this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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I've already been paying for YouTube Premium for many years to get rid of advertisement, and I've been using SponsorBlock for a year or so on my laptop to skip the inline ads, but because most of my watching of YouTube happens on the TV I always had to use the remote to skip it. It helps to see the "most rewind" area so you can fast forward to it, but it's still very cumbersome.

Now a couple of days someone mentioned SmartTube on Lemmy and I installed it on my Chromecast with Google TV OS and oh boy is this software great! I did it to get SponsorBlock, but that is by far not the only feature I love about it.

  • flexible time hiding the UI of a video (have it to 1 sec now)
  • not showing UI when pausing
  • way faster scrolling
  • instant loading
  • way faster account switching
  • instant voice search

But there is one feature missing, changing the search language. We speak combined 7 languages at home and it's impossible to search anything other than in English which is really annoying.

Anyway, check it out if you can on your TV.

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[–] OurMoneyIsBroken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 10 months ago

Yes it's brilliant, and very useful especially if you want to browse a different timeline on a different account or just use it anonymously.

It's mind blowing how well built the settings are.

[–] Beryl@lemmy.world 28 points 10 months ago

SmartTube is what the YouTube app should be. I've been using it for I think 2 years now and it works like a charm, is super stable, offers loads of customization options, and the interface is better and more complete than the official app. Truly a must have for any Android tv box.

[–] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I fuckin love how it auto skips the sponsored bullshit. I have no idea how it knows even when it's seamlessly part of a video but it does. It's witchcraft and I love it!

[–] Dasnap@lemmy.world 34 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Works on desktop and ReVanced also. It's community driven! I've seen tiny videos get fully timestampped within about 10 minutes of publishing. People are very active on the project.

https://github.com/ajayyy/SponsorBlock

Look at these stats!

[–] SARGEx117@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

It's insane to me that I can click on a video that was posted by a creator with under 10k subscribers, less than 15 minutes ago, and it already has dozens of votes for submitted segments.

And some videos, people go waaaaay out for segments, little 2 second skips for subscribe reminders, while blocks rendered down into 5 types of segments so depending on your settings, you might get some of it, or you might get just the meat of the content with no fluff or filler.

I LOVE the "interaction" skip on some content creators, because they like to address the audience unnecessarily trying to drive comment interaction up. I totally get why they do that, and I respect their decision, but I also have no intention of commenting on 90% of videos, so asking "what do YOU think? Head down to the comments and..." will get nothing from me, but might from someone else. And now I can skip those.

Re/vanced and now this have been the best things about YouTube since like 2007.

[–] jeena@jemmy.jeena.net 10 points 10 months ago

Oh those are interesting stats, especially the 338k Firefox vs 1M Chrome users, so basically 25% of SponsorBlock users are Firefox users, while Firefox has 3% market share.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I’m pretty sure it works off a user-submitted database? but I might be wrong.

[–] kniescherz@feddit.de 10 points 10 months ago
[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 8 points 10 months ago

Sponsorblock is a browser add on and it’s crowdsourced, also try DeArrow for crowdsourced titles and thumbnails

[–] bob_lemon@feddit.de 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I kind of need a whitelist of channels where I want to see the ads, like Jay Foreman.

[–] prole@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago

Sponsor Block (the Firefox extension) gives you a ton of customizability. You don't have to have it auto skip, you can make it so a tiny bubble pops up asking if you want to skip or not. Or you can even just have it highlight it on the seek bar and nothing else.

[–] Staple_Diet@aussie.zone 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Awesome, I've been running SmartTube on a Sony Android TV for a bit. Works really well, almost seamless. Regular updates appear via the Telegram chat too. SmartTube coupled with YT Pro for phone is a perfect combination.

[–] jeena@jemmy.jeena.net 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

For the phone there is also ReVanced, but it's not as nice as SmartTube, but does the job to SponsorBlock.

[–] Staple_Diet@aussie.zone 3 points 10 months ago

I find YT Pro to be more polished. It uses MicroG and is closed source which can put some people off, but I've had nil issues.

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[–] LievitoPadre@feddit.it 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Been using since few days on my first gen fire stick. Feels like another world completely. No more bloated YouTube app and MUCH faster

The only feature missing is the streaming from the phone

[–] Deiran@programming.dev 3 points 10 months ago (5 children)

You can cast videos from your phone, you just have to connect it somewhere in the settings (can't really check right now but I'm sure I've used it)

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[–] apotheotic@beehaw.org 11 points 10 months ago

Just installed it, I've been crying about not having sponsorblock on my chromecast. Works a charm, thank you!

