YouTube without ads

Taltessy

Is there a secure and non-sketchy way to watch YouTube videos without ads?

In the Android settings I set the Private DNS setting to use dns.adguard-dns.com, but I still see ads on the YouTube website and inside the YouTube app.

I do not want to use the F-Droid store (manual installations and updating is also lame), therefore I would like to avoid solutions like NewPipe and Vanced. But if there is no other way, is Vanced (I don't like NewPipe because you can't see replies in comments) something you would recommend in regards of security? Is it a trustworthy project?

matchboxbananasynergy

Taltessy The reason why ads are not being blocked by DNS ad-blocking is because they originate from the same URL as YouTube itself. If they tried to block the ads, they'd block the videos too.

For a YouTube app, I would recommend LibreTube. I've been testing it out recently and it keeps improving with each release. No ads, and yes, it does allow you to look at replies to comments.

I personally do not trust Vanced, and I'm not really happy with NewPipe because it seems to lag behind in terms of keeping up with best practices (older SDK etc.)

Another option you have is using a browser like Brave with the regular YouTube site. It will block apps, and it has a setting to enable background play, if that's something you need. They do say it's "experimental", however. I tried it out a few days ago and it worked fine.

Lastly, if you want to use Vanadium, there are projects like Invidous and Piped which are alternative YouTube frontends. Neither have ads by default.

johnsavage

Taltessy You could try ReVanced: https://github.com/revanced

Taltessy

matchboxbananasynergy I meant LibreTube, not Vanced! Thanks for your suggestions!

lcalamar

Taltessy how do libretube and newpipe compare?

Volen

lcalamar

The ones I noticed:

LibreTube:

you can expand comments
loads videos significantly faster (at least for me)
if you download a music or video you can only play these from LibreTube app (Download sections)
requires a Piped account to create playlists.

NewPipe:

cannot expand comments
overall a bit less stable for me
can download videos and music as mp3, mp4, etc files - so you can open these with any audio/video player
can create playlists without Piped account

I personally prefer LibreTube but you should try both and decide.

spiral

I use AnimePipe because it shows you comments as well as replies

bicycle

I should try librepiped as well. I'm on freetube for desktop and newpiped for grapheneOS, but it's a bit laggy.
F-droid is awesome imao, you should check it out still.

matchboxbananasynergy

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