I've spent a few hours today looking at ways to block ads on youtube. I'm sick of ads on my tv and my iphone. Found a few interesting apps but I have no chance of installing them on my iphone.
Meanwhile in Android it seems I can install any .apk I wish by just downloading the .apk file.
I'm selling my iphone and getting an android this black friday. What phone is the most "open" and functional?
Exactly, I don't want to pay for their crappy abusive service. Imagine paying so you can watch "ad free" content with sponsors and product placement, and be surveilled by Google on top of it too. Yeah, that's a level of indignity I won't tolerate. I encourage everyone here to do the same: don't support these companies and their abuse. Remember, Firefox with uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock all cost $0.
> What does that leave?
It leaves the people who create because they have something to say rather than a desire to make money. The internet used to have a lot more of those before these advertisers came and corrupted everything. I don't understand why people assume nothing will be created if there's no money in it despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, including free software. I suppose it's due to copyright monopolist propaganda.
It's not about having none of them. It's about, pick one. If I'm paying you it's so that I don't have to see ads, so there better not be any ads.
But also, there was actually quite a lot of quality content on the internet before there was any monetization at all. People like to hear themselves talk and some subset of them are worth listening to.
100%, Corporations have done a really good job of brainwashing consumers into thinking that everything must make large amounts of money for shareholders to be worthwhile.
It's never been easier for an independent writer/vlogger to get their content out there without having to get it past a focus group committee.
I only pay $10 because I was an early subscriber, but I would still pay $12. I spend more time on YouTube than any other service so it's worth it for me. It also includes YouTube Music which means I don't have to pay for a Spotify or similar service separately.
Not my problem. Fuck them if they want to force me to consume. Remember that they want you to pay them to play content in the background , something every general-purpose multitasking computer could do before.
> Something has to pay for that insane amount of storage and bandwidth
This is my hill to die on: we already do. I bought a computer and pay an ISP for bandwidth, back when audio and video was just pirated there was no one to demand we watch ads in return for a few pennies of remote storage.
Well, video streaming, in particular, picked up in the mid-00s. But audio streaming predated it (slightly), as internet radio. It, very often, had ads. Pandora, circa 2005, also had ads (or a paid service). Advertisement in exchange for free access to media is not a novel thing.
Your ISP doesn't cover the storage cost or outbound bandwidth of YouTube's servers. How is YouTube supposed to pay for that without ads or subscriptions?
If you're willing to pay the performance cost and the extra expense, the Fairphone is the most open smartphone running Android I know. There are some Linux phones, but app support is severely limited as is performance. It's repairable too, with guaranteed access to replacement parts for at predetermined amount of years through official channels.
You could also go with a device that runs the most popular custom ROM, LineageOS. An example would be a flag ship phone from last year that received official LOS support. Installing LOS requires some messing around with an installation guide, but it's one of the easiest methods to de-google and de-apple yourself. I suppose you could also achieve that by buying Huawei, but I'm not sure if that would be a good idea.
Here's a list of devices with official LineageOS support, which means that your experience should be pretty close to clean Android: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ I run the nightlies on my Oneplus One from a few years back and I don't have any problems with the software at all.
Here's a list of device code names that have a prebuilt LineageOS ROM with MicroG support. MicroG allows you to run apps that depend on Google's APIs without installing Google Play. Do note that compatibility is not perfect, though it works well for most use cases. The code names are the same as the LineageOS ones (if you click the link above) so if you've found a nice LineageOS device, you can use that to check for a MicroG ROM if you prefer that https://download.lineage.microg.org/ Installing it should work the same way installing LineageOS works, so you can usually follow the official LOS guide with the MicroG ROM files to get started.
If you're willing to go the extra extra mile, you can root your phone through Magisk and install all kinds of things to customize and alter your phone. I use it for enabling clipboard access to KDE connect from the background despite Android's limitations, and to install YouTube Vanced, a nodded YouTube app with all the premium features and no ads.
I agree with you in general except the fair phone isn’t particularly open, it’s only got a 1080p LCD screen for the cost and no headphone jack (not open imo). The Samsung s10e has good specs, good hardware and headphones. In magisk I have force enable dark mode to save power on oled. https://www.xda-developers.com/android-q-dark-mode-toggle-pe...
