I am reading a review in the latest edition of Linux Magazine. A program called NouTube. … it apparently plays YouTube videos and music without ads . It comes from here
The review says there are binaries available on Flathub and F-droid
The reviewer says it worked for him. Would anyone care to try it?
ublock origin also still works.
Occasionally I am asked to find a piece of music or a documentary about a subject for our conferences, last year was about green pièce, and I wanted to download it, but did wonder how it would work with the publicity, would that download as well, would there be a gap or a no connection pause. In the end i found a member who paid the subs for youtube and he diwnloaded it for me for free. But then when he wanted to cancel his subscription it was just so difficult to do. In the end he cancelled his card at the bank and got a new one as between us we could not cancel
I have that same trouble with PayPal.
There should be somewhere we can report that sort of behaviour.
Brave blocks Youtube ads for me… it also blocks “SBS OnDemand” ads (an Australian TV streaming service)…
One thing I noticed recently - it annoyed the crap outta me too! I was trying to rip something from Youtube - using yt-dlp (formerly called youtube-dl) - but kept getting blocked for “age related content” - I suspect due to Australia’s “Geo Blocking” stuff thanks to our government… Lot’s of suggestions about telling yt-dlp to use my browser’s cookies - I tried them all - nothing worked… Found another source for the online streaming content and managed to grab that…
What annoyed me most about that - the stream was from 2020 - for a livestream I actually paid to get access to and stayed up till the wee hours of the morning to watch online… That access fee should have entitled me to download it…
I’ve never seen an ad, or blank or black whatever in youtube content I download using yt-dlp… I sometimes also use yt-dlp to just get the music and omit the video…
yt-dlp -f bestaudio --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 $URL
yt-dlp is a piece of piss to install on Ubuntu 24.04 :
sudo apt install pipx
pipx install yt-dlp
Note: “bestaudio” sometimes doesn’t get the “best”… i.e. 99% of the time it just gets 64 kbps mp3… I’ve actually wasted hours in the past - trying to determine which version of the stream has the best audio and restricting yt-dlp to that specific stream - but it’s not easy - in fact it’s downright PITA…
i tried the windows app & it worked. don’t want to try android app.
I am interested in that.. Mostly use Youtube from a tablet.
I did not notice the Windows app… it is cross platform… The Linux version would probably work on Mac or BSD with a bit of fiddling.
On another note: youtube seems to be suffering from a flood of AI crap. One wrong click and you’re drowning in it.
Are there any feasable, preferably non-usa, non-Russian, and non-chinese alternatives to youtube? It doesn’t matter whether it’s paid or not. I’m just sick and tired of all the AI drivel on youtube.
I have noticed that.
I think before long we will find it difficult to obtain anything AI- free.
I cant even ring my bank now, without engaging in some conversation with a robot.
Before subscribing, I usually have a look at Just Delete Me | A directory of direct links to delete your account from web services.
In the past, I found Trustpilot very helpful.
They have an Austdalian site.
I looked up my bank. It said
" Customers express significant dissatisfaction with the level of service provided, particularly regarding contact methods and resolution of issues. Many reviewers report difficulties in getting in touch with representatives, citing long wait times and unhelpful chatbot interactions. "
Based on my experience this week, I agree with that review. NAB are almost impossible to contact.
Hi Dan, 
Before downloading I usually take a look at what´s available, using the -F parameter:
cd /media/rosika/f14a27c2-0b49-4607-94ea-2e56bbf76fe1/DATEN-PARTITION/Dokumente/Ergänzungen_zu_Programmen/zu_yt-dlp/alt/zum_Ausführen; and firejail --private=(pwd) ./yt-dlp_linux --no-playlist -F "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfZjPXlNJ-E&list=RDYfZjPXlNJ-E&start_radio=1&pp=ygUpYWxsIGFsb25nIHRoZSB3YXRjaHRvd2VyIGZyb20gVmFuaXR5IEZhaXKgBwE%3D"; and sleep 1; and cd
[...]
