cross-posted from: https://lemmy.org/post/1872634

So, starting now, Google started mandating full JS for YT, effectively breaking all third-party clients and locking the site to their official client.

This reeks of DRM.

UPDATE: Installing Deno and installing yt-dlp through PyPi fixes yt-dlp but the very idea that Google is mandating JS to lock down YT in an attempt at pseudo-DRM is still crappy.

UPDATE #2: inv.nadeko.net is working again for now.

  • DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    They’re going to keep enshitifying it until they kill it completely. Them blackholes, I mean shareholders, will never have enough money.

    • 6stringringer@lemmy.zip
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      1 hour ago

      Overheard at the last shareholders conference. “Until everyone empties all their ecoin & change jars and the only things left to eat are those mysterious Budding’s sandwich meats with some shit ass processed excuse for a loaf of bread.” This is where we want the average American citizen to be living/existing/panicking.” I dunno his name, but it was for sure a rich, old, white dude. A real Montgomery Burns type looking MF’er. I dunno? They all look the same to me. EDIT: Apparently I fit that demographic according to the young ‘uns visiting us. Although they think I look like “The Dude” from “The Big Lebowski”.

    • devedeset@lemmy.zip
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      2 hours ago

      They won’t kill it, just like it hasn’t died so far. The content, viewer demographics, and algorithm continue to shift. There’s too much money with all the ads and subscription fees. Most people view some content on it by default.

      Its gonna be the new cable TV in a way. Kinda sucks, some good stuff on it, but mostly slop filled with ads. And everyone will still use it. Even if they block all 3rd party access, people like me are still going to use it to some limited degree. There will be a video about how to fix a random plumbing fitting that is leaking in my house, or how to fix some random thing on my 15 year old car.

    • tempest@lemmy.ca
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      4 hours ago

      The market that accesses YouTube from a PC or Mac is shrinking rapidly.

      They would prefer you use one of the apps and at some point that will be the majority, if it isn’t already

      • zqps@sh.itjust.works
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        2 hours ago

        Yeah last I’ve seen even smartphones and tablets are decreasing quickly relative to smart TVs.

    • CriticalMiss@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Well… the only available option to them for DRM that will work on all devices is Widevine L3 which is entirely bypassable. Spend a few hours on the net and you can figure out how to do it too.

      • Krudler@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Could you briefly summarize what’s needed to make it happen? Not asking for a step-by-step just very rough overview

  • nom_nom@lemmy.ml
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    12 hours ago

    Holy shit I did not realize how complex of a project yt-dlp has to be to do something as simple as download a video… Kudos to the devs

  • codenul@lemmy.ml
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    6 hours ago

    Currently Freetube hasn’t worked the last couple days. Wonder if this is why. Usually its fixed in a few days, so no worries

  • carrylex@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    This post’s title is just completely incorrect and it looks like 700+ people didn’t even read the comments or the actual issue for one minute.

    Good job guys!

    • Liam Mayfair@lemmy.sdf.org
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      14 hours ago

      I mean sure, OP’s title is somewhat clickbaity but it’s kind of true though. YouTube have broken compatibility with all existing unofficial clients. It’s good that yt-dlp are managing to work around it. I expect many other clients will follow suit but some of them may be unable to install additional dependencies and remain broken.

      Ultimately, what is the last straw that will break the camel’s back? Every client/consumer will have their breaking point.

      • carrylex@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        I mean sure, OP’s title is somewhat clickbaity but it’s kind of true though.

        Somewhat? Did you read the issue? Here’s a recap: yt-dlp will introduce a proper JS runtime in the future to better cope with YT’s JS. That’s it… that’s the issue.

        YouTube have broken compatibility with all existing unofficial clients.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          11 hours ago

          Yup, Grayjay still worked for me as of this morning, and that’s on a build that’s a month old. So either I’m not impacted by the A/B test, or it’s actually not a big deal.

    • NotKyloRen@lemmy.zip
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      17 hours ago

      I cancelled YT Premium after paying pretty much since Google Music was a thing. The price keeps going up ($14/month now here in the US), and Lite is meh even for the discounted price (e.g. no background play I think?).

