Don’t forget you can use the command line tool yt-dlp to download videos from Youtube or Invidious ad free, with subtitles, and even have the sponsor mentions clipped out.
This plus using rss feeds is how I watch youtube without ever visiting the site, subscribing, or liking.
My setup is somewhat unique. I run Linux and love the command line/terminal emulator. I use newsboat rss reader which reads a text file that has a bunch of YouTube links listed one per line.
These urls were sourced directly from the youtube channels I want to subscribe to. In your browser, Ctrl+u opens up the html. Ctrl+f opens find, search “rss”. Adjacent to the first search result is the rss url to be put into the aforementioned file.
In newsboat, i can browse the latest updates to that channel. Hitting “o” opens my browser with the latest video. To boot, I use a redirection extension that takes that url and redirects to an invidious instance. Noscript extension prevents any javascript and I just copy the url {ctrl+L and then ctrl±c)
Finally I use yt-dlp in the terminal, pasting the url as its last argument (ctrl+shift+v in most terminal emulators). An alias wrapper immediately adds flags for medium quality (highest is often massive file size), subtitles, and sponsorblock (cuts out mentions of sponsirs via sponsorblock api). I also have similar aliases for high quality vids if I want them and also just extract audio for music. I watch/listen using mpv.
This is how I generally watch YT vids on my desktop. On mobile I use GrapheneOS and Libretube. Google has to send a CSV of your subs if you request it. Grabbed that a while back, uploaded it to Libretube, and haven’t gone directly to youtube cept to grab rss urls since. Btw, you can grab rss from invidious in a similar fashion, but I grab rss directly from youtube in case that invidious instance goes down.
I use newsboat too, just never considered using it for YouTube
An alias wrapper immediately adds flags for medium quality (highest is often massive file size), subtitles, and sponsorblock (cuts out mentions of sponsirs via sponsorblock api). I also have similar aliases for high quality vids if I want them and also just extract audio for music. I watch/listen using mpv.
I actually do the same thing
On mobile I use GrapheneOS and Libretube
Fucking based, I use the same stuff
I’ll try out something similar to your setup, but I will use my self-hosted FreshRSS server that connects to my newsboat as well as my Invidious instance. But keeping my subscriptions in my self-hosted Piped or Invidious is fine as well.
Don’t forget you can use the command line tool yt-dlp to download videos from Youtube or Invidious ad free, with subtitles, and even have the sponsor mentions clipped out.
This plus using rss feeds is how I watch youtube without ever visiting the site, subscribing, or liking.
Interesting, tell me more about your setup. How do you use RSS with yt-dlp?
My setup is somewhat unique. I run Linux and love the command line/terminal emulator. I use newsboat rss reader which reads a text file that has a bunch of YouTube links listed one per line.
These urls were sourced directly from the youtube channels I want to subscribe to. In your browser, Ctrl+u opens up the html. Ctrl+f opens find, search “rss”. Adjacent to the first search result is the rss url to be put into the aforementioned file.
In newsboat, i can browse the latest updates to that channel. Hitting “o” opens my browser with the latest video. To boot, I use a redirection extension that takes that url and redirects to an invidious instance. Noscript extension prevents any javascript and I just copy the url {ctrl+L and then ctrl±c)
Finally I use yt-dlp in the terminal, pasting the url as its last argument (ctrl+shift+v in most terminal emulators). An alias wrapper immediately adds flags for medium quality (highest is often massive file size), subtitles, and sponsorblock (cuts out mentions of sponsirs via sponsorblock api). I also have similar aliases for high quality vids if I want them and also just extract audio for music. I watch/listen using mpv.
This is how I generally watch YT vids on my desktop. On mobile I use GrapheneOS and Libretube. Google has to send a CSV of your subs if you request it. Grabbed that a while back, uploaded it to Libretube, and haven’t gone directly to youtube cept to grab rss urls since. Btw, you can grab rss from invidious in a similar fashion, but I grab rss directly from youtube in case that invidious instance goes down.
Thanks for the in depth explanation.
I use newsboat too, just never considered using it for YouTube
I actually do the same thing
Fucking based, I use the same stuff
I’ll try out something similar to your setup, but I will use my self-hosted FreshRSS server that connects to my newsboat as well as my Invidious instance. But keeping my subscriptions in my self-hosted Piped or Invidious is fine as well.