Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube - eviltoast
Customize YouTube to work exactly the way you want it to.

I’m not sure it’s the “best” way, but it’s a solid alternative, and receives rapid updates when YouTube moves to break things.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/15571129

I’m using this all the time myself. There is no login to YouTube required and it supports adding subscriptions and doing everything important you can do on YouTube.

And the best part is no ads whatsoever.

  • y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    7·
    3 months ago

    I’ve tried a few different front ends for fun in the past and they’re fun to tinker with, I’ll admit. I don’t think I used freetube.

    Also it was some months ago, but the biggest issue I found was that I couldn’t sync watch lists. I could add subs and things but if I watched something on my phone, whatever front-end on my computer would tell me I still hadn’t watched that video and recommend it.

    Is there a way around this? Because, that’s a huge deal breaker for me. As an end goal, I want less Google in my life, but there are certain inconveniences I am unwilling to tolerate (however seemingly small lol).

    Anyway, I may start tinkering again soon. Thanks for the reply!

    • Unruffled [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPMEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      I don’t think there’s currently a way to automatically sync watch history across devices, but I’d love to be wrong about that tbh, because it would be handy.

      • cyberwolfie@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Syncthing is your friend. Freetube stores playlists, history, settings and subscriptions as .db-files which you can sync between devices. Android version also allows access to these files if enabled in settings.