With Google making YouTube pretty frustrating to use lately, I’ve been looking into alternatives that respect privacy and still give a decent user experience.
Right now, I’m torn between LibreTube and NewPipe. I know both are solid options, but I’m wondering:
Which one is actually better for privacy?
Which one feels nicer to use day-to-day?
And do either of them offer video recommendations based on watch history, without needing a Google account?
If you’ve tried either (or both), I’d love to hear what you think. I’m just looking for something that lets me watch content without feeling like I’m constantly being tracked or pushed to pay up.
Thanks in advance!
Libretube is the most private one, if you use it through the Piped proxy. However many public Piped instances are actively being blocked by Google at the moment and the workarounds that worked for me make LibreTube the same as using NewPipe, so I switched to the latter since I also use a VPN and I’m not too concerned about Google seeing my IP and I also use it only for music on mobile and watch stuff from desktop, from another VPN server, just to spread out my activity.
I wonder if there is a Piped instance that still works
Definitely, they can’t block everyone’s IP, but the ones you can find easily are the most used and get blocked (for now). A local instance will surely work, but then again, if you are the only user it’s not different from using NewPipe.
oh okay