2w ago

What options are there to watch YouTube on iOS?

So invidious isn’t working well at the moment, neither is piped. So I’m wondering what the best options are to watch YouTube right now?

21 comments

Vinegar (app)/vinegar extract (if you’re using adblockers) and safari. You can get rid of ads and support a small developer for like $2 I think.
- Big thanks, just bought this and already liking it. Haven't tried casting yet but I hated how the cast button in the official app casts to the youtube app on my roku because the roku app shows an ABSURD amount of ads, way more than any other official youtube viewing option. I'm guessing this will allow me to use the normal iOS casting
- I use Adguard premium i think that’ll work come to think of it, it’s a shame really that YouTube had to go to such lengths to try and stop people from not paying them to rid their site of ads
  
  You can play youtube without ads via adguard, but you’ll have to do it everytime you watch a video (via options). Kind of a hassle, but it works. Firefox Focus also seems to be able to avoid ads most of the time.

Brave browser on iOS has ad block and can extract videos into playlist for offline viewing

I've noticed that when you play a youtube video WITHIN the Messages app, it doesn't play ads. So you could text yourself a link to the video

Just self host invidious or use an invidious instance that is maintained? My self hosted one works just fine
- Genuine question as I also self host invidious, but are they any privacy benefits compared to the official YouTube website (with vinegar)? I am assuming it is very limited as I am the only person using the instance, from my home ip address.
  I do prefer the minimal ui from invidious, but the container occasionally crashes
  
  There are definitely some privacy benefits I imagine, as you are not directly utilizing a user account and the YouTube UI. Now if you are asking if it is still possible for google or YouTube to track you the answer is yes, you are just making it slightly harder.

I’m sideloading YouTubePlus IPA. I have tried most of the open-source options; however, Google captcha keeps causing issues.

Personally, I use it through Safari with Wipr 2. Wipr's developer is pretty active and responsive too. Another option is using Adguard Pro. Vinegar is a good option too, but it's developer suggests us to use a different adblocker and use Vinegar for it's main purpose of forcing the native HTML 5 player. If you're okay with Brave's crypto shenanigans, it works well with YouTube too.
I use YouTube almost always signed out. Along with icloud private relay enabled, it does minimise the amount of data that Google can collect. I would prefer to use Invidious or Piped, but they bug out quite often with YouTube playing a cat and mouse game.

I don’t watch YouTube often but I’ve tried Yattee and had little issue with it. While it does use Invidious & Piped API’s I would argue it’s your best choice if your looking for privacy + native functionality.