this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.org/post/1872634

So, starting now, Google started mandating full JS for YT, effectively breaking all third-party clients and locking the site to their official client.

This reeks of DRM.

UPDATE: Installing Deno and installing yt-dlp through PyPi fixes yt-dlp but the very idea that Google is mandating JS to lock down YT in an attempt at pseudo-DRM is still crappy.

UPDATE #2: inv.nadeko.net is working again for now.

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[–] MystValkyrie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 10 minutes ago* (last edited 9 minutes ago)

I am so glad I had the foresight to use yt-dlp to back up most of my favorite videos. Not all of them, but I just thought we'd get more time.

But yeah, I knew this would happen. The age verification thing was really controversial, so Google would have had to expect that people would try to find other ways to access YouTube.

I'm pretty much done with YouTube. It's just not what it used to be. All my favorite YouTubers are either gone, have changed for the worse, or are on Nebula. It's mostly just slop, and I won't miss it.

[–] NovaSel@lemmy.world 12 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

As someone who is listening to a video on NewPipe as I type this very comment, no they did not

[–] Jhex@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Came here to say this after giving it 24 hours in case it was just lucky timing

However, now if I try to watch a YT vid in Firefox, I get the "Oops something went wrong" right when the Ad should have popped up

[–] BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I've gotten that occasionally, it usually fixes with a refresh. Was it persistent for you?

[–] Jhex@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

yeap... happened again after the refresh

I had almost given up on youtube since they blank out your home if you do not allow them to track history so this may have started a bit back. I only went on it because someone sent me a link and I just opened it directly... all in all, just another reason to not use YouTube

[–] BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Well, that's super lame! I wish there was a good alternative. I'll probably stick with it as long as ReVanced works.

[–] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

The day smart tube next stops working is the day i stop using youtube. I will NEVER watch a shitty youtube ad and I'm sure as shit not paying google any money whatsoever.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 hours ago

It's so weird hearing about YouTube ads. I can't recall ever seeing one. I know one day they're going to finally ruin it and I won't be able to consume it any more, an event I try to prepare for, but I haven't really done anything special to avoid ads except all the stuff you have to do just to be secure on the web in the first place. Like just using librewolf out of the box works fine?

[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 37 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

They're going to keep enshitifying it until they kill it completely. Them blackholes, I mean shareholders, will never have enough money.

[–] 6stringringer@lemmy.zip 5 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Overheard at the last shareholders conference. “Until everyone empties all their ecoin & change jars and the only things left to eat are those mysterious Budding’s sandwich meats with some shit ass processed excuse for a loaf of bread.” This is where we want the average American citizen to be living/existing/panicking.” I dunno his name, but it was for sure a rich, old, white dude. A real Montgomery Burns type looking MF’er. I dunno? They all look the same to me. EDIT: Apparently I fit that demographic according to the young ‘uns visiting us. Although they think I look like “The Dude” from “The Big Lebowski”.

[–] devedeset@lemmy.zip 3 points 9 hours ago

They won't kill it, just like it hasn't died so far. The content, viewer demographics, and algorithm continue to shift. There's too much money with all the ads and subscription fees. Most people view some content on it by default.

Its gonna be the new cable TV in a way. Kinda sucks, some good stuff on it, but mostly slop filled with ads. And everyone will still use it. Even if they block all 3rd party access, people like me are still going to use it to some limited degree. There will be a video about how to fix a random plumbing fitting that is leaking in my house, or how to fix some random thing on my 15 year old car.

[–] tempest@lemmy.ca 4 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

The market that accesses YouTube from a PC or Mac is shrinking rapidly.

They would prefer you use one of the apps and at some point that will be the majority, if it isn't already

[–] blargh513@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

That is by design.

With an actual computer, you have a lot more options in terms of how you can handle the content. They don't own your PC (yet) but they do own the mobile market and the operating system entirely.

You don't have any form of root/admin access on a mobile device of any type nor any other device (tv box, game console, tablet, etc). For the handful that have jailbroken or rooted their phones, many apps don't work (by design of course). You can do it, but you'll break a ton of stuff in the process. That's enough to keep causals from doing it and leaves the tiny group of hardcore dorks that are willing to live with the complexities that are required.

