I’m using a stock Samsung Galaxy 8 phone right now (with Android 10) and I disabled the YouTube app. I was basically sick of its s***. Since then, I never sign in to the app/site, and so may aspects of using the site are much better now.
- Everything is faster, since they don’t know me / aren’t tracking as much.
- I always open YT in Firefox Focus, which doesn’t ever keep cookies or history each time I close it, so there’s no history for YT to mine each time I visit again.
- I’m pretty sure I see fewer ads since I don’t have a deep history for YT to mine / target.
- More random suggestions from YT means I am mostly broken out of the bubble caused by their tracking. I find new, interesting music, for instance, now, from the suggestions.
- Hitting “back” in the browser means I go back wherever I was before, not to the YT home page (like the app used to do to me)
I still visit the site often, and appreciate all the good music and channels I watch, but now it’s overall a much more positive experience, more like YT was a few years ago versus the horrible mess it’s become recently.
I’d still appreciate any other tips anyone has for making YT visits even more enjoyable.
Install Newpipe and you get an even better YouTube experience. Can be a Holy Shit experience for people who never knew YouTube before it became shit.
There’s also YouTube revanced as well
Literally would not visit youtube otherwise, as proven by the brief pause after Vanced stopped working.
Another app is LibreTube, although it uses piped, which I kinda dislike as it means (depending on the instance you connect to) videos load slower and the subscriptions don’t all get refreshed.
I know there is a toggle for disabling piped, but the subscription issue doesn’t seem to get affected.
There’s a fork of NewPipe with sponsor block. I’d highly recommended getting that.
The equivalent on your PC would be an app called freetube
Its a bit out of date currently sadly
Works perfectly fine for me. I use it daily, including right now. Give it a shot. Some people are put off by not having personalised suggestions or being able to login to sync or the different interface…but for me all of those are strengths of the app, not weaknesses.
Sponsor block is also available as a browser plugin on desktop
I installed new pipe to my 15 year old son and he loves it! He hates the algorithm
What I came here to say, my favourite app on my phone.
Is newpipe on any playstore or do I need to go find the apk myself? I assume the latter, lol
Install f-droid, It’s a reliable alternate software store for Android and it’s been around for a very long time.
Thanks for the advice!
It’s on f droid
Firefox for android supports uBlock which blocks all youtube add btw. I’ve been using the website as my YouTube client for nearly a year now
A Firefox install without uBlock is half baked. Also, Firefox Preview let’s you use any addon, including Sponserblock.
any addon? like ones usually only on PC? 🥺
Yes
My Firefox for Android crashes about every 3rd time I open a YouTube video full screen. It finally got so bad that I installed Newpipe.
I’ve had some weirdness with youtube in the past too. For a few weeks firefox would refuse to go into landscape when i opened videos in fullscreen. Kinda cursed
I think Google intentionally breaks it on Firefox, but it’s just a suspicion, I don’t have any proof.
Doesn’t have to be malicious. Most likely just don’t test on it, or at least not a lot.
Yeah it doesn’t work in my browser but I just use revanced if I want to do YouTube
I always open YT in Firefox Focus, which doesn’t ever keep cookies or history each time I close it, so there’s no history for YT to mine each time I visit again.
This is not true. Google doesn’t much care about cookies; they employ far more effective means of fingerprinting.
I used to use the YT app before migration to Revanced. The main advantages I’ve experienced so far: -No ads -Defaults to auto skip video intros and sponsorships -Ability to disable shorts
Personally disabling shorts was the selling point for me, I’d find myself clicking one on an interesting topic then getting sucked in and distracted from the original video.
Came here to say that exact same thing! Shorts are the bane of my existence, whenever I open my real Youtube App instead of Revanced (still need it to Cast to my Chromecast sometimes), there’s a solid 50/50 chance that I get sucked in by shorts and scroll them for hours. It’s ridiculous, they aren’t even interesting most of the time and I learn nothing from it, but it just keeps happening :/
It feels like playing a slot machine to me, you mindless keep scrolling in hopes of better content. YouTube has always put users at the whim of the algorithm but shorts feel almost predatory in an addictive way to me.
God yes. Fuck shorts. That format should be banned from any platform
If you’re using Firefox, install uBlock as well. You can also add the YouTube website as a shortcut to your desktop.
I just want to disable Shorts!
YouTube ReVanced
yeah this solves pretty much all problems people have with modern youtube on android.
cries with iOS
Hey, at least you guys have USB C now!
I removed shorts and for a while my life was better until I got arrested.
Maybe the “No pants subway ride” will be held next year. You should join them. :p
Is that a thing? If so I’m down
Youtube needs to realize its not tiktok and trying to be tiktok will just push the people who actually like that to tiktok and everyone else will just go somewhere else
LibreTube is the way to go.
