What are the best piracy tips/tricks. I host most of my own media, but I want to be able to read paywalled news articles, watch youtube w/o ads am generally into privacy, etc.
What are your best practices?
For Youtube w/o ads just use Newpipe, an open source, privacy aware, third party app. You’ll never need to log into Youtube again. And it’s not even piracy, even if Google might think differently 🙂
Have a look at Grayjay for youtube and other video sites.
IMO blocking ads is a form of piracy. You are circumventing there form (ads) of monetization. But yea Newpipe is great I personally use Tubular
This is a stretch.
They could’ve withheld the content if I didn’t pay. They let me have it on their site delivered from their servers. I didn’t walk out with stolen goods.
Did you enter into a contract saying you must watch ads to use the service? Is ad blocking against ToS? I don’t think either are true, and a “click to consent” isn’t legally binding. Either way, I will never not block ads as it is important from a privacy and cyber security perspective.
Enter a contract no… you also don’t ‘enter a contract’ when you buy a dvd either or watch in theaters etc (no idea about streaming service tbh). As for ToS yes https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/14129599?hl=en
When you block YouTube ads, you violate YouTube’s Terms of Service.
In that case it is a ToS violation, not piracy. You aren’t paying anything, nor does google lose any money since they have been already paid. We would have to stretch the definition of piracy to include other ToS violations since it is not a financial lose.
Let’s extend the scenario. If YouTube ToS required you to click every ad to use their service, would it be piracy if someone doesnt follow those instructions? I think it would be a ToS violation, but what damages could Google even seek?
I hear people sometimes mention that “Google needs to pay somehow to keep YouTube running.” I have no sympathy for Google since they conspired to intentionally push out other video hosting platforms to create monopoly on the market. It is their own fault that videos aren’t more spread out among providers.
How would you even pirate YouTube anyways?
The ultimate in privacy for YouTube is Invidious https://invidious.io/, which fully proxies your videos from YouTube through an Invidious server. Every once in a while YouTube will get the upper hand and figure out how to fingerprint and block the servers, but so far the community has always figured out how to circumvent it. One advantage is that you can feasibly use a VPN with Invidious; without it, you have to keep hopping from VPN server to VPN server until you find one YouTube hasn’t already blocked, especially on a large public VPN like ProtonVPN. This applies to NewPipe as well, since NewPipe still tries to talk to YouTube directly as far as I understand. On Android I use Clipious as the app to access the Invidious servers.
pro-tip: self-host invidious if u want the utmost
That is not ideal, especially if you will be the only one using it. If you are using it alone, YouTube will still be able to profile you, as all the videos will be watched by a single server. It would be just like using YouTube.com with a VPN. If you are self-hosting and a few people will use it, YouTube won’t be able to profile everyone, as it will think all the videos are being watched by a single person.
I made the jump from iOS to GrapheneOS a couple years ago. Definitely one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
It does not have Fdroid available by default, so Download and Install the APK.
I recommend the Mull Browser, as it gives you access to about:config settings and you can install a lot of extensions. I do recommend using NoScript extension on Mull and then using GrapheneOS’s Vanadium browser when you need JS.
On Mull, install ublock origin and then paste a custom filter into it to bypass paywalls. I like this list. Even though it’s not piracy related, I also recommend looking into the Libredirect extension.
For YouTube, I recommend using Tubular. It’s a Newpipe fork that supports Sponsorblock.
Enjoy and good luck.
What’s the title got to do with the post?
The apps are different on iOS bc of apple’s walled garden. For example, NewPipe (in the other comment) is a music app on iOS and I didn’t know about it before. The browser is locked to Safari or skins of safari, so extensions are pretty limited. Graphene gives a lot more options so I’m looking for those RE: piracy.
Ah, thanks for explaining. Guess I’m just old. I do my piracy on a regular computer.
Like with one of those pads with the clickly letters like gamers use?
