Most private option for watching YouTube on TV (VacuumTube, SmartTube...?)

Questions
1

Hi,

I have a 55" LG TV from 2019 that’s not connected to the internet. I mainly plan on watching YouTube videos on it.

I’d like to hear the community’s tips on feasible privacy-oriented options. Form factor and ease of use are my ultimate priority - if I have to purchase any devices, I’d like them to be compact, with the ability to use a remote. For any third-party YouTube apps, I’m looking for:

  • the official interface, or at least a polished one
  • ad blocking
  • usability without a Google account

I’ve previously tried Kodi and its official YouTube addon, but the addon hasn’t given me the best experience. I’ve considered using a media-oriented Linux distribution such as CoreELEC or OSMC and combining it with a YouTube wrapper such as VacuumTube, but the aforementioned distributions don’t seem to support such programs launching or running in the background.

2

(1) Force the TV through a VPN connection (ex. set up Proton VPN on the router)
or
(2) Buy Apple TV or alternatives maybe
or
(3) Connect a laptop to the TV via HDMI

Option 1 works if you really need the TV’s native apps, though it still involves data collection. Generally, investing in a solid router that supports OpenWRT is a smart move, benefiting both your TV and other IoT devices. Option 2 is likely the ideal choice for your situation, despite the higher price, while Option 3 is what I currently use, even though it’s a bit inconvenient.

3

Best to use HDMI with officially recommended invidious instances. These instances seem to work the best for now. If you use another instance, make sure you go to settings and have it proxy videos for privacy before you watch a video. Goes without saying but if you don’t feel like constantly going near the laptop or whatever to switch to a different video you can use a bluetooth keyboard.

4

@oniontruth Some TV OS might try to advertise you content even on HDMI by guessing what you are interested in when you pause something on the device that the HDMI is connected to. I’m not sure if that’s likely or not with your setup, but if possible, make sure that you’re REALLY not connected to the internet on your TV

5

I’d rather let Peter Thiel rig my whole apartment with live feed CCTV than connect a vibe-coded Smart TV OS to the internet from my home.

Laptop via HDMI. Get a wireless keyboard-mouse thingo to hook up to it. I don’t have a keyboard or mouse so I just get up every 30 mins to change the video. I use KDE connect from my phone to pause and alter volume.

Edit: Oh yeah and then watch it just directly off youtube.com not signed in with watch history paused. I use Mullvad during the day, but Firefox at night cos I don’t want light mode at night. I route traffic system-wide through Mullvad VPN on lockdown mode. On FF I have uBO, Sponsorblock and return youtube dislike also.

6

For the folks who live with other people, and are not able to set up a vpn on a router, nor just connect a laptop to the tv due to this being a major convenience hit for those other people.

And so are stuck using firestick/nvidia shield etc.. and their os, i would recommend using smartube+a vpn inside their tv os, it functions similarly to newpipe+vpn, and you can use it without an account(subscriptions, playlist, and subscriptions feed and even a less personalized recomendation feed works).

Right now the newpipe file import is broken but there is a github issue open.

1-Add subscription

To add subscriptions, just search a channel and subscribe, and it should appear on the subscription list and feed.

2-Smartube does not support creating subscriptions on the subscription tab, to create them you need to search x video, then long click on it then press next to “add to playlist” the button “create new playlist”.

And now you should just be able to add videos by using the “add to playlist” button inside the video player, or by long clicking a video inside the feed.

Playlist are stored completely locally.

To sync newpipe and smartube i PERSONALLY just have a reminder to manually sync subs+playlists every 3 months.

And i archive them by taking a photo of them.

Now the problem with this setup is that due to the streaming device os your ip might leak sometimes when watching a video.

But since you dont have an account google will only know your ip is watching x video.

Rather then if you add an account connected it would know your ip is connect to every activity done on Your account!

This is my current setup, its not as private as the laptop connected through hdmi option.

I am still trying to find a better option on the streaming device/privacy/convenience frontend but right now this is the best i have got…

7

the “most private” option is going to be using a frontend that proxies your connection to YouTube. While using a VPN and the standard frontend is helpful you are still directly connecting to Google via the API and are still much more fingerprintable then you would be using a service that proxies that connection.

I am not sure there are any specific YouTube frontends for TVs that offer this but I think you can sideload LibreTube which points to an invidious instance. You will be sacrificing reliability for privacy doing this.

8

I use SmartTube on my TV box and have for years. I use a YouTube account with a VPN, so my activity is still tracked by Google to some degree, but at least I have ads blocked.

Because I use a VPN 24/7 on my TV box, the Google account for the Android TV OS, which is different from the one I use for SmartTube, is linked to a country I don’t live in. If I go to the regular YouTube app, which is not linked to any account, it will show ads for that country instead of my actual location.

SmartTube currently still works, but I am getting the impression that it has been updated in months. I could be wrong about that, though.

9

I use my Steam Deck for this.

I installed the FreeTube app (look it up, kinda like NewPipe, but for Linux. Subscriptions with no login, sponsorblock etc.) in the desktop mode of the Deck. Then I run this app as a nonsteam game, so that it appears in the SteamOS/Gaming mode. Then I use a community made controller-setting for FreeTube (can be searched in the Deck) and boom. YouTube, with no tracking and no ads, on the TV, with controller support. Fantastic setup in my opinion.

10

It’s worth keeping in mind that webOS is very invasive from a privacy standpoint by default. Personally, the only way I’ve been comfortable with it is by rooting the device and taking full control over the OS.

Once rooted, you’ll also benefits from:

11

Thanks to everyone for their input.

I decided to go with Kodi and launch VacuumTube via the following Python script. It is executed via the RunScript command in Kodi, and python3-psutil must be installed:

import subprocess, psutil

PROCNAME = "kodi.bin"

for proc in psutil.process_iter():
    if proc.name() == PROCNAME:
        proc.terminate()
proc = subprocess.Popen(['vacuumtube'])
proc.wait()  # Wait for the first program to close
subprocess.Popen(['kodi'])

This is all on my laptop that runs Debian.

I would like to implement the same Kodi/VacuumTube setup on a TV box running Linux. The crux here is that, on Linux, VacuumTube requires an X server to be running, which most Linux-based TV solutions (CoreELEC, LibreELEC, OSMC) don’t support. I’ll be looking further into the matter. Perhaps installing an ARM Linux build will make it possible.

12

The SmartTube developer just pushed out an update a few days ago. Prior to that the last update was early June.

I would recommend folks to download the app via the F-Droid package. The developer was never super transparent about how his development environment was compromised.

The F-Droid package isn’t failure proof, but it at least adds and addition layer of security over just relying on the GitHub package.

13

Thanks for the update.

Does F-Droid have an Android TV app?
Are there any alternative Android TV app stores?

14

There is Flicky if you want a TV UI

15

You can use uad-ng on android tvs as well to remove trackers from the OS and use adb to install something like flauncher to remove portal screen ads. Frankly, androidtv/google tv is the best bet by a long shot when dealing with proprietary cheap and big tvs. Use invidious clients or a servarr stack to pull youtube to jellyfin and block the tv from connecting to anything other than your server. I personally desoldered the wifi chip on my tv and hooked it straight to the ethernet on my server.