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Aug. 13th, 2025 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hungryghostscompletely irrelevant to any sort of current events (lie)* I thought I would share this post I made elsewhere
Going on a quick browse for alternative anti-enshittification Youtube frontends...
- https://invidious.io/ (browser)
- https://freetubeapp.io/ (desktop)
- https://newpipe.net/ (Android - DO NOT install this via Play Store, install via the apk on the website)
and there's also downloaders like yt-dlp and client interfaces for it ( https://alltube.private.coffee/ is one such hosted instance)
Also, to be clear, these links aren't alternative places for hosting video, but alternative ways to watch Youtube that get around ads/algorithms/tracking/other forms of enshittification. They're for when you Need to use Youtube because the thing you're looking for simply doesn't exist on Glomble, Peertube, Vimeo, or elsewhere. (we are in this position because no one has uploaded the whole of the Schroeder cello etudes to Peertube/etc lmao)
For alternative video hosts, we're personally partial to Peertube. It's an open-source video hosting platform that's been around for a while and supports federation, which is basically like... you know how if you have an email on gmail you can still message people with emails on not-gmail? Federation is a little like that. One Peertube website can connect to other Peertube websites to see videos from them. Federation is kind of messy (I have a whole rant about federated social media) but in this case I prefer it to having a single site, since it means the (very very high) costs of hosting video are shared around and you're not screwed if the one single site shuts down.
Example Peertube instance: https://video.4d2.org/ (4d2 in general seem like pretty great people providing great services and you can check them out over at https://4d2.org/ - consider dropping them a donation if you use their stuff.)
*context for the folks who missed it: Youtube is rolling out bullshit where if their ✨ AI-powered detection system ✨ thinks you're a minor, they'll lock down your account unless you prove you're an adult by either giving them your ID, giving them your credit card info, or letting them scan your face with their ✨ AI-powered facial analysis system ✨. It starts today and people are boycotting Youtube in response (though iirc the boycott does allow for watching via the alternative frontends since those screw with Youtube by not giving them data)