[youtube:tab] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfZjPXlNJ-E&list=RDYfZjPXlNJ-E&start_radio=1&pp=ygUpYWxsIGFsb25nI...FuaXR5IEZhaXKgBwE%3D
[youtube:tab] Downloading just the video YfZjPXlNJ-E because of --no-playlist
[youtube] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfZjPXlNJ-E
[youtube] YfZjPXlNJ-E: Downloading webpage
WARNING: [youtube] No supported JavaScript runtime could be found. Only deno is enabled by default; to use another runtime add --js-runtimes RUNTIME[:PATH] to your command/config. YouTube extraction without a JS runtime has been deprecated, and some formats may be missing. See https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/EJS for details on installing one
[youtube] YfZjPXlNJ-E: Downloading android sdkless player API JSON
[youtube] YfZjPXlNJ-E: Downloading web safari player API JSON
WARNING: [youtube] YfZjPXlNJ-E: Some web_safari client https formats have been skipped as they are missing a url. YouTube is forcing SABR streaming for this client. See https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/12482 for more details
[youtube] YfZjPXlNJ-E: Downloading m3u8 information
WARNING: [youtube] YfZjPXlNJ-E: Some web client https formats have been skipped as they are missing a url. YouTube is forcing SABR streaming for this client. See https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/12482 for more details
[info] Available formats for YfZjPXlNJ-E:
ID EXT RESOLUTION FPS CH │ FILESIZE TBR PROTO │ VCODEC VBR ACODEC ABR ASR MORE INFO
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
sb2 mhtml 48x27 0 │ mhtml │ images storyboard
sb1 mhtml 80x45 1 │ mhtml │ images storyboard
sb0 mhtml 160x90 1 │ mhtml │ images storyboard
139 m4a audio only 2 │ 1.33MiB 49k https │ audio only mp4a.40.5 49k 22k low, m4a_dash
140 m4a audio only 2 │ 3.52MiB 129k https │ audio only mp4a.40.2 129k 44k medium, m4a_dash
251 webm audio only 2 │ 3.63MiB 134k https │ audio only opus 134k 48k medium, webm_dash
91 mp4 256x144 30 │ ~ 1.97MiB 72k m3u8 │ avc1.4D400C mp4a.40.5
160 mp4 256x144 30 │ 400.39KiB 14k https │ avc1.4d400c 14k video only 144p, mp4_dash
93 mp4 640x360 30 │ ~ 5.33MiB 196k m3u8 │ avc1.4D401E mp4a.40.2
134 mp4 640x360 30 │ 1.15MiB 42k https │ avc1.4d401e 42k video only 360p, mp4_dash
18 mp4 640x360 30 2 │ ≈ 4.63MiB 170k https │ avc1.42001E mp4a.40.2 44k 360p
95 mp4 1280x720 30 │ ~ 7.73MiB 284k m3u8 │ avc1.64001F mp4a.40.2
136 mp4 1280x720 30 │ 2.61MiB 96k https │ avc1.64001f 96k video only 720p, mp4_dash
96 mp4 1920x1080 30 │ ~ 9.82MiB 361k m3u8 │ avc1.640028 mp4a.40.2
137 mp4 1920x1080 30 │ 4.58MiB 169k https │ avc1.640028 169k video only 1080p, mp4_dash
Parent is shutting down, bye...
No idea if it helps you solve your problem but I still wanted to post it here in case someone else might be interested.
Many greetings from Rosika 
@nevj :
Hi Neville,
I found an appimage version of it here:
Release v0.1.15 · nonbili/NouTube-Desktop · GitHub .
This page lists all releases of the latest vesion v0.1.15 .
The appimage download link is:
https://github.com/nonbili/NouTube-Desktop/releases/download/v0.1.15/NouTube-0.1.15.AppImage .
It weighs in at 112 MB.
Being an appimage you can run it within firejail for safely testing it.
Many greetings from Rosika 
Hi Rosika,
Thanks , that is a better link.
Your link
https://github.com/nonbili/NouTube-Desktop/releases/tag/v0.1.15
My link was version v0.4.8 ?
https://github.com/nonbili/NouTube/releases/
There are not as many releases on my link… it is dated 3 weeks ago
I dont get it?
Oh, I see… yours is NouTube-Desktop, mine is NouTube.
Confused me..
Regards
Neville
Hi Neville,
Yes, I noticed that, too.
Is there any difference between NouTube and NouTube-Desktop?
It confuses me as well.
Cheers from Rosika
Hi Rosika,
Sorry, I cant answer that.
One of them has more architectures.
Regards
Neville
Hi Neville,
No need to be sorry. I was just asking out of curiosity as I was as baffled as you were.
Alas firejail doesn´t come with a profile for NouTube. I guess that wasn´t to be expected in the first place.
One would have to create it oneself.
Using firejail´s --private option should be able to enhance security further.
It works with appimages together quite nicely.
I tested it with xournalpp appimage:
cd /media/rosika/f14a27c2-0b49-4607-94ea-2e56bbf76fe1/DATEN-PARTITION/Dokumente/Ergänzungen_zu_Programmen/zu_xournalpp; and firejail --profile=/etc/firejail/xournalpp.profile --appimage --private=(pwd) ./xournalpp-1.3.1-x86_64.AppImage
Should work with NouTube the same way (apart from the profile, of course).
Many greetings from Rosika
@Rosika ,
Have you tried the Android app? It is on F-droid.
Hi Neville,
No, actually I haven´t.
Because using any youtube content on my smartphone doesn´t make much sense for me.
I might try the appimage version though, perhaps in a VM.
Cheers from Rosika