Hey all I’m not sure if this question makes any sense but it’s something I’ve been thinking about.

I use YouTube alternatives like FreeTube and NewPipe. But one thing I miss from YouTube is their recommendation algorithm. OK it’s not great and has been getting worse, but at least there are somewhat relevant videos on the home page.

Does anyone know of anything (third-party service, self-hosted, app, etc.) that can provide YouTube recommendations based on what I like?

One thing I’ve been using is FreeTube’s Most Popular tab. It’s like Trending on YouTube but only for your Invidious instance. It usually has good recommendations, but I think that’s only because my interests happen to align with those of other people who also use FreeTube. :)

Thanks for any ideas!

    • AnActOfCreationOP
      6·
      1 year ago

      Is the Grayjay home feed based on recommendations? And if so, is that true even if you’re not logged in with YouTube credentials? Thanks!

      EDIT: I think this is the answer from the FAQ.

      Why is my home feed filled with random videos? Grayjay does not track you out of the box. For this reason, platforms do not know what content to show you. If you want more personalized content you will need to login to the platforms.

      • rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
        2·
        1 year ago

        I’m not sure, I’ve tried it once but didn’t like it that much. They claim to have better usability and merge a few things. It may be worth a try but I don’t really know the specifics.

  • averyminya@beehaw.org
    5·
    1 year ago

    Piped recommends are pretty good when you are watching a video, but other than that I haven’t come across many

  • unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de
    21·
    1 year ago

    I just had a fun idea that might not take too much time to implement and could work on your own computer (not 100%, but probably more privacy friendly than using YouTube directly):

    • have a powerful AI companion API, such as ChatGPT 4. The most up-to-date with the world data the better it would work.
    • write a script that gathers your favourite channels, the last 100 videos you watched, and whatever other useful data you feel could serve as “food”
    • send a prompt to the AI asking for “give me 10 interesting YouTube search queries related to the following channels/themes […]”
    • use multiple Piped/Invidious server APIs and query these and gather the most common results + the top X results or each query.
    • profit?