I feel like I’ve been chasing this rabbit hole for weeks and every solution is a dead end. First I tried Grayjay and discovered that its blocked with a VPN unless I sign in. Then I went on to try Libretube and New pipe only to discover the same issue. The only place where it seems to work is Freetube on PC, but even then I get rate limits and wait times. So I’m wondering if anyone here has researched this or experimented like I have and if anyone has any ideas. I’m leaning towards the route of Grayjay while logged in just so I can keep having local playlists and subscriptions, and so I can slowly move over to odysee and peer tube within the same app. I don’t know if a better option even exists anymore. What do you guys do as a solution for this? Is the privacy trade off of no VPN worth it?
Edit: if my issue is because of Mullvad VPN like one of the replies suggested, which trustworthy VPN can I use for this? Preferably one that isn’t $10 a month
from my experience it depends on the provider and server. for example i’ve had zero issues with proton vpn + newpipe so far but mullvad only worked on specific servers for me with most being blocked.
Honestly, I can’t say. You could get a proxy, maybe a data center proxy. These are usually proxies that offer unlimited bandwidth, unlike residential proxies, and are not blocked and are most likely not going to be blocked. I don’t know why Mulvad seems to be blocked, but based off my experience with just proton this barely happens to me. And when it happens, I just switch to another server/country and it’s fixed.
besides that tho, if yt is really something thats non-negotiable perhaps you can just use it then with an account ?
The extensive tracking of having an account is the problem. Even with personalized ads and watch history off I can’t guarantee privacy. As for having a front end I just like the peace of mind of my subscriptions and playlists being local and easily backed up. That could be years of history lost if Google banned my account
Edit: if my issue is because of Mullvad VPN like one of the replies suggested, which trustworthy VPN can I use for this? Preferably one that isn’t $10 a month
afaik proton vpn is below 10$ if you pay anually instead of monthly. ivpn also has plans below 10$ although i don’t know if they are blocked like mullvad.
I understand where you’re coming from, and I’ve considered the same thing myself, but I don’t think I can leave because I just haven’t really found any service that has the same recommendation algorithm as YouTube.
Anyway, I mostly use YouTube on my phone with YouTube ReVanced and MicroG. I don’t know it really depends.
I gotta ask tho, isnt all of that data basically useless if it isn’t tied to an identity? is how i see it. Unless you’re using a personal Google account that’s linked to your real identity, why not just use a separate spam Google account that isn’t tied to you?
i wish , i really do wish there was an alternative but there just isnt, not even close.
Plenty of Mullvad servers do work with YouTube as well. The way I did it was basically going through the list, trying out which ones are blocked or not, and adding those that do work to a Custom List in the app.
Here’s a few to get you started (I can’t promise all of them still work but most do for me using Newpipe or PipePipe):
Either they haven’t gotten around to banning them yet or the ban has expired. Sometimes servers that I use stop working suddenly (though quite rarely), and sometimes others that didn’t work previously start working.
I think with how unpredictable it is Google is just trying to inconvenience people into not using VPNs without getting caught. The play store for example thinks my exit point is in another country even though Google search shows the correct location for the VPN server
The last couple days I get blocked by youtube when using Newpipe while im connected to a speceific mullvad server. But I just change to a differnet US server and newpipe starts working again.
Freetube is the basically the same for me, but breaks way more often. Like right now videos play but are locked at 360p unless i change the mullvad server to something else.
I would also like to hear about your guys setups with front ends and multiple devices. Grayjay sync is a very attractive feature but I dont like the proprietary export format. It seems like libretube struggles with freetube imports though
That way you can easily switch between servers in the list with the ‘reconnect’ (or whatever it says in other languages) in the notification, in case one decides to not work all of a sudden.