      They just keep building the wall higher and higher, while they survive only because creators keep filling it with content. Nobody is watching “YouTube Originals” or their first party content. YouTube exists solely because of third party creators.

      Not only that but I can survive with Brave or Firefox with UBO or whatever. It’s not that hard to avoid the ads, even if it’s a little inconvenient vs being able to use the app.

      • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
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        10 hours ago

        You can either revance your yt music app, or use Firefox with an extension that keeps videos playing while your phone is locked.

    • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
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      17 hours ago

      It’s annoying but I guess they’re just evolving their anti spam mechanisms, which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

      JS is one of the most popular scripting languages anyway so having it as a requirement shouldn’t hinder anyone.

      And not to throw shade at the people who designed yt-dlp, but designing a tool to “scrap” the content of an evolving platform in a different language (with different tooling etc) than the one said platform is expecting to be consumed by might have been a mistake

      • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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        13 hours ago

        anti spam? on the video player? you cannot think is seriously.

        JS is one of the most popular scripting languages anyway so having it as a requirement shouldn’t hinder anyone.

        except any of the clients that care about not running whatever untrusted google code in an unrestricted environment.

      • carrylex@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Get this: YT will not be working on any known/popular VPN without signing in because it will always display: “Sign in to confirm that you’re not a bot”

        This behavior is also completely unrelated to the above mentioned issue and is unchanged for a very long time.

  • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    This reeks of same shit different day or at least different month. Last time if I recall you had to include a valid cookie with yt-dlp.

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      I’ve never had to “include a valid cookie”, though there’s been various problems and they can vary from video to video.

      • Killer@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        You don’t need to afaik.

        The only time i’ve had to include cookies is if i was trying to download something that was a premium feature like enhanced bitrate.

      • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        Any IP on the local ISP requires a google login to work. Very few work without the cookie generated from it.

        • Wildly_Utilize@infosec.pub
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          7 hours ago

          I downloaded this morning with yt-dlp and American rented mullvar servers (seal for android)

          Never have logged in

        • ripcord@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          Weird. I haven’t downloaded anything for a month or so (other than running into a different issue on somesomething), but I haven’t had to do that for any video for the several years I’ve been downloading.

          • ripcord@lemmy.world
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            11 hours ago

            Is this maybe much more common on common VPN IPs? Not what I think you meant by “local ISP”, but would make a lot more sense to me.

            • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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              8 hours ago

              It wasn’t that way until earlier this year. I switched to a vpn to get around it. I’m using non US VPS in a country that is less tolerant of googles bullshit.

              To be clear the cable IPs are a /20 block that was routed to the cable companies predecessor in 2016. I’m the one who put in the request with ARIN. The new company that acquired this system was bought out by yet another company before the sale went through. I just looked and Cable one has purchased a large stake late last year. All in all it still works okay. Their support though is clueless due to flowchart ignorance. The plant OPs guy stayed the same and he knows how to keep the levels balanced and noise out.

            • T156@lemmy.world
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              9 hours ago

              It is definitely more common on VPN IPs, since Google likely identifies the outgoing address as a datacentre, and gets suspicious. I’ve had multiple issues with the bot sign-in screen when using a VPN for it, whereas not using a VPN doesn’t have those problems.

    • NotKyloRen@lemmy.zip
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      17 hours ago

      I use Seal. It works fine. It has trouble downloading from “official” pages though (e.g. Vevo or Universal or whatever). It’s like those pages, since they’re owned by corporate entities, have some extra protection on them or something. It’s been like this for years, across Android, Windows, Mac, etc – doesn’t matter what I try to use to download, it’ll fail on those pages/accounts.

  • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works
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    20 hours ago

    Someone please find the Steins;Gate Wordline, I’m not really enjoying the worldline convergence, everything is turning to shit.

  • katy ✨@piefed.blahaj.zone
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    22 hours ago

    huh well seems like i should go on a yt-dlp binge on the wcw vault just in case for archival and historical purposes of course