The YouTube Situation: You Lose More Freedom or Less, It's Up To You!

YouTube frontends which still work (at least for now, but who knows for how long)

Sounds like the best option to keep watching every creator, and have privacy at the same time. The only downside is that this option is really fragile, it's the easiest for YouTube to kill off with DRM, age verification, random API changes, etc. There used to be a ton of YouTube frontends 2-3 years ago, but in last September, they suddenly killed off the vast majority of them (mainly the web clients), only a few remained. And it isn't over, they continue the hunting.

Some (FOSS) clients which still work most of the time:

• FreeTube: the most feature-rich desktop client for Windows/MacOS/Linux which has the majority of YouTube features which can work without a Google account. It can use its own backend or Invidious to fetch videos. It also has built-in Tor mode. There's a separate Android version by other devs.
• inv.nadeko.net: the last remaining (public) Invidious instance which still works most of the time, even though it's often slow to load. It uses a tweaked version of Invidious, offers 7 proxies to choose from, so that if one is blocked, there are still more which work.
• NewPipe: an Android client which has similar features as FreeTube, it has been constantly attacked by YouTube for at least 5-6 years but they are still in the game, in fact, now there's also an unofficial Linux version on Flathub, thanks to the Android Translation Layer project, it still has some issues but the previously broken audio seems to be fixed by now, it's getting to a usable state (even though the subscribe option is still broken, the UI isn't adapted to desktop, a little inconvenient to use)
• PokeTube: a web client with a quite goofy design, and a not so well-designed video player, but hey, it can still play videos

There might be more, but these are the ones I checked (I don't have an Android / custom rom phone, there might be some more for that).

Paste YouTube links into a desktop video player

Even if some frontends are blocked by YouTube, can't play videos, it's usually still possible to copy-paste the video links to an external video player which has the option to play online videos, e.g. VLC or Haruna (latter is Linux-only). In VLC, go to Media > Open Network Stream. In Haruna, click Open URL, or File > Open URL.

Grab already available content from YouTube

While the most comfortable option is to use a 3rd-party YouTube client, we have to get ready for the moment when all of them break permanently. On last Thursday-Friday, inv.nadeko.net was fully dead (all its 7 proxies), FreeTube also failed to load most videos. This should already be a wake up call to look for some other options. There are some options to download videos, it's built into the clients mentioned above, but there are also some dedicated downloaders. The download feature of NewPipe seems to be the only one which is still fully functional (can download videos in original image resolution in MP4), inv.nadeko.net can only download audio, FreeTube and PokeTube can only download video + audio at the same time in low quality (although separate video and audio files can be merged using FFmpeg as pointed out in PokeTube download pages, like this one).

However, by far the most powerful video downloader is yt-dlp (for Windows/MacOS/Linux/BSD) which can download videos without conversion (in WebM or MKV format for video files, Opus for audio files), with optional conversion options, metadata embedding and more. In fact, it can't just download single videos but also whole playlists and channels (this is its main strength which makes it stand out from all the other options). It's originally a terminal program, with many third-party graphical frontends like Parabolic, but in the past few months, older versions of yt-dlp, which are used by most 3rd-party clients, are broken, making those clients unusable, so the only option seems to be to use yt-dlp directly from the terminal, and update it when it starts to throw errors. You can get it via Pip or Pipx using pip install yt-dlp or python -m pip install yt-dlp or pipx install yt-dlp. To update it, you can do pip install --upgrade yt-dlp or pipx upgrade yt-dlp. Optionally on Arch, you can always get the latest version of yt-dlp without using Pip/Pipx.

Commands can be really simple or really complex, based on what options you prefer to use.

