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Youtube alternative solution (apollo.town)

submitted 1 year ago by Fabrik872@apollo.town to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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Hello guys, I have noticed that all the big internet services are starting to get worse and worse. And I am forced to migrate to foss alternatives. I have moved from Windows to OpenSUSE, from Reddit to Lemmy, etc. But I have an issue with moving from youtube. It is not that my favourite channels are not bringing me alternative they do but it is somewhat fragmented. Some of them are on PeerTube, some on Floatplane, and some on Nebula and I would rather pay those than youtube. My issue is that each of these has its app and I would like to have them united in one app to which I link all my accounts to. Does something like this exist?

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[-] shrugal@lemm.ee 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You can't really make your favorite content creators switch to other platforms, so the best thing you can do for now is use a privacy-preseving frontend for YT. I can highly recommend Piped for PC and LibreTube for Android. They allow you to watch all YT videos and manage your subs/playlists without having a YT account or using the YT site or app. You can even self-host a Piped server if you want to.

Edit: So the major difference between Piped+LibreTube and NewPipe is that Piped is a website that handles the YT scraping and sub/playlist management for you, and the LibreTube app just connects to it like the YT app connects to the YT website. This means you can access it from your browser, synchronize your subs/playlists between devices and also hide your IP from Google servers. NewPipe accesses YT directly from your phone, so it has to do all that by itself and on every device separately.

Basically:

YouTube app or browser => YouTube website (has user data)
NewPipe app (has user data) => YouTube website
LibreTube app or browser => Piped website (has user data) => YouTube website

[-] gabrielbckr@mastodon.social 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

@shrugal
What about NewPipe? Its nice and it also works with peertube, soundcloud, bandcamp. Its neat to have all these in the same app
@opensource

[-] obosob@feddit.uk 4 points 1 year ago

The main difference that has me using LibreTube rather than NewPipe is because my subscriptions are on my piped account so they are synced between phone and desktop (browser). Piped is built on top of NewPipe's extractor library anyway.

[-] unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

I've been a NewPipe user since forever but I tried LibreTube like a month ago and I have completely switched.

I don't consume Soundcloud or Bandcamp, and I'd like to consume PeerTube with an account, but NewPipe is fully local.

So that makes NewPipe only useful for YouTube (for me), and FreeTube has a few extra features that made me switch:

sync a Piped account to sync subs and playlists
livestreams can be easily found
you can share videos without timestamp (I still cannot believe how NewPipe does this always wrong)
nested comments!!
dislike counts

[-] NaoPb@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Sounds interesting. I'll try that out.

[-] gabrielbckr@mastodon.social 1 points 1 year ago

@NaoPb
I just edited previous post because i confused the name of the app other pipebuzzname.

Its funny, i've been using it for years and i still confuse the name

Let me know your thoughts once you've tried it

[-] NaoPb@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

What you mention is similar to NewPipe, isn't it?

[-] Fabrik872@apollo.town 1 points 1 year ago

I was wondering if there would be app which is not hosting videos itself only shows me content from nebula and all other services maybe including youtube in one convinient place so it work kind of like wefwef.app just provide me nice interface for existing services so to check if there is new interesting video i need to check only one app and not the whole bunch of apps.

[-] shrugal@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I think your best option would be something like an RSS reader. Most website offer RSS feeds for channels or subs, so you can add those to the reader and create one list of new videos.

[-] Fabrik872@apollo.town 2 points 1 year ago

Actually you are right i am using rss for news and for notifications even from lemmy if someone adds new comment but when i was creating my account on nebula they didnt suport rss now they do so thank you. I would still like if i can get updates for all my nebula subscribed channels because right now i have to add them manually one by one. Maybe i will create some app to which you can link various video services and it will show you timeline with all new videos from multiple places since nothing like it aparently does not exist.

[-] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 18 points 1 year ago

Some previous discussion on that topic: https://lemmy.world/post/1003513

[-] NaoPb@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

Good work!

[-] 1984@lemmy.today 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Best advice right now is to install F-droid (package manager) on your phone and then Newpipe. Newpipe can import all your subs from YouTube.

Then you just use newpipe and don't have to use other services. Nothing is as good as YouTube today, and since it costs so much money to own a video service, only big tech corps can afford it.

Peertube is a good alternative but its just not polished enough and the content is questionable. Video is harder than a reddit replacement.

[-] jernej@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I prefer the SponsorBlock fork

[-] mp3@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

There's also LibreTube that comes with SponsorBlock out of the box and uses Piped for the backend.

[-] mister_monster@monero.town 8 points 1 year ago

https://codeberg.org/mister_monster/youtube2peertube

I made this to help people solve this problem.

More on the "I want all my things in only one app" complaint, this is a marketing tactic by companies like YouTube. It's not a reasonable expectation. If you want to watch videos, they'll be on the video host that hosts them. Imagine if all the websites were on one website. That would suck, just like youtube and reddit. Just get over it.

We do have a technology to help us though, it's called RSS. You can subscribe to just about anything using it, including youtube and peertube channels. Any website that doesn't have RSS is not worth subscribing to.

