Third-Party YouTube Recommendations

General
1

Hey all,

It seems that Google wants to prevent the use of Adblockers and you need to pay to have no ads on videos. I do understand that people want to make money but for me, it’s all noise (in terms of signal to noise ratio). And I know that I’m not the only one that is like this with the noise sensitivity and would rather support content-creators in other ways.

My ask here is there any GUI-based third-party FOSS that are KDE and Linux friendly apps for YouTube that feature NO ADS? I’m aware of youtube-dl but that’s command-line.

Thank you.

2

You might be looking for something like PlasmaTube:

3

I normally like KDE applications, but I had a terrible first experience with plasmatube where it didn’t work at all. Not every app can be a homer I guess.

As for OP, I love to use freetube which is AGPL licensed, zero ads, goes great length to let you avoid YouTube’s anti-features. Highly customizable where you can turn off comments, video suggestions/recommendations, search suggestions, can use invidious instances, can use a third party video player to pipe to if google is blocking the instance… the list goes on and on. I would say development of freetube is faster development to keep up with google and has far more functionality. It’ll make your head spin.

4

the GUI front end for that package is called media downloader (flatpak) or video downloader (snap).

they will allow you to download content to your local machine and watch it without ads, but you still need a browser of some kind to find the link, and so still vulnerable to “noise” as you say.

5

There is plasmatube which has been mentioned. However, the youtube functionality no longer works. Perhaps it will in the future.

Otherwise, I know 3 options, none of which fit the kde desktop perfectly.

  • The best is probably Grayjay, which you can use sync to another device, and for other platforms beyond youtube and peertube.
  • Also FreeTube, for only youtube.
  • Lastly NewPipe, for youtube and peertube.

Of those 3, Grayjay and Freetube have Sponsorblock, which you may want in addition to blocking normal ads.

1 Like
6

YES! It requires a minor learning curve, but is mostly self-explanatory. So much more than just a “YouTube without ads” app. BUT, if that’s all one wants, Grayjay will do the trick.

7

I use Freetube only now, it incorporates Sponsorblock, allows for an ignore keyword list (great during the elections and after), and allows you to see exactly what you want of your subscriptions by exporting them from youtube and importing them into freetube.