How do these work?
I use a FF extension that routes videos to mpv from the context menu.
For my phone, I use Vanced
For my Android TV, I use Smarttube.
Extension name?
https://github.com/woodruffw/ff2mpv
Note: very dependent on a recent yt-dlp on your system. Install it manually using yt-dlp from their website and drop it into your path unless you use Arch or something bleeding edge.
I was an Invidious user until I found out about Libretube, and the fact that on Libretube and even on a Piped website you can login to get your subs from other instances. That is crazy useful.
So I am full Piped for now.
Do you get issues like crashes and videos not playing? I've been using libretube for quite some time until is just could not open a single video without crashing. I switched back to newpipe for now.
There was a momentary bug, but it was fixed quickly. I recommend not using the F-droid repo, because new releases take days and days to arrive, rather use Izzy-on-droid if possible.
I’ve switched from F-droid now and it works as good as it used to. Thank you for the tip.
There’s Clipious for Invidious on Android:
I use Invidious because it does not require JavaScript.
Also, does piped always proxy the data? Some Invidious instances have the option but I have never seen it on pioed instances.
Piped always proxies. That's also why it's really unreliable every now and then. Google has already blocked some proxy servers
After trying both, I've settled on Invidious. I prefer the UI, it feels more snappy than Piped. Plus, with Piped I had this problem with longer videos where it'd just stop playing somewhere in the middle. Might be fixed by now though.
Haven’t had the best luck directly using invidious it’s very slow, however I’ve found free tube works really well, it allows u to store ur subscriptions and data on ur device and you can also route your free tube traffic thru an invidious server!
How do these work?
Well, Piped doesn't (or at least I've never bothered to wait till it eventually loads).
You might need to switch to a smaller instance.
Oh really… This is good to know thank you! I thought it was just a bit shit.
https://piped.smnz.de and https://piped.adminforge.de have worked well for me so far. Relatively quick updates and bugfixes :)
Personally I prefer Invidious for it's more basic, web-2.0 style UI
At this point both are being targeted by youtube and they will just keep rate limiting big public instances the more popular they get. I plan to spin up my own invidious instance sinxe i have the hardware and just plug freetube into it. Ill report back with some info on the reliability
So if you have the ability to spin up a docker container you can have a private invidious that is faster than youtube on a normal browser and more reliable than a public piped/invidious. Ive set it as default instance for all of my desktops that have freetube app.
Also just found out about grayjay for android which is a well made multi platform app and the fact its hosted on gitlab vs github is much appreciated. This means less chance of censorship considering micro$haft owns github
Does anyone know if there is an extension which would mark the video as watched on youtube without actually watching it? So that you could still take advantage of youtubes front page.
It's possible to hover over the thumbnail and move the playhead of the mini player a few seconds before the end of the video, and that will count as if you watched the video, but it's slow and not convenient to do.
I did setup auto redirect on firefox to invidious (yewtu.be) and it works well enough. I will just change redirect when it stops working. No need to be perfectionslist, just make it seamless and voila, no ads or recomendations :)
How does one go about doing this?
Desktop: LibRedirect browser extension.
Android: Install an app that can open YT links (like LibreTube), and set it as default handler for YT links in the settings. Alternatively Firefox Beta can use regular browser extensions, so LibRedirect should work there as well.
For iOS, you can check out Privacy Redirect
It literally just came out, but grayjay is already feeling better than both piped and invidious in my experience.
Link to an instance please
It's not an instance. It's an app. https://grayjay.app
Piped uses less CPU on client playback and features like dash actually work as opposed to invidious. But I'm glad creating a piped instance on docker is complicated because I like the simplicity of invidious' UI.
I was using Invidious but I'm switching to Grayjay
On the phone I'm using Libretube, but I'm going to try out Grayjay that just came out. On PC, I usually use FreeTube.
Both invidious and piped are solid solutions if you'd asked me.Invidious because it actually works on my homelab. Couldn’t get piped to work and their docs are terrible