A few simple commands (individual options can be combined):

• yt-dlp <video_url>: download video without conversion (in WebM or MKV format, depending on the given video)
• yt-dlp -x <video_url>: download audio only without conversion (in Opus format)
• yt-dlp <video_url> --embed-metadata: as it suggests, it adds metadata to the file, like title, uploader/artist, album (in case of audio downloads from YouTube Music) and more
• yt-dlp -t mp4 <video_url>: download video in mp4 format (m4a is also available for audio only option), choosing the best quality available for the format
• yt-dlp <video_url> --list-formats: list all available quality assets for all formats, lets you choose manually

(These commands can also be used for downloading playlists and channels, options are applied to all videos in that case.)

Pro tip: if you're using Linux plus Bash shell, and you use the same options many times, you can add a function to .bashrc, with a parameter for video url ($1), or write a Bash script and optionally alias it. I chose the former, and added these functions:

ytm() {
  yt-dlp -x $1 --embed-metadata
}

yt() {
  yt-dlp $1 --embed-metadata
}

As I already mentioned, you can download full playlists and channels. You should absolutely make use of this opportunity while you still can, before the gates of the walled garden close. Download the videos of all of your favorite creators who only upload to YouTube, and all music you like, so you'll still have access to them without compromising your privacy. I already downloaded 100+GB video (I saw some commenters saying they have multiple TBs, so mine is still nothing compared to theirs lol). Don't feel dirty doing this. It's like taking the life of a person who wants to take yours, as self-protection. You protect your privacy using piracy.

An honorable mention is cobalt.tools, which was also a pretty decent option, but it doesn't seem to work anymore for YouTube (still works for other platforms though).

Notice the "already available" part in the heading. Unfortunately we can't grab videos which aren't uploaded yet to YouTube. This is where we still lose some freedom. Unless...

Using YouTube website in a virtual machine, via Tor

This method will also work as long as YouTube doesn't block VM or Tor usage, or watching videos without an account (you don't want to login, because that would de-anonymize you, defeat the purpose of using Tor). VM lets you hide fingerprint data like some hardware specs, the main OS you use (if you use a different OS on the VM). Tor hides the identity of your machine (including the IP address) by sending requests through multiple nodes.

For creating a VM, you can use VirtualBox, or one of the QEMU frontends like virt-manager or GNOME Boxes. You can connect to Tor using Tor Browser, Brave's Tor mode, or Tails (a Linux distro with system-level Tor integration).

Alternative platforms

Regardless of the still available options to watch YouTube content, it might become impossible to do so in the future, so it's also worth looking into other platforms, even if not all creators are available there. For simplicity, let's break them down into two categories.

Listening to music

Currently, there are some major music streaming platform, like Soundcloud and Bandcamp, which are proprietary, aren't as privacy respecting by default, but have some more private, FOSS frontends, which aren't blocked (at least for now). Soundcloud has most of the songs available on YouTube (at least in my experience), so you probably don't lose that much. Bandcamp doesn't have as many songs, but it can be a decent fallback option.

There's NewPipe (and its fork Tubular) for Android, and Tubo (a self-hosted web-based equivalent for NewPipe) on web, which can be used for both streaming platforms. Note that there aren't any public instances for Tubo at the moment (tubo.migalmoreno.com is listed by LibRedirect, but has been down all the time I looked at it, and isn't mentioned anywhere else, so it's likely shut down), to use it, you need to host it yourself, which might be a bit risky if Soundcloud or Bandcamp (or YouTube, since it's also a YouTube client) notice it (see the email that YouTube sent to Invidious). You can also use yt-dlp to download music from both platforms.

For Soundcloud, there's also Soundcloak, a web based client with a bit minimalistic design. It lacks option to follow channels, but it can be used to listen and download tracks. The above mentioned cobalt.tools can also be used to download tracks from Soundcloud.

For Bandcamp, there's Tent, a web client, where you can listen to music online (although playback is broken on a few instances). There isn't any download or profile follow option though.

These options are good for following your favorite musicians, or at least access their music. However, it's might worth looking into what some of the more privacy respecting, FOSS platforms can offer, maybe you find some indie artists you like. See next section.

Watching videos

It's the part when unfortunately you have to give up the most, since most YouTubers outside the Linux/FOSS/privacy realm don't upload to other platforms, but it's worth to try a few more respectful, FOSS platforms regardless, seeing the current state of YouTube "piracy".

There's Odysee, which is the main frontend for LBRY, a blockchain-based decentralized platform. It has some Google telemetry, but that can easily be blocked using uBlock Origin or Portmaster, without breaking the site. It has probably the widest range of content among the FOSS video sharing platforms, including not just tech content, but music, gaming, entertainment and many other categories. Instead of an invasive algorithm, content in the various categories is ranked based on the amount of bid (LBC put on the content) plus the upload date. For those reading this article outside Odysee, not familiar with the platform, LBC is a cryptocurrency which can be collected within the site, by watching content, gaining certain number of verified followers, boosting other creators' content, there's also an option to send LBC to someone. If you don't like the web/mobile app for some reason, you also have the option to use the original LBRY desktop/Android app, or some of the 3rd-party clients.

There's also PeerTube, a decentralized, federated platform, which is part of the Fediverse. It has multiple different instances you can register to, some of the major ones are TILvids (for educational content, including tech and other topics), MakerTube (for tinkerers, and people who like some creative stuff), BassPistol (for music-related content), HardLimit (for gaming content), and more. Note that in most instances, you need to request an account from the admin/moderators instead of the traditional registration process, but you can find info about it on the respective instance websites. (I'm a volunteer mod on TILvids, so I can assist you there) Regardless of which instance you join, mostly you'll be able to watch content published on the other instances too, since they are interconnected, the only difference is that on the home and local content pages, you see content from your instance, plus if you're a content creator, some features (e.g. content import/export, channel sync, upload quota, live streaming) aren't available on all instances. (You can see feature availability on the About page of the respective instance.) No matter which instance you choose, you can use it via its dedicated website, the new official PeerTube mobile apps (which also feature option to sub to channels locally, without registration, similar to NewPipe or FreeTube! How cool is that?), or 3rd party apps like P2Play or NewPipe (plus Tubular) on Android, PlasmaTube or Pipeline on mobile and desktop Linux, Tubo on web (you need to self host it, as mentioned earlier). And since PeerTube is part of the Fediverse network, you can also watch videos from Mastodon (and maybe some other Fediverse platforms too, which support displaying video content), and follow PeerTube channels from there if you have a Mastodon account. Mastodon is similar to PeerTube, it has a lot of instances to choose from, which can be used on the respective website, Mastodon mobile app, and 3rd party clients (Tusky for Android, Tuba and Tokodon for Linux, etc.).

Soulseek protocol

Soulseek is a protocol which seeks for your soul lets you chat with other like-minded people and share some music with each other. The protocol itself is proprietary, but there are some FOSS clients like Nicotine+ (for desktop). Tbh, I haven't tried it yet, just saw a few people recommending it, it probably wouldn't be that useful for me, because I mainly listen to underground artists, there's a low chance I find someone who knows those artists and also has a copy of their songs. But for those of you, who listen to more mainstream artists, it can be a good, future-proof solution to get music from. (Note that communication is unencrypted.)

Conclusion

YouTube is a garden full of treasure, which is used to lure you in. The walls are getting higher and higher. If you stay, you will be stuck there with all the treasure but no freedom to leave the garden without leaving the treasure behind. But if you act in time, you can bring the treasure out of there, and move on.

With alternative YouTube frontends + external video players you can still watch videos without compromising your privacy, but it's worth downloading videos before these options break permanently, unfortunately it can happen, YouTube is already playing around with DRM and age verification. It may also be possible to use the YouTube website in a VM with Tor, until YouTube blocks VM, Tor usage, or watching videos without an account. But the long term solution is to look for alternative platforms to listen to / download music and watch videos.

Tbh, I haven't done any in-depth research for writing this article, I just wrote it to summarize my thoughts about this topics, and maybe share something new with you, provide a starting point for you to do your own research in the topic. Hope you found it useful.