For Nebula/CuriosityStream? I only remember I bought a combo membership near Christmas the last two years – they usually offer a year-long subscription for like $11 USD around the holidays. Look out for those, I really like CuriosityStream and find it’s worth it.
If you plan to get a new phone, get a Google Pixel and install GrapheneOS on it. By default, it doesn’t have any Google spyware services. It also has substantial security improvements compared to normal Android. It’s probably the most private and secure mobile operating system that currently exists.
Wait, why would this one app currently only being available on Android make switching a bad idea? Seems like a weird thing to base a decision that big on…
It’s more about the ability for such apps to exist. Other apps include Tachiyomi (manga reader) and similar apps that are not allowed because of the app stores terms of service.
Hopefully Apple will soon be forced to allow such apps to exist outside of their store. Freedom to install what I want is a main reason I switched back from an iPhone to a Pixel with GrapheneOS.
Thanks for the link. I’m surprised it survived Apple’s review process as I thought such apps weren’t allowed. Now I have a private YouTube altednative to recommend.
Tachiyomi relies on installing sources as additional apks because otherwise they’d have to update the app daily. This is not allowed on Play/App Store.
YouTube ReVanced and other patched apps are also great and not obviously not possible on iOS bexlcause of restrictions.
Open source licenses must allow free redistribution. FTL allows license suspension and termination at any time, without notice, for any or no reason.
Open source licenses must allow source code distribution. FTL allows restrictions to access the code at any time, without notice, for any or no reason.
Open source licenses must allow modifications. FTL allows modifications only for non-commercial use, or maybe not even that. FTL dodges the word modifications here, no clue.
Open source licenses must explicitly allow distribution of software built from modified source code. FTL forbids distribution of software built from modified source code for commercial use.
Open source licenses must not discriminate against persons/groups and fields of endeavor. FTL allows license suspension and termination at any time, without notice, for any or no reason.
The FTL enables the following practices:
Copyright holders can change the license terms.
Copyright holders can re-license everything.
Copyright holders can target specific groups and individuals with discriminatory license terms.
Copyright holders can close source everything.
Copyright holders can forbid specific groups and individuals from using their work.
My main gripe here is that the video sells a source-available software with severe usage restrictions as open-source. These restrictions may sound reasonable to people outside of the open-source world, especially to people who use similar wording in their own terms of service, but nobody would touch your software with a ten foot pole with a software license like that.
Most alternatives are pretty great, but they can never have the amount of content and the reach that youtube has. Youtube has a monopoly and they know it. They can do whatever they want, because you can’t leave.
Seconding SmartTube on android TV. No ads, can automatically skip all sorts of content in videos (spoken ads, self-promotion, introduction segments, etc. etc. etc.) I dread the day it stops working.
For the web, there is Piped (github.com/teampiped/piped) and Invidious (invidious.io)
NOTE: Only Piped proxies your videos, which means invidious allows connections directly to Google to load the video.
Android
On Android, there’s NewPipe and LibreTube which are well known by now.
NOTE: LibreTube uses Piped to preserve privacy and (somewhat) anonymity when watching, thus you’ll need to select some piped instance with it.
iOS
On iOS, there’s the web frontends and Yattee (github.com/yattee/yattee).
NOTE: Yattee is on the AppStore, but without any sources/instances by default. Look for “instances” in the settings and add a Piped API URL, like https://pipedapi.kavin.rocks to watch videos from YouTube with Piped+Yattee.
Desktop
On Desktop, there is all the web clients as well as FreeTube (freetubeapp.io).
NOTE: FreeTube has an option to proxy everything or just the videos through Invidious to preserve privacy. It is recommended to enable this.
Would like to add to this that invidious on web can proxy your videos like Piped does but you have to enable it in settings first, not sure when they added it but they have that now
Invidious. If you look up invidious instances you can find plenty of them and choose one that’s in your country so it’s nice and fast. Sometimes they take an extra second to load but there are no ads so it’s worth it
Can someone explain to me why I want the video proxied vs the video coming directly from YT via a front end? I’ve used YouTube Vanced in the past and it was awesome when it worked
Yes, your info is stored locally so you dont need to login to the YouTube API, i use newpipe to watch the videos and read some comments, not to interact or upload videos since that’s impossible on newpipe
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