I’m a very avid YouTube user, I’ve payed for Premium for the last couple of years but am becoming less and less comfortable with it.
YouTube is actually the last Google-service (besides Android, but there are plans to ditch Google there using something like /e/OS) I’m left using after switching to Proton Mail (instead of GMail), Here WeGo (instead Maps), TransIP Stack (instead of Drive) and a self-hosted Memos (instead of Keep).
I tend to watch YouTube on my TV by setting up a queue of videos on my phone and then casting them to my TV. This is all ad-free because of my Premium subscription, but of course everything is tracked.
Is there a way for me to watch YouTube, preferrable on my TV with my phone as remote control, without having a Google-account? I found NewPipe on FDroid, but that sadly does not provide casting (I managed to get it partially working by using VLC, but no queue and no sound whatever I tried)
There are also things like Inoreader that people use, but I believe that does not have queueing and casting as well, so it would not really work in my situation.
Sidenote: I like the idea of creators receiving at least a bit of the payments I make as a reward for the content they post, but I reckon that with something like NewPipe/Piped an ad-blocker in place those would be lost.
Anyone got some ingenious solutions working?
Edit: my TV currently is an Android TV, but that may be up for change sometime later this year, so any external solution like a stick or RPi or something would also be up for consideration.
Since you’re using Android TV already, I’d recommend configuring it to remove the ads via the use of a custom launcher, and install SmartTube Next for an ad-free, account-free YouTube.
In the case of the Hisense TV I picked for my grandparents, I found that Android TV kept wanting to revert to the default launcher, so used Launcher Manager to keep Projectivity Launcher as the default. While you can uninstall system apps via ADB, they tend to come back automatically, making the ‘hide app’ option of Projectivity Launcher useful to remove bloatware from the menu.
There’s also apps that can remap the remote buttons to open custom apps. Couldn’t get it to work on the Hisense TV due to there being a glitch with enabling accessibility options, but seemingly it works in most cases. Also note that unless you’re able to root the Android TV installation (also couldn’t do it for the Hisense TV) and install the SmartTube Bridge app, the Google Assistant button will still try to send all voice commands to the default YouTube app, so voice searches need to be done in the SmartTube app directly.
If you also want movies and TV shows, I’d also recommend installing Stremio with the Torrentio addon. While it needs a paid debrid account to be useful (about 3€ a month in the case of Real-Debrid), it’s a suitable catchall replacement for Netflix, Disney+, and other streaming services.
I use STube (SmartTube) and it’s pretty good. It has ad blocking, integrated sponsorblock, various amenities, and support for casting. I think it also works without logging in.
I am not sure if it works on any Android tv or just on Amazon firestick, but the stick is its primary target. You may need to stick to the beta, as google gets more aggressive with ad blocking, it’s updated pretty often.
Don’t bother with an RPi, it will cost more troubleshooting than it’s worth (in this usecase).
If you are up for self hosting some cool open source software…
I use tubearchivist to automatically download new videos from my subscriptions and then use Jellyfin + the tubearchivist plugin to organize them.
Now all my you tube videos show up as organized, ad free shows on my personal streaming service!
This sounds like something I’d consider for my homelab. Do you mind elaborating more on the pipeline? How does it look like to prune watched content? Or you keep it forever?
I don’t prune my YouTube content, so I don’t have first hand experience, but tubearchivist supports auto deleting content after X time period after it has been watched.
I think if you are watching through Jellyfin rather than tubearchivist, you’ll need to enable synchronization so Jellyfin can synchronize watched status back to Jellyfin.
Thanks for your inputs! Definitely will check it out, I’m tired of Youtube client ads and recommendations :’)
It might help to mention what type of tv you have.
Thx, I’ve added a bit of clarification to my original post. I’ve currently got a Android TV, but that may be up for change later this year, so any external solution like a stick or RPi=based solution would be up for consideration as well.
I use Grayjay on my phone, which works most of the time. The move has massively reduced my consumption of shitty shorts and clickbait content
For those wondering the same but for ios, the “Unwatched” app is my holy grail.
Personally, I hooked up a micro PC to my TV to use it as a giant monitor. I use a small wireless keyboard and mouse to control it from the couch.
Then I use Firefox with uBlock Origin (and Proton VPN) to block ads while I access YouTube from a browser on my TV.
I’m very anti-advertisement, so I don’t even watch TV anymore. My TV is a glorified streaming PC; I stream all my shows and movies online and block ads that way. No commercial breaks!
I also built my own Plex media server and ripped all my DVD and Blu-ray discs to it (and even some old VHS tapes!), so I can stream my own media from anywhere; through my phone, tablet, laptop, etc. I primarily use it to watch my movies and TV shows on my living room TV.
I also ripped all my old music CDs to mp3 and added them to Plex, so I now have my own ad-free music I can listen to on the go. I stream it through the Plexamp app on my phone, which I connect to my car’s Bluetooth. It’s like ad-free radio, except I can play whatever I want to listen to in the moment.