They’re awesome. There are foldable ones which you can carry around. Or big ones that you don’t even need to charge, because they’re directly hooked to the power grid. You don’t need to hold them, because they sit on the table. Have about 105 separate keys (ever wondered what your 8 other fingers are for?), a mega large screen… Mine even has 2 screens, I can open like 5 apps at the same time! They have headphone jacks, sd-slots, multiple(!) charging ports which you can use for other things than charging… almost endless storage… And there are very smooth operating systems available, which don’t even lock you into Google or Apple’s ecosystem… I really like them!
Best thing is, they won’t even drop out of cellphone coverage when you go grocery shopping. You’ll just leave them at home and they keep on downloading. Once you return, you might have all bad sitcoms of the 90s saved on them.
Don’t you miss them when you leave them at home? That part sounds sad.
The big one is fine. I think it’s already grown up. And does most of the chores around. And the small one: I tend to bring it with me. I carry it in my backpack, especially to some nerd activities. I don’t think there is any rivalry. They’re individuals and I think my machines all feel my love and affection. No, I don’t miss them in day to day life. We’ll meet each afternoon anyways and I think some leeway is healthy. But that changes if I go on vacation for a week. I sometimes really miss them when I’m in a different city for several days… Idk. Seems one-sided anyways, because they then just sleep all day like a cat and don’t really mind my absence.
Context? Graphene related advice?
https://github.com/revanced/revanced-manager for YouTube (and other App mods), you need to patch the app yourself. (If you are downloading a patched apk you are getting scammed. You have to patch it yourself) https://github.com/mihonapp/mihon for manga / manhwa I use internet archives for paywalls but their might be a better solution. F-droid has a a lot of neat open source app, I guess you know of it since you are picking graphene, but just in case. Firefox supports addons, it’s been a great browser (though its UI is a bit rough sometimes) and could be your solution for YouTube with uBlock and the background play addons. I personally don’t like graphene launcher, I personally use NovaLauncher (the paid version), their is quite a lot of FOSS ones too.
edit: sorry for the formatting, my phone f it up
Revanced is questionable. Use Tubular instead.
Why do you think so?
You’re not modifying a stock YouTube client, it doesn’t give you recommendations, it doesn’t have Shorts and you don’t technically violate the YouTube ToS.
Defo go for F-droid! Dunno if it’s baked into Graphene but I use it almost exclusively on Android.
I also recommend Firefox/Fennec with the Web Archives add-on for viewing paywalled articles. You will be depending on others archiving the full version to read them, but with most larger outlets they will.
Question about browsers: Do you have a preference of Firefox, Fennec or Iceraven?
Thanks for the tip about Web Archives. I’ll put that on for sure. Was considering sideloading Bypass Paywalls Clean and they mentioned Iceraven, which I had never heard of.
Edit: BPC link goes to a
*.ruTLD. Link is also on the BPC wikipedia page. They previously got booted from gitlab and github.I recommend Mull. It is security/privacy hardened Firefox and built by using Fennec as a base. Always use Fennec over Firefox because it removes telemetry, proprietary code, and strongly protects against browser fingerprinting. Comes with support for most (if not all) desktop Firefox extensions. I highly recommend using uBlock Origin, ask anyone and they’ll tell you it is the best content blocker available.
Another good browser is Cromite. It is security hardened Chromium with built-in ad/content blocking, decent fingerprinting protection, and strong site isolation. It doesn’t have support for extensions because upstream Chromium on Android doesn’t either and it is hugely complex to port.
Modded APKs always have some level of risk. I would personally never use *vanced or anything, I’d stick to Newpipe.
The patch set is open source, so is the application that does the patches. I don’t feel like it’s worse than downloading most apps. Though you still rely on Google services.
Don’t go with fdroid. Go with Obtainium. You can download apps directly from Github and it updates automatically. Smaller attack surface and it’s one less hoop to jump through.
Why smaller attack surface? Bigger attack surface. For an attacker is way easier to hack a single developer and publish a malicious APK on their GitHub (or alternative) rather than hosting malware on the official fdroid repository.
The first just requires a phishing email (trojanize a random Dev with poor opsec, get his apk signing key and his browser cookies) while the second is way more complex (get full access to fdroid build servers)
The f-droid team goes through the source code and builds the app themselves before publishing. I think it’s better to trust them. Obtanium is great, but only if the app is not on f-droid or f-droid is lagging behind updates.
