gets rid of them. Each measure just removes some of the bots. I personally think accounts are a decent measure, everyone should have a password manager anyway that lets them automatically log in on all their devices.

The problem of course is the tracking that's being done with the accounts, but I think the accounts themselves aren't the problem.

That's part of it, but it's certainly ALSO a mechanism to encourage people to use an account, or to register if they haven't, because that's more trackable and monetisable.

Same reason why when you hit an X post or an Instagram post it normally lets you see a little tease but roadblocks you to sign in as soon as you start scrolling. They want you signed in for their own reasons.

If google wanted, they could implement a range of measures to disincentivise bots, like not counting views apart from signed-in users so there's less reason for bots to be engaging with the platform, but that also is bad for their ad view monetisation metrics so they surely don't want to do that. They'd rather inconvenience the user.
- So I say tracking is the problem, and you say that tracking is the problem? Good that we agree :D
Then why the fuck do some sites require a CAPTCHA before letting me log in?
- Because like I said, different measures hold back different bots.
  
  If there are 3 bot softwares, maybe 1 can solve captcha and use accounts, 1 can only make accounts, 1 can only use captcha.
  
  With only account login you get 2 bots, with only captcha you also get 2 bots, with captcha before login you only get 1 bot.

It's so they can track you better. ~~If you're in the US and using a Chromium based browser, so long as you don't view "adult content" they usually don't pop this up.~~ But they can't track in Firefox, and because of GDPR, they can't track logged-out users in the EU, so it's all about the money. I use Vivaldi and a VPN to watch youtube, works mostly fine.

EDIT: Well never-fucking-mind...this strategy has worked for me without fail for a lonnnnng time, and today they got me...same day the pulled uBlock origin from the Chrome store...dicks.

Pipepipe

Whenever I encounter that while trying to view something in private browsing (to avoid it tainting my recommendations), I go out of my way to use an alternative frontend just to spite them.

Doesn't happen to me, but I don't browse behind a VPN. People behind VPNs get this usually because lots of bad actors also hide behind VPNs.

Commercial VPNs are too inconvenient and saturated these days. It is not 2010 anymore. Every commercial VPN is leveraged by scrapers and other bots. If you use them, expect to face captchas. For the same price as a commercial VPN provider I rent a VPS and run OpenVPN on it. Personal, private, dedicated IPv4.

You are all nerds, act like it.
- If I could get a VPS for $2/mo for something like this, I would definitely swap off of my VPN provider. If you do a 'build your own plan' with Windscribe, it's $2/month for me, and they easily saturate my symmetrical gigabit connection. Anything close to that price is usually an incredibly small amount of metered bandwidth comparatively. This month I've used something like 30tb worth of bandwidth without blinking an eye.
Bootlicker spotted
- You have no clue whatsoever how internet security works, do you... and also anyone who has used a VPN will tell you that this is how it works. The instant you're behind a VPN, you're part of a block of IP addresses which are generally reserved for datacenter usage.
  
  There's some exceptions to this, as some VPNs are kinda shady and route through residential IP addresses, but a lot of the time when someone is trying to get around an IP ban, region lock, etc -- they're going to use VPNs. So companies the world over block VPN IP ranges by default for that very reason.
  
  This is why you get the captcha requirements, this is why you're clicking pictures of busses non-stop.
lots of bad actors also hide behind VPNs

Stop listening to corpo bullshit, you sound like a fucking moron
- I mean it's not corporate bullshit. Yes there are plenty of legitimate uses, but the majority of bad actors are over VPN's, so hence the statement is true.

Is this new? Perhaps geographic testing in certain areas? I'm not sure if I've ever seen that on youtube. Just curious, what happens for you if you open a browser in Incognito go to youtube and without logging in to youtube, go to the video you want to watch?

In incognito or private browsing mode, you are way more likely to be blocked or forced to fill out a captcha, because the site won't see any tracking cookies you would otherwise have.

To Google, preserving your privacy looks the same as being a bot. Using a VPN, clearing cookies, using private browsing, being signed out of a Google account, are all things that improve your privacy but look like bot activity. Google can use the excuse of blocking bots when their actual goal is tracking.
- In incognito or private browsing mode, you are way more likely to be blocked or forced to fill out a captcha, because the site won’t see any tracking cookies you would otherwise have.
  
  I use youtube almost exclusively in incognito and I never get the captcha. The only negative consequence is no suggested videos show up. It looks like this:
  
  However, as soon as you watch even a single video, it gives suggestions based upon that. As soon as you close all your incognito windows, it wipes the slate clean and opening a new window and going back to youtube just gives you the screenshot I linked here. I don't have a youtube "feed" and I like that. Again, zero captchas.
If you are using chrome... They deff know who u are ;)

It's a necessary evil sadly. The internet is so overrun with bots that if there wasn't a captcha or those cloudflare "click here to pass" buttons, the internet would implode.

OP isn't trying to post, just trying to view. There is no justification for a captcha there.
- The justification, security wise, is that they can’t really tell what the intent is when OP connects.
  
  The other justification is that they also want to be able to track you via an account.
- Well besides forcing you to ID your self by showing sundar the creep your buthole finger print
- There is, AI bots are scraping the entire internet and overloading servers by downloading everything. That's literally why every website is adding captchas and hiding behind Cloudflare now.
  
  Edit: just so you know, downvoting me doesn't change actual facts