I've been having some weird issues over the last few days with not being able to search for things in YouTube when I'm logged in via SmartTube account.
So I decided to try accessing it directly. Well guess what? It looks like YouTube now requires age verification in AU.
Sorry Google... I'm not uploading my passport, drivers licence or govt id to watch your shit. I am however now very incentivized to use Tube archivist and Jellyfin, plus cron job to scrape your shit with gleeful abandon.
EDIT: Rather than removed about it, I did something and made Smarttube work without a google account. If that floats your boat, have at it. It supports direct import of your saved playlists via Google Takeout ZIP file, subscriptions etc without needing a youtube account.
Also, remember the excellent TubeArchivist exists if you want even more control.
I have looked at other video sites in the past and never found one that ticks the boxes, things change though, and there really does need to be other options.
The public TV normally has a homepage with news, documentaries, series and movies on demand for free (at least in the EU, use VPN or proxie if country restricted content) eg.RTVE in Spain or ARD/ZDF in Germany, same in Pluto TV which is free also a lot of free content in Rakuten TV. For music there is Bandcamp, https://www.internet-radio.com/, Pixabay (yes, it has also music, above free downloadable (all CC license) or also the FMA. Odysee also is growing a lot in last years with content creators which have emigrated from YT. Search content in your search engine, not in YT.
Certainly if you are looking for cat videos, clickbait shorts or AI slope, then there are really no alternatives to YT.
odysee looks just like youtube now, and not in a good way, I will have to look further into it again though
Only somewhat in the UI, Odysee is OpenSource and monetization for creators work in a different way, no ads, decentralized servers and the LBRY blockchain.
Yeah, I know what you mean. This stack of sites doesn’t cover everything I use YT for. Regardless, I think they can tick enough boxes to form a viable option for me. It’s not perfect, but it’s usually good enough.
Probably something for me to look into again soon, maybe
These days it seems like we are chasing our tails with all of this anti privacy bullshit, it is stupidly time consuming, and everything has to be treated as temporary anyway, just waiting for it also to become bullshit.
Happy, happy, joy, joy
As long as you’re relying on a massive platform to kindly allow you to do your thing, it’s going to be an endless game of cat and mouse. Any solution you can come up with is destined to break soon. Once you step outside that setting, you’ll get a lot more privacy, but you’ll have to sacrifice the video selection.
Think of it like trying to use chrome in s privacy respecting way. It’s a fools errand, since the whole point of chrome is to suck all of your data and relay it to Google. Switching to Firefox would solve those problems very easily.
firefox also crossed lines, were called out for it and backpeddled somewhat, they can easily update to trash again any time they choose. I'm not sure to what level the forks are exempt from any changes.
Point being, for the most part when it comes to tech, we have limited options.
I already use linux, and lineageos without any google apps, I also use a vpn, expecting at any time at least one of those will also become non-viable, but not knowing what they will be replaced with, if anything.
It’s a constantly evolving landscape, and you have to keep an eye on things. Privacy doesn’t come for free.
Privacy should be a given, most people can't vote for shit though.