I'm going to put on my tinfoil hat and say this is what keeps any real attempt at a Linux phone in the gutter. If people had a choice for their mobile operating system and the freedom to do what they want with it, the big tech companies would shit a brick. They've already removed the ability to block ads on mobile devices for the vast majority, they're finally getting what they wanted (save the handful of Firefox users left).

Linux phones won't be a thing until there is hardware for them. With apple/google phones, the manufacturers will not release the necessary software so that is needed for a 3rd party OS. Google and Apple will make sure that anyone who makes hardware for them are legally tied to keeping that software tightly closed. Even if someone did manage to reverse engineer it, it would be a herculean effort and would break as soon as a new release is out (or if one of the manufacturers "accidentally" released some exploit code for the reverse engineered drivers).

It's an ugly world these greedy fucks have made for us.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

It’s an ugly world these greedy fucks have made for us.

We EAGERLY helped them. We walked into the cage and clasped the manacles all by ourselves.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 1 points 2 hours ago

I will set my fucking phone on fire before i install a google app on it

[–] zqps@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah last I've seen even smartphones and tablets are decreasing quickly relative to smart TVs.

[–] jmf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

What??? Where did you see this? I would assume the mobile market is still skyrocketing.

[–] enbiousenvy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 11 hours ago

about +12 hours ago spotdl (which uses yt-dlp) was broken. But I keep go on watching videos on newpipe

[–] hardcoreufo@lemmy.world 22 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

New pipe and smart tube both working for me.

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

My self hosted downloader similarly didn't skip a beat.

[–] Bitswap@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 9 hours ago

YoutubeDL-Material. It works great and I've found it downloads videos from other sources too.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 19 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Honestly surprised YouTube hasn't just required DRM yet

[–] CriticalMiss@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago (7 children)

Well.. the only available option to them for DRM that will work on all devices is Widevine L3 which is entirely bypassable. Spend a few hours on the net and you can figure out how to do it too.

[–] DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org 4 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)

Well, if they want to make everyone either buy Rokus or watch YT either in Edge on Windows (the official way to watch Netflix on PC currently) or on another Android device than a Roku with the official YT app, they could just implement a full Widevine L1 lockdown, and sadly, just buying a Roku to watch YT on or watching it on a pre-existing Roku along with the paid streaming services, is probably what most people would actually do if they locked it down like that.

Basically, Google would win the ad blocker and third-party front-end war by locking YT into pre-approved apps or devices, and as an added bonus (for them), they'd snuff out any competing platforms as Widevine L1 would also kill the ability to mirror one's YT channel to one of the alternative platforms, and I guarantee most people who just post any random thing on YT don't store their source video files locally to be able to to re-upload on PeerTube, Odysee, or Rumble, if anything, they're likely just filming and posting straight from their phones.

Now, the people with nice studio setups probably do have a local copy of their source files stored somewhere that they could re-up on their alternative platform of choice, but average Joes filming from a phone outnumber them.

[–] CriticalMiss@lemmy.world 1 points 29 minutes ago

I don’t think L1/PlayReady SL3K will happen. Imagine Google telling people that in order to view content on their website they need to use a competitor’s browser. Sure, technical people like you and I understand what’s happening behind the scenes, but average joe will just think Google fumbled it and can’t make it work with their own browser, it’s bad press for them. I also think that at least for now there’s too many desktop users to be able to pull it off. They’ll have to tell all the desktop users to go fuck themselves in order to do that, and that will get a good amount of people pissed off.

[–] Magnum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago

You know YouTube Revanced?

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[–] mrpollo@lemmy.zip 6 points 13 hours ago

Yt-dlp worked for me 3 hours ago

[–] carrylex@lemmy.world 59 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (4 children)

This post's title is just completely incorrect and it looks like 700+ people didn't even read the comments or the actual issue for one minute.

Good job guys!

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[–] thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 37 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

You should remember to send all YT videos that you watch to archive.org

There are browser extensions to do this conveniently

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[–] AndyMFK@lemmy.dbzer0.com 48 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Google doing everything they can to anger everyone.

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