I tried LibreTube from FDroid and it doesn’t seem to load any videos. Is that a known issue (I have a Pixel 6)?
You might want to change the Piped backend instance in the settings. Google is currently trying to IP-ban all Piped servers, just find an instance that works well. You need to click on the three dots, then select settings, go to ‘Instance’ and at the top you can hit ‘Choose…’ to change the Piped instance. I haven’t experienced any issues with
adminforge.de.Does libre have cast support?
No, because it requires proprietary Google libraries. If you want to stream YouTube to your TV in a private way, you can try Piped in Firefox with the fx_cast extension. Only works on Desktop Firefox though.
Somewhat off topic, but related question for everyone: some time ago on Lemmy I saw somebody making a list of awesome Firefox extensions that would make the general browsing experience better. I was not smart and installed some add-ons right away and I forgot their names
I usually have unblock origin, no script, privacy badger always on, but I seem to remember one or two more that sounded cool, like one that should reject all cookies everywhere and never make me click them
Do you have cool recommendations?
Sponsor block, because sponsor segments are ads and darkreader because dark mode is just better
Thanks! I already use dark reader so much I’ve become a vampire and can’t stand anything with white background!
Some other plugins I would recommend: Decentraleyes- prevents tracking from CDN Sponsorblock- skips youtube sponsored segments Clearurls- makes the url field in browser cleaner by removing tracking segments Dark Reader- dark theme for websites Soundfixer- change volume for the webpage User-agent switcher and manager- pretty useful user agent switcher Violentmonkey- one of many script managers. You can download scripts from greasyfork, etc.
And some other plugins that are interesting: Flagfox- shows flag for the location of the website Terms and Service; Didn’t Read- shows you the terms of service of the website, compiled by volunteers Bypass Paywalls Clean- bypasses paywalls of news websites. Unfortunately it has been removed from Firefox plugins website so you would have to download it via the plugin author’s gitlab
Most of the plugins are good to use on Android too. You just need to make a plugin collection and select it in the Fennec browser. Having ublock origin, Dark Reader, and Violentmonkey makes browsing on Android so much better
Mull is a superior fork of Fennec.
Thanks for the heads up! I’ll check that out
Holy cow! This is a very long list of add-ons! I’ll try them out, thanks! I didn’t see either the Fennec or the Mull browsers on the Google Play Store. I suppose I need to install them separately
Edit: grammar
You’re welcome!
Base YouTube is a cancer experience. I used vanced back when it existed. The second they shut down, I stopped using mobile YouTube and just used it on Firefox PC with ad block. When I heard reVanced was a thing, I downloaded it and it’s essentially just like vanced.
I will never use YouTube without adblock unless they either change their monetization system, or ad system.
For anyone else not aware of this.
Cries on iPhone
You can use Yattee. There’s a guide on how to set it up correctly. You can also just add the Piped website to your homescreen. That’s what I’ve been doing for over a year, before I switched to GrapheneOS. Now I can enjoy LibreTube.
Cheers. I’ll check it out :)
you can use ublock origin on firefox for android
I use NewPipe and what has helped me the most is not having to deal w/ the recommendation algorithm.
I reset my subscriptions to only be the most relevant feeds from YouTube and then I only check the subscription page. I’ve consciously curated the feed to be more productive and I’m much less likely to get distracted when watching videos
I’m pretty sure I see fewer ads since I don’t have a deep history for YT to mine / target.
I used normal FF with ublock. I never see ads at all. Can you add extensions to Firefox Focus?
Do you have a uBlock setting recommendation for me?
I have made no changes to the default settings and it works fine for me.,
If anyone else has tweaks they use, please reply to @perishthethought.
Side tangent but god, just unbelievable how an app like YouTube would ever be a system app on Stock that you can’t just uninstall without needing to go through hoops like ADB. Samsung includes so much fuckery on their variants of Android, but to be fair, I believe even on stock Pixels, YouTube is a system app as well, so can’t even entirely blame them for this case. Still unacceptable and insane to me.
Stock Android just sucks, can’t see myself ever going back to it unless I absolutely had to. Props to you for making it work.
YouTube Revanced or Revanced Extended is also a must just for the sheer QoL improvements.
Pro-tip: use NewPipe and you’ll never want to go back. You can install it from F-Droid.
As a Pixel user, I don’t appear to have the option of uninstalling YouTube. Imagine that.
As a pixel user, you are able to install graphene OS!
Yeah, Graphene is the way to go.
Just know, I can’t uninstall it either. Instead I went into the Android settings, did Force Stop on the YT app, and then I was able to Disable it.
You can install revanced and make it your default app for YouTube links
Try the Universal Android Debloater. Or switch to GrapheneOS.
