There’s already a workaround (found, again, here), but I figured I would use this opportunity to tell people that projects like Piped and Invidious exist, which both allow you to watch YouTube without loading their ads, with improved Privacy and (in the case of Piped) even Geoblocking-Circumvention and SponsorBlock out of the box.
They’re both great tools, and using something like LibRedirect you can even automatically go to Piped or Invidious when clicking/opening a YouTube link (and more).
Both don’t load ads, but unless changed in the settings Individous may still make connections to Google/YouTube to load the video(s) themselves.
Bit of a shameless plug for these projects, but I figured this is a really good time to show these projects as I often see people asking what they are in threads on here
I have really enjoyed Invidious in the past, but anytime I had to switch to a new server, I had to re-import all of my subscriptions, re-select my favorite channels, re-create my playlists, and re-update my preferred settings. While that doesn’t sound too bad, it got annoying as it happened numerous times and I eventually gave up. If there’s any way to make all of that easier/more streamlined, I may give it a try again. For now, I’m using a tweaked version of the iOS YouTube app and Freetube on desktop.
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I have really enjoyed Invidious in the past, but anytime I had to switch to a new server, I had to re-import all of my subscriptions, re-select my favorite channels, re-create my playlists, and re-update my preferred settings. While that doesn’t sound too bad, it got annoying as it happened numerous times and I eventually gave up. If there’s any way to make all of that easier/more streamlined, I may give it a try again. For now, I’m using a tweaked version of the iOS YouTube app and Freetube on desktop.
Are their any downsides to self hosting this stuff?