I really hope the answer is "yes," but gosh-darned if I can find one. The FreeTube app still works as long as my VPN is off, but as for Invidious . . . (also, sorry if this has already been covered earlier).

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[–] Amaterasu@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

Is there a good guide to self host?

[–] N0x0n@lemmy.ml 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Self-hosted piped/invidious still working great if you want to follow this route. Everything from no-ads/sponsor block/comments works without any issues.

One downside however, is that you're exposing your own public IP to Google/YouTube :/.

[–] Hirom@beehaw.org 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

YouTube has blocked a bunch of IP ranges, including residential ones, forcing people to use an account to watch videos. So self-hosting isn't an option for everyone.

[–] N0x0n@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Oho? Didn't knew that. Thanks for the info ! Do you know what caused the residential IP block ?

Outside of EU?
To much API calls from the same source?
Something else?

I mean, I don't see way they would block residential IPs with normal api calls from the same source. Or are they full enforcing the account thing on everyone?

[–] Hirom@beehaw.org 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

I don't know. My ISP doesn't know. And I won't bother interacting with Google's non-existing support.

My solution is moving away from YouTube whenever possible, for instance subscripting to podcast instead when a creator has a podcast with the same content.

[–] toastal@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Luckily most casts are just an RSS feed so you do not need an special tooling. It is a real shame many are putting their content behind walls like Spotify.

[–] Hirom@beehaw.org 1 points 2 hours ago

Yes, but many YouTube channels don't have a RSS podcast equivalent. YouTube is somewhat of a walled garden, like Spotify is.

[–] deathbird@mander.xyz 2 points 14 hours ago

I've been using Grayjay and it seems to be a good front end for YouTube.

[–] xela@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

The below website provides the answer to your question: https://redirect.invidious.io/

[–] christos@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

yt-dlp works, magic-tape works, too, if you don't mind terminal interface.

[–] ElcaineVolta@kbin.melroy.org 5 points 1 day ago

a command line yt client, hell yes.

[–] gaspar_petersen@programming.dev 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Freetube on desktop, NewPipe on smartphone. And I have no problems with VPNs on both devices!

[–] gravitywell@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago

My piped instance is still working https://piped.gravitywell.xyz/

[–] lemming741@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

My self hosted instance works great

[–] Substance_P@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've been trying for weeks. Sometimes, using a random IP address with Proton VPN works for a few hours, but eventually, Freetube (or YouTube) seems to catch on and shuts me down. Gravitywell mentioned a piped instance, which was great but only worked for a minute or two for me. I think the days of being anonymous on YouTube are over—time to move on if privacy is important to you.

[–] sntx@lemm.ee 3 points 13 hours ago

It's gotten to a point where I get "Sign-In to confirm you're not a bot" on my residential ip(s).

Which I won't, therefore no yt for me.

Luckily I've got better and more entertaining things to do.

[–] vortexal@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't think so, YouTube's new method for blocking third party clients seems to be difficult to work around. I have the Linux version of the NewPipe app and that seems to be working but I don't use VPNs, so I don't know if that would work for you.

[–] toth_peter@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

NewPipe works for me on Android

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

It stopped working for me recently. It'll play the first 5 seconds or so of the video and then just freeze up.

[–] kixik@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What works for me is freetube on desktop, and tubular/newpipe on AOSP.

[–] kixik@lemmy.ml 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Ups, I just got to enjoy piped and in particular pipeline on gnu+linux and libretube on AOSP.

Pipeline in particular allows to totally avoid electron (freetube), and in both cases the piped instance is the one communicating with youtube, not me, :) And both applications support sponsorblock (tubular does, but newpipe doesn't). But not talking directly to youtube is a win. Did I mention dropping another electron app, :) ?

But... I installed pipeline from AUR, because I don't like flatpak... Not sure if other user repos offer it as well...

[–] DragonsInARoom@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Not really at this point

[–] Deckweiss@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

I use freetube and grayjay

[–] communism@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'd like to know if any of these frontends work with Mullvad VPN, because all the Mullvad servers I've tried have been blocked. Even on youtube.com I'm getting throttled to the point where all videos are 360p. Ridiculous, but I'm not turning my VPN off just for YouTube videos.

[–] scrooge101@lemmy.ml 2 points 14 hours ago

For me it usually works to change server/country if a video is not working. Sometimes it takes 2-3 tries, and it is annoying.

[–] zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, same here! I have to turn off Mullvad when watching FreeTube which is definitely annoying.

[–] communism@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I was also using FreeTube when Mullvad got blocked. Mullvad's South African servers worked for me for a while but they're now blocked too, and I've tried a bunch of countries and all blocked. Annoyingly even yt-dlp is blocked with Mullvad on now, so I can't even use that to watch YouTube.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago

I still use Invidious and Piped for searches and looking at comments, but they are currently broken (as far as I've seen).

[–] a@91268476.xyz 4 points 2 days ago

@zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml same here. I stopped fighting via invidious and sadly I'm stuck with freetube, which is great, but I'd prefer a server side alternative

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 3 points 1 day ago

I use FreeTube too and none Invidious instance work for me. So Local API only right now.

[–] zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That reminds me, I think I remember reading on the FreeTube page that they recommended using a VPN with it (this was before the current issues with Mullvad); anyone know why? Are FreeTube users in any danger of being hunted down by Sundar Pichai & co.?

[–] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

the reason might be is that freetube can only proxy your usage over a server when using invidious, otherwise it needs to connect to youtube directly, making it possible for them to track you by IP (and by logged in users using yt from the same IP)

[–] Nonbinary_Sahrah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Whait what current issues with mullvad??

[–] koantig@mamot.fr 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

@Nonbinary_Sahrah
My recent experience: YouTube keeps on asking me to sign on (I never do) if I'm on the vpn. I'm using mullvad.

It sometimes works if I change location and always works if I turn off the vpn.

( I don't know if it's specific to mullvad though)
@zdhzm2pgp