I think the Fairphone is the most open Android device out there, which is kind of sad really. And yes you definitely overpay for the privilege of buying a phone with replaceable parts from a small manufacturer.
If you're going for open hardware, Samsung is a rather odd choice. Then again, any Android phone is more open than iPhones are.
Software support is more important rather than open design, like the market for aftermarket for iPhone batteries is going to be much cheaper for them, so maintenance is cheaper, and because of project treble all newer Android phones will have mainline linux kernel support and have updated kernels, I don't see how Fairphone is more "open" compared to the alternatives or what you can do better when the volume of developers will matter for support more.
>MicroG allows you to run apps that depend on Google's APIs without installing Google Play. Do note that compatibility is not perfect, though it works well for most use cases.
Anything safety net-related, for one. When I tried it last (years ago), WhatsApp didn't work reliably. I think Signal worked well enough though. Anything using Google's (and Apple's) private COVID contact tracing API also won't work. There's also the obvious compatibility bugs (because even Google themselves can't get their own software 100% compatible reliably), often related to the Google maps API from what I can tell from stories online.
There's an extensive list here [0] on the /e/ forum, though I'm not sure how up to date it is. The comments seem to go on for up to quite recently, however.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. I'm sick of ads too. I simply can't fathom how anyone could possibly tolerate ads.
> What phone is the most "open" and functional?
Android is not truly open. Google is closing it little by little. Soon rooted phones with custom software will start failing hardware attestation and Android apps will refuse to work.
I seriously hope the pinephone takes off. We need some serious alternatives to this Google garden.
Then they’ll just spoof it like they do now. I’ll never happen. Fuchsia might change it by being a different OS though.
The pinephone will never be more than a Linux enthusiast or developer device who doesn’t need their phone to properly function. It’s just a developer’s test device that will eventually make a version of mobile GNU/Linux that works better on newest more powerful formerly android devices (probably Qualcomm) that get mainline support in kernel.
The type of person in the future who will buy a $150 phone that was underpowered at launch in 2014 or one that wants a $400 720p LCD phone with a stronger 2018 chip that runs mobile Linux is a niche even now.
I'd go with a Pixel phone. Samsung phones are great too but a bit of extra software you probably don't need that takes up space.
Any Android phone is 'mostly open' in the sense you can sideload apps super easily. Google apps are functional. There's some 'truly open' options out there but they're typically expensive for the specs and the included apps are less useful than Google apps.
Ad blocking on iPhone/Safari has been around now for 6 years. Blocking ads from the YouTube app itself or your TV is a little tricker and would need something like a Pihole to serve as a local DNS server.
If you have some time on your hands it’s not too difficult to setup a cloud based Wireguard VPN + Pihole to blocks ads. Oracle has a free tier with a generous bandwidth cap.
Youtube vanced on android has changed my life. No ads, even within videos! If Linus starts talking about how great dbrand skins are, it auto-skips that part of the video. Really amazing. You cannot get such a great experience even if you pay for youtube red.
I installed it on my family's s21 and pixel 4. Easy install, no need for root. Vanced comes with adblock and sponsorblock, this is exactly what I was looking for thanks! Now I need an android device...
Inferior to newpipe+sponsorblock (auto skip you mentioned) which can download as video or MP3, and also plays in background. https://github.com/polymorphicshade/NewPipe/releases/ it doesn’t rely on installing a special google play or google play services either
Vanced actually has SponsorBlock too. Inferior depends on what you consider as useful features. For me, having the same UI as YouTube with all my subscriptions and being able to find new content on the home page are of great importance. NewPipe doesn't exactly have the same thing. I never download videos or listen in the background (as I have Spotify which you can also get adfree via a nodded apk) so those aren't that useful for me.
It’s not clear which iPhone/iOS version you’re using and where you’re looking to block YouTube ads, whether it’s on a browser or in the YouTube app. Magic Lasso is an app that blocks YouTube ads on Safari, but it’s a paid subscription. I use YouTube rarely, and the $30 or so annual subscription for Magic Lasso seems a bit too high for that.
My biggest YT gripe on the iPhone is that they break picture-in-picture unless you fork over money. I'd like to know just what kind of js they use to accomplish that so I can then figure out how to break it.
With Firefox on Android and uBlock origin I can watch youtube videos without ads. There's another extension whoch lets videos play in the background too. It's awesome!
Meanwhