cross-posted from: https://lemmy.org/post/1872634

So, starting now, Google started mandating full JS for YT, effectively breaking all third-party clients and locking the site to their official client.

This reeks of DRM.

UPDATE: Installing Deno and installing yt-dlp through PyPi fixes yt-dlp but the very idea that Google is mandating JS to lock down YT in an attempt at pseudo-DRM is still crappy.

UPDATE #2: inv.nadeko.net is working again for now.

  • MystValkyrie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    52 minutes ago

    I am so glad I had the foresight to use yt-dlp to back up most of my favorite videos. Not all of them, but I just thought we’d get more time.

    But yeah, I knew this would happen. The age verification thing was really controversial, so Google would have had to expect that people would try to find other ways to access YouTube. They won’t stop here and will go after Deno and NewPipe.

    I’m pretty much done with YouTube. It’s just not what it used to be. All my favorite YouTubers are either gone, have changed for the worse, or are on Nebula. It’s mostly just slop, and I won’t miss it.

    • absentbird@lemmy.world
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      58 minutes ago

      Nebula is just a better experience most cases too. It just shows you what you’re subscribed to in chronological order, which is how YouTube used to work when it was less annoying.

      It also shares more revenue with creators and doesn’t force feed you ads. I really hope it continues to grow and never betrays its roots.

  • NovaSel@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    As someone who is listening to a video on NewPipe as I type this very comment, no they did not

    • Jhex@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      Came here to say this after giving it 24 hours in case it was just lucky timing

      However, now if I try to watch a YT vid in Firefox, I get the “Oops something went wrong” right when the Ad should have popped up

      • BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        I’ve gotten that occasionally, it usually fixes with a refresh. Was it persistent for you?

        • Jhex@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          yeap… happened again after the refresh

          I had almost given up on youtube since they blank out your home if you do not allow them to track history so this may have started a bit back. I only went on it because someone sent me a link and I just opened it directly… all in all, just another reason to not use YouTube

          • BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world
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            3 hours ago

            Well, that’s super lame! I wish there was a good alternative. I’ll probably stick with it as long as ReVanced works.

    • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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      3 hours ago

      It’s so weird hearing about YouTube ads. I can’t recall ever seeing one. I know one day they’re going to finally ruin it and I won’t be able to consume it any more, an event I try to prepare for, but I haven’t really done anything special to avoid ads except all the stuff you have to do just to be secure on the web in the first place. Like just using librewolf out of the box works fine?

  • DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    They’re going to keep enshitifying it until they kill it completely. Them blackholes, I mean shareholders, will never have enough money.

    • 6stringringer@lemmy.zip
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      10 hours ago

      Overheard at the last shareholders conference. “Until everyone empties all their ecoin & change jars and the only things left to eat are those mysterious Budding’s sandwich meats with some shit ass processed excuse for a loaf of bread.” This is where we want the average American citizen to be living/existing/panicking.” I dunno his name, but it was for sure a rich, old, white dude. A real Montgomery Burns type looking MF’er. I dunno? They all look the same to me. EDIT: Apparently I fit that demographic according to the young ‘uns visiting us. Although they think I look like “The Dude” from “The Big Lebowski”.

    • devedeset@lemmy.zip
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      11 hours ago

      They won’t kill it, just like it hasn’t died so far. The content, viewer demographics, and algorithm continue to shift. There’s too much money with all the ads and subscription fees. Most people view some content on it by default.

      Its gonna be the new cable TV in a way. Kinda sucks, some good stuff on it, but mostly slop filled with ads. And everyone will still use it. Even if they block all 3rd party access, people like me are still going to use it to some limited degree. There will be a video about how to fix a random plumbing fitting that is leaking in my house, or how to fix some random thing on my 15 year old car.

    • tempest@lemmy.ca
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      12 hours ago

      The market that accesses YouTube from a PC or Mac is shrinking rapidly.

      They would prefer you use one of the apps and at some point that will be the majority, if it isn’t already

      • blargh513@sh.itjust.works
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        4 hours ago

        That is by design.

        With an actual computer, you have a lot more options in terms of how you can handle the content. They don’t own your PC (yet) but they do own the mobile market and the operating system entirely.

        You don’t have any form of root/admin access on a mobile device of any type nor any other device (tv box, game console, tablet, etc). For the handful that have jailbroken or rooted their phones, many apps don’t work (by design of course). You can do it, but you’ll break a ton of stuff in the process. That’s enough to keep causals from doing it and leaves the tiny group of hardcore dorks that are willing to live with the complexities that are required.

        I’m going to put on my tinfoil hat and say this is what keeps any real attempt at a Linux phone in the gutter. If people had a choice for their mobile operating system and the freedom to do what they want with it, the big tech companies would shit a brick. They’ve already removed the ability to block ads on mobile devices for the vast majority, they’re finally getting what they wanted (save the handful of Firefox users left).

        Linux phones won’t be a thing until there is hardware for them. With apple/google phones, the manufacturers will not release the necessary software so that is needed for a 3rd party OS. Google and Apple will make sure that anyone who makes hardware for them are legally tied to keeping that software tightly closed. Even if someone did manage to reverse engineer it, it would be a herculean effort and would break as soon as a new release is out (or if one of the manufacturers “accidentally” released some exploit code for the reverse engineered drivers).

        It’s an ugly world these greedy fucks have made for us.

        • DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf
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          45 minutes ago

          They don’t own your PC (yet)

          MS pretty much owns the desktop PC space with Windows though, and even though there’s nothing stopping you from installing an alt OS on PC generally, Win11 not supporting anything older than Zen+ or Coffee Lake and flat-out refusing to run on anything older than Bulldozer or Nehalem even without support because everything before those arches lacks the POPCNT instruction, isn’t a good sign to say the least.

          Hopefully MS don’t start acting like Google and start breaking WINE/Proton and DXVK/VKD3D and crippling Linux gaming and even general desktop use on Linux, or even forcing Pluton to be enabled platform-wide blocking the ability to install alt OSes.

        • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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          3 hours ago

          It’s an ugly world these greedy fucks have made for us.

          We EAGERLY helped them. We walked into the cage and clasped the manacles all by ourselves.

      • zqps@sh.itjust.works
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        11 hours ago

        Yeah last I’ve seen even smartphones and tablets are decreasing quickly relative to smart TVs.

        • jmf@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 hours ago

          What??? Where did you see this? I would assume the mobile market is still skyrocketing.

  • nom_nom@lemmy.ml
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    21 hours ago

    Holy shit I did not realize how complex of a project yt-dlp has to be to do something as simple as download a video… Kudos to the devs

    • CriticalMiss@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      Well… the only available option to them for DRM that will work on all devices is Widevine L3 which is entirely bypassable. Spend a few hours on the net and you can figure out how to do it too.

      • DFX4509B@lemmy.orgOP
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        6 hours ago

        Well, if they want to make everyone either buy Rokus or watch YT either in Edge on Windows (the official way to watch Netflix on PC currently) or on another Android device than a Roku with the official YT app, they could just implement a full Widevine L1 lockdown, and sadly, just buying a Roku to watch YT on or watching it on a pre-existing Roku along with the paid streaming services, is probably what most people would actually do if they locked it down like that.

        Basically, Google would win the ad blocker and third-party front-end war by locking YT into pre-approved apps or devices, and as an added bonus (for them), they’d snuff out any competing platforms as Widevine L1 would also kill the ability to mirror one’s YT channel to one of the alternative platforms, and I guarantee most people who just post any random thing on YT don’t store their source video files locally to be able to to re-upload on PeerTube, Odysee, or Rumble, if anything, they’re likely just filming and posting straight from their phones.

        Now, the people with nice studio setups probably do have a local copy of their source files stored somewhere that they could re-up on their alternative platform of choice, but average Joes filming from a phone outnumber them.

        • CriticalMiss@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          I don’t think L1/PlayReady SL3K will happen. Imagine Google telling people that in order to view content on their website they need to use a competitor’s browser. Sure, technical people like you and I understand what’s happening behind the scenes, but average joe will just think Google fumbled it and can’t make it work with their own browser, it’s bad press for them. I also think that at least for now there’s too many desktop users to be able to pull it off. They’ll have to tell all the desktop users to go fuck themselves in order to do that, and that will get a good amount of people pissed off.