[-] sub_@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

It's hard, I've been trying to use peertube, but it's still kinda lacking. Most creators are still sticking with YT

On the other hand, I download youtube videos I want to watch using yt-dlp. That's been working well for me for the past 5 years or so.

[-] vd1n@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Can you eli5 yt-dlp? I've seen it around but I'm not sure how to use it. Sounds like something worth putting on kodi?

[-] sub_@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

it's a library / command line software to download youtube videos.

There's more information here

Basically install the tool, and run yt-dlp [put your youtube links here without the bracket] to download the video. I haven't directly used the official command line for years though, so you might want to read the documentations.

And that's because, I wrote my own terminal-ui using their python API, for personal usage and requirements (you need to know at least some python or knowledge using the terminal to use it)

[-] gabrielbckr@mastodon.social 1 points 1 year ago

@sub_
Idk if they are missing or i am una le to gind them. In mastodon I can find new accounts to follow because people tag and boots from other instances. I use diode.zone and o don't see the same interaction there. I cna only see the local feed.

[-] guts@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I highly recommend SmartTube for Android TV, YouTube with no ads and SponsorBlock.

[-] xilliah@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I've used it since 2006 but honestly I've given up on it due to a lack of proper moderation.

[-] AB7ORH7D@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

If I may offer a new way to think about things - YouTube ads support creators by allowing them to make a living making their videos. It's quite different than Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit, where a company is just hosting and monetizing people discussing and sharing things with each other. If you want to see good content, YouTube decentralized alternatives will really only take off if there is some sort of crowd funding going to creators. Which would most likely take the form of a subscription. And...that is essentially YouTube premium anyway. And I might add that I've had YouTube premium for years and it's my favorite subscription I have across the entire internet.

[-] Tiritibambix@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

YouTube is making millions off the back of creators. They're not helping them apart from giving them some level of visibility in the unfair jungle that the algorithm is.

A form a subscription to your favorite creator on a platform like LBRY, ~~Odyssey~~ Odysee, Peertube goes directly to the creators without feeding the awful beast that google already is.

The problem is visibility. YouTube owns the monopoly of popular videos, and if we want alternatives to work, we need to support independent creators by tipping them, spreading the word and boycotting google.

That's how we'll see good content, without ads.

[-] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

YouTube is also probably spending billions on storing and streaming videos. YouTube is slowly enshitifying, but it's much much less far along than other platforms that have gone that way recently.

[-] Akasazh@feddit.nl 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've subbed to nebula, hope more creators move there.

At Google I'm already the product so I'm not paying them if I can. And for now I can.

[-] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

I'm considering to give it a try too. Have to look up their business model more and how much creators make there.

[-] maegul@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

I hope nebula figure out a way to hook into the fediverse, as there’s an overlapping ethos with the fediverse and anything they can do to get more subscribers for the content creators there should be done.

Of course they’re paid subscriber only, which isn’t quite what the Fedi is used to, but IMO, it really should mature into accepting paid subscriptions as normal so long as the governing institutions are creator owned, non-profit style bodies.

Directly integrating their content into the feed where you can only watch it with the appropriate authentication, but can still cross post or link it or discuss it, would be cool.

[-] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

I’m also considering a try, but first could you tell me if you find all type of videos? I’m into Linux, PlayStation, basketball, cars and (paradoxically) ecology. Usually on other platforms than YouTube I tend to find only geeky stuff..

[-] Akasazh@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah there's not really a lot there on gaming stuff. I mean theres very few things in comparison to youtube. But I wanted to support it and happy to do so, but it pales in comparison.

However, just like comparing Lemmy to reddit, an alternative has to start somewhere, you can't expect it to be the same overnight.

[-] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks a lot for your answer. I might try for a few months then.

[-] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Well I’m starting on Nebula right now and sadly the content isn’t there yet.

Maybe it’ll come but I found more things which interest me on Odysee or Dailymotion for now.

Still I really like the idea of paying for a subscription and not being the product anymore.

[-] Akasazh@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago

Np mate!

[-] gabrielbckr@mastodon.social 1 points 1 year ago

@Akasazh
What have you been watching there so far?
@AB7ORH7D

[-] Akasazh@feddit.nl 2 points 1 year ago

Practical engineering, extra history and legal eagle are the most prominent YouTube migrators for me.

Real engineering and city nerd I've discovered there

[-] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 year ago

Ads just suck all the way up and down. I don't want to support anyone who makes money, even indirectly, from advertising.

[-] ililiililiililiilili@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Don't rely on YouTube to pass money to your favorite content creators. Most have their own site (where they sell merch or have a way to donate directly to them). Your Premium subscription goes right in Google's pocket. I'm sticking with YouTube Revanced and SmartTube.

[-] Fabrik872@apollo.town 3 points 1 year ago

Yes i agree that creators need money for their great work but i will prefer to pay them through floatplane or nebula or patreon because with yt premium you also support google and i really dont like what they are doing recently with chrome but that is topic for another time.