YouTube It is the most popular video service in the world by far. In it we can watch music videos, trailers, to pass the time and even educational, but to be able to do so we have to allow Google to take or expand an x-ray of our habits and tastes. All of this can be avoided, at least in part, and here we are going to explain several ways to watch YouTube on Linux without going to youtube.com.
Part of what is explained here is front end alternatives, but we can also use single applications or Kodi extensions. Lately I'm opting for the latter, although some of these options use a plugin with the YouTube API. The good thing is that in the following list there are several options to choose from.
FreeTube, perhaps the best even if it is still in beta phase
It will be six years since Isaac spoke to us for the first time of Free Tube here at LinuxAdictos. It still has the "beta" label, but seeing how it works, one doesn't understand why.
Es multi platform, so in addition to Linux we can also use it on macOS and Windows, and it offers many functions that will make us have a very complete application that also gives us greater privacy. FreeTube uses Invidious instances and allows you to watch videos at 1080p without problems.
Among its settings we can find many configurations that will even allow us to change the color palette. We can save favorites, follow channels and everything similar to how we would do it on YouTube itself. I have only found one drawback, and that is that you cannot follow playlists. For everything else, it may be the best option to watch YouTube content without going to youtube.com.
PlasmaTube, minimalism for KDE
It is likely that you have come to read this article and you still do not have PlasmaTube 24.02 on your Linux distribution. If so, be patient, since the previous version had a bug that did not allow anything to be displayed due to an error in a JSON file. If you already have the new version, it is a minimalist application that allows just what is necessary to watch YouTube videos through instances of Invidious or Piped Video, plus anything on PeerTube.
Minitube, minimalism, without more
A lot has happened since that article published also Isaac in 2016 on Minitube. This application has similarities with PlasmaTube, but also many differences. It is similar in that they are apps with simple interfaces, but Minitube allows you to choose resolution up to 4K, in theory, and collects videos from YouTube.
The good thing about using Minitube and not YouTube.com is above all privacy, and this also goes for some options that we will include in this list.
Add-ons to watch YouTube from Kodi
Kodi allows us to watch YouTube in different ways using different add-ons. Some of them:
- YouTube – There is a YouTube addon in the Kodi repository and it works quite well. It allows you to follow lists, channels, etc., all from Kodi.
- Duff You: is another option that exists in third-party repositories. No API required.
- Invidious: the frontend alternative with privacy in mind is also for Kodi in the official repository.
The bad? Typically, all of these add-ons display videos at a maximum resolution of 720p, which can sometimes cause blurry or unclear text. This can be solved from the settings of each plugin activating the use of MPEG-DASH or something similar.
Alternative frontends to watch YouTube in the browser
If you want to watch YouTube in the browser without entering youtube.com, the best options are:
- Invidious: I'm not a big fan of its interface, but it works... although it may be better or worse depending on the instance we use (list).
- Piped Video: it has a somewhat more polished interface, and each provider usually customizes it to their liking (list).
- ViewTube: the frontend alternative with a better design, although sometimes it doesn't work well and there are few instances other than the official one (list).
ViewTube
smtube
smtube It is an option that already has several years behind it. It is included by default in distributions like Debian LXQt, and the fact that the father and grandfather operating system of so many others trusts it says a lot. It is really simple, and its design has not changed much over time. It's less aesthetically pleasing than other options like PlasmaTube, but it works just as well. Or even better, since the KDE proposal is not the most reliable.
Like all these applications that "scrape" YouTube information, we will do everything with complete privacy and away from the clutches of Google. Although it is a desktop application, it is actually a frontend for Tonvid.com, which is no secret because it is seen at the top of the application. So this option is worth two: your own application and a frontend like the ones in the previous point.
Web application with isolated profile
I know that this article promised "without accessing youtube.com", but the really important thing about avoiding the official page is to prevent Google from tracking our habits. When we watch videos on YouTube from the browser, cookies are saved that are then compared with those of other websites, and this is how our digital x-ray is created. The best way to watch YouTube with its same interface but avoiding tracking is to create a web application with an isolated profile.
Browsers like Brave offer us the option to install YouTube when we enter the service. The problem is that the profile is not isolated and they share cookies and so on. One way to create a web app with an isolated profile is the one we explain in this article. With a bash script, we indicate a browser, an image, some other parameters and it creates a .desktop file that opens the web page in a profile that does not share anything with any browser. Another option is to use the Linux Mint web application tool, which basically does the same thing.
Bonus: ytfzf, YouTube on the terminal
We couldn't leave this article without an option that worked entirely in the terminal. That's what he does ytfzf, but if I haven't put it before and within the list it's because the thumbnails option doesn't work very well in Wayland without making extra tweaks. Furthermore, the project is discontinued, but it is there for anyone who wants to use it.
Of everything explained here, my favorite option is either FreeTube, complete, or the YouTube add-on for Kodi. I like Duff You, but that it doesn't show what I've watched and what I haven't – there's a thumbnail instead – doesn't allow me to keep track of some playlists. In any case, for options other than.