      • Krudler@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Could you briefly summarize what’s needed to make it happen? Not asking for a step-by-step just very rough overview

          • Krudler@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            You’re basically just saying go get a guide like you could have just not said anything LOL

            • CriticalMiss@lemmy.world
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              12 hours ago

              Not sure what’s up with the self-entitlement but I got shocking news: I don’t own you anything. You asked for a brief explanation and I told you where to go find it. Instead of writing that snarky comment you could’ve instead used the web for its original purpose and conduct your own research and not bug strangers on the internet to do your bidding.

  • carrylex@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    This post’s title is just completely incorrect and it looks like 700+ people didn’t even read the comments or the actual issue for one minute.

    Good job guys!

    • Liam Mayfair@lemmy.sdf.org
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      23 hours ago

      I mean sure, OP’s title is somewhat clickbaity but it’s kind of true though. YouTube have broken compatibility with all existing unofficial clients. It’s good that yt-dlp are managing to work around it. I expect many other clients will follow suit but some of them may be unable to install additional dependencies and remain broken.

      Ultimately, what is the last straw that will break the camel’s back? Every client/consumer will have their breaking point.

      • carrylex@lemmy.world
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        22 hours ago

        I mean sure, OP’s title is somewhat clickbaity but it’s kind of true though.

        Somewhat? Did you read the issue? Here’s a recap: yt-dlp will introduce a proper JS runtime in the future to better cope with YT’s JS. That’s it… that’s the issue.

        YouTube have broken compatibility with all existing unofficial clients.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          20 hours ago

          Yup, Grayjay still worked for me as of this morning, and that’s on a build that’s a month old. So either I’m not impacted by the A/B test, or it’s actually not a big deal.

  • codenul@lemmy.ml
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    15 hours ago

    Currently Freetube hasn’t worked the last couple days. Wonder if this is why. Usually its fixed in a few days, so no worries

    • NotKyloRen@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      I cancelled YT Premium after paying pretty much since Google Music was a thing. The price keeps going up ($14/month now here in the US), and Lite is meh even for the discounted price (e.g. no background play I think?).

      They just keep building the wall higher and higher, while they survive only because creators keep filling it with content. Nobody is watching “YouTube Originals” or their first party content. YouTube exists solely because of third party creators.

      Not only that but I can survive with Brave or Firefox with UBO or whatever. It’s not that hard to avoid the ads, even if it’s a little inconvenient vs being able to use the app.

      • AndyMFK@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 hours ago

        If you’re using your phone, definitely check out YouTube revanced. Or if on a tv check out Smart tube next. No ads, sponsor block baked in. It’s all the perks of premium (plus more) without the cons of supporting an evil company

      • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
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        18 hours ago

        You can either revance your yt music app, or use Firefox with an extension that keeps videos playing while your phone is locked.

    • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      It’s annoying but I guess they’re just evolving their anti spam mechanisms, which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

      JS is one of the most popular scripting languages anyway so having it as a requirement shouldn’t hinder anyone.

      And not to throw shade at the people who designed yt-dlp, but designing a tool to “scrap” the content of an evolving platform in a different language (with different tooling etc) than the one said platform is expecting to be consumed by might have been a mistake

      • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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        21 hours ago

        anti spam? on the video player? you cannot think is seriously.

        JS is one of the most popular scripting languages anyway so having it as a requirement shouldn’t hinder anyone.

        except any of the clients that care about not running whatever untrusted google code in an unrestricted environment.

      • carrylex@lemmy.world
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        24 hours ago

        Get this: YT will not be working on any known/popular VPN without signing in because it will always display: “Sign in to confirm that you’re not a bot”

        This behavior is also completely unrelated to the above mentioned issue and is unchanged for a very long time.

        • jet@hackertalks.com
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          7 hours ago

          I’m watching YouTube using new pipe, and free tube, on a VPN, right now. It works right now. So I don’t know what this very long time you’re referring to is