I think there’s some NewPipe-esque app that lets you see those without the app or logging in or being exposed to telemetry, etc. I forget what it is though
yt-dlp + mpv does the trick for me. I have a browser plugin that just opens any link directly in mpv. Works for almost all major video sites and many news sites.
The following below is all linux only. Idk how windows works, but there is also this webhosted version of yt-dlp, but that is rate limited sometimes. https://ytdlp.online/
mpv usually automatically installs the standard version of yt-dlp that comes with your system (which is often outdated) so you might have to manually install the latest binary by putting it into .local/bin/ (the version from the release list just called “yt-dlp” and nothing else) (you might have to relog so your system recognizes new stuff added to local/bin)
So for the mpv + yt-dlp + sponsorblock + browser setup you need to:
Have mpv installed
Have a recent version of yt-dlp
Put the files from the sponsorblock repo into .config/mpv/scripts as described in the repo
Put the mpv-scheme-handler.desktop file into .local/share/applications/ and install the browser add-on linked in the repo
This btw also works neatly together with RSS readers if you use them for youtube notifications. Just set mpv as your browser in the RSS reader and it will directly open youtube vids in mpv.
I think there’s some NewPipe-esque app that lets you see those without the app or logging in or being exposed to telemetry, etc. I forget what it is though
I just really don’t want to watch tiktoks though.
Cobalt works for TikTok links.
Still won’t follow.
yt-dlp + mpv does the trick for me. I have a browser plugin that just opens any link directly in mpv. Works for almost all major video sites and many news sites.
Some links please?
The following below is all linux only. Idk how windows works, but there is also this webhosted version of yt-dlp, but that is rate limited sometimes. https://ytdlp.online/
To get sponsorblock working in mpv: https://github.com/po5/mpv_sponsorblock
To open links from your browser in mpv: https://github.com/binarynoise/open-in-mpv
mpv usually automatically installs the standard version of yt-dlp that comes with your system (which is often outdated) so you might have to manually install the latest binary by putting it into
.local/bin/(the version from the release list just called “yt-dlp” and nothing else) (you might have to relog so your system recognizes new stuff added to local/bin)So for the mpv + yt-dlp + sponsorblock + browser setup you need to:
.config/mpv/scriptsas described in the repompv-scheme-handler.desktopfile into.local/share/applications/and install the browser add-on linked in the repoThis btw also works neatly together with RSS readers if you use them for youtube notifications. Just set mpv as your browser in the RSS reader and it will directly open youtube vids in mpv.
If anything doesnt work just drop a comment :)
yo thanks for this information!
Work on phone?
nope. There is a ytdlp client for android tho, so you can still download them and then just watch them in your preferred video player app. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.deniscerri.ytdl/
Thank you.
I use Seal on Android to download them but an actual frontend would be nice. There is Proxitok but none of the public instances really work anymore.
People mentioned yt-dlp working for Instagram, not sure about TikTok.
But if yt-dlp works, YTDLnis should work too on Android.