Post #2507900
2026-05-06 12:03 UTC
I use Freetube. Its a app, you don’t sign in, you can subscribe to stuff but those are stored locally (as I understand it?), adblock, sponsorblock, hide shorts etc are built in. Of course since you don’t use it with a account, you can’t comment, but that’s just a nice bonus feature. You can still read the comments if you so choose. Because it doesn’t load all the trackers and bullshit, its also about a billion times lighter than the youtube page, which is nice since my laptop is 700 years old and struggles to run anything, really.
It does have “popular” and “trending” pages but those rarely work, another nice bonus.
The only downside is that there is no “sort by popular” option when browsing a channels videos. But all in all, highly recommend it. Apparently there are other such apps available but thats the only one I’ve used.
Replies (3)
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@Ulrich@feddit.org 2026-05-06 12:37
YouTube has made all these apps completely useless by blocking users that aren’t logged in.
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@unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 2026-05-06 12:40
This article is about RSS feeds. Im pretty sure your client relies on RSS feeds to show you your locally subscribed feed of videos.
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@vogi@piefed.social 2026-05-06 12:20
Also use LibreTube on Android with the same benefits. I just wish all those alternatives Frontends would have a sync service of some sorts. Started of by using Invidious but it its almost unusable nowadays similar to Piped but it also has an independent Subscriptions/Playlists with a simple API it would be cool for those local first apps would integrate into that or maybe something even more independent like a RSS Service to manage subscriptions (feeds do really have to work for that)