[–] HerbalGamer@lemm.ee 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

ohh totally gonna try and get this installed on my friends tv!

[–] jeena@jemmy.jeena.net 17 points 10 months ago (7 children)

I also installed https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=flar2.homebutton to be able to remap the YouTube button on the Chromecast remote to SmartTube.

I guess it's time to get the SmartTube icon on the remote too 😂

[–] Donk240978@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Has Remapper been updated to fix the volume control glitch? Last time I used Remapper the volume would be uncontrollable. Without it, pressing the volume up key would only go up 2-3 units on my tv. If I used the volume up button with Remapper running it would scroll all the way up to max volume with a single press...

[–] florge@feddit.uk 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Volume control seems to work fine for me.

[–] Donk240978@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Cool. It's been about a year since I tried it so I'll have another whack at it tomorrow. That will be so awesome. My Chromecast will be complete. Smart tube on one button and either Stremio or HDOBox on the other...

Just tested it out and still get the runaway volume. Did some testing and it seems to happen with some other services activated so a Chromecast problem not a Remapper problem... I'll play again tomorrow...

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[–] apotheotic@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago
[–] J_C___@lemmy.place 2 points 10 months ago

This is awesome, thanks!

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[–] sturlabragason@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Been using this on a FireTv 4k stick for a few years. The youtube on it was one of the few places my house where my adblocking dns didnt work. SmartTube is just perfect.

[–] Never_Sm1le@lemdro.id 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is so good I bought a cheapo tv box just to run Smart Tube

[–] bob_lemon@feddit.de 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I have a box in the mail, was going to install newpipe, but gonna try SmartTube instead.

[–] jeena@jemmy.jeena.net 4 points 10 months ago

But be aware that those two apps do vastly different things. One is trying to save your privacy by hiding you behind a wall of other users, the other one is just a different frontend for the YouTube API.

[–] drwankingstein@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I really like the app, but I wish it would let me load ads on creators I wanna support, I realize it's worth less then peanuts, but if it could allow only 30s ads or less that would be perfect for me

[–] jaackf@lemm.ee 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sign up to their patreon or buy their merch. They'll get a bigger cut that way.

[–] drwankingstein@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

if only I had the funds to do so lol

[–] jaackf@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

Yeah understandable, good on ya for wanting to pay it back tho!

[–] optissima@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Just open your favorite creator on the main app or through your browser with AdBlock off

[–] drwankingstein@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

that is a terrible UX lol, the main youtube app for TV is absolute dogwater, it's slow and it even crashes fairly often. im not going to swap apps for this. browser is even worse

[–] optissima@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Oh I agree that it's terrible, and that's what you should be expecting with ads, as a majority of the money goes towards funding the terrible YouTube experience. If you really want to support your content creators, send them money directly. $5 directly to them will improve their lives more than 3¢. If you don't want to go as far as directly funding them, try patreon even.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It’s not really possible because api requests don’t include ads AFAIK

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[–] Tum@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'd love to find something like this for the SamsungOS tvs, or at least a locally hosted alternative adblocker. I get 3-4 ads per 10 minute video now and it's endlessly frustrating.

[–] antipiratgruppen@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago

Get an Android Box and run the apps you want to.

[–] teamevil@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

This is amazing

[–] teamevil@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

Definitely loving these alternatives

[–] fadingembers@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If any of y'all watch twitch this is like the SmartTube version of it
https://github.com/S0und/S0undTV

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[–] kniescherz@feddit.de 4 points 10 months ago

One idea for the language problem. It needs a little bit of tinkering. Grab the apk and alter the package name. Than you can install multiple instances side by side. You could install one instance for each language. Probably necessary to alter the app name as well so you can distinguish between the different versions.

[–] ZeroEcks@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago

I use this for years, it's great

[–] csolisr@communities.azkware.net 2 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I'd love to use it on my smartphone as well... problem is the interface was designed to react only to directional buttons, not to touch inputs. I wonder if somebody can manage to add the ability in the source code?

[–] retrieval4558@mander.xyz 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Newpipe is pretty effective for me on Android.

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[–] techlaito@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've been using this app for years and sometimes it's almost super stable. Sometimes things don't load and an update or restart is required to fix it.

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