yt-dlp or embedded youtube links say “Sign in to confirm you’re not a bot” but for me the whole plan of this operation is that i don’t have to do that.
that’s pretty bad
(edit: it works again, i changed nothing just waited)
This is network-specific. It’s been going on for a few months at least. yt-dlp itself still works without sign-in, if your network is not “suspicious”.
Always worth making sure you’re updated to the latest version of yt-dlp, but this is probably a network thing.
yt-dlp hasn’t worked for me for a few months on Mullvad. Using Swiss and Swedish servers but I’ve tried a couple other countries too, same problem.
I don’t think you can expect any VPN to work without sign-in for very long. Google’s playing whack-a-mole with VPNs.
I’ve never actually tried signing in with yt-dlp. How easy is it to make a throwaway google account nowadays? Do they require phone verification or something similarly onerous?
I think yt-dlp allows you to use your browser’s cookies to appear as a signed in user for downloading videos. I never bothered trying that.
How easy is it to make a throwaway google account nowadays?
I make throwaway Google accounts semi-frequently, though I don’t remember what they require. If you have a phone number it’s definitely sufficient but I don’t remember if you can make one without a phone number. If they require a phone number you can just buy a cheap sim card (in cash if you care about privacy) and use that. It costs money so if you need hundreds of throwaway accounts maybe not, but if it’s just one for downloading videos then it’s probably NBD, you’d be spending money on the VPN anyway.
Pipepipe still works for me, I don’t have to sign in
I’m watching Freetube right now, still working. v0.23.3
Lately I’ve been using grayjay, going fine
Yep, found it about a year ago and never looked back. Its actually funded by futo which i think is owned by Yahoo. Hopefully it stays around for a while.
It is currently only owned by Eron Wolf, which is stated in their FAQ: https://futo.org/about/futo-faq/
Thanks for the information.
The app is distributed in a third party repo, not the main F-Droid repo, so before installating I’m trying to check if it’s open-source, had some independent review, and is safe to install.
The source is available but the license isn’t recognised as OSS according to the OSI website. https://gitlab.futo.org/videostreaming/grayjay https://opensource.org/licenses
This may explain why it’s not in the main F-Droid repo. It’s better than closed source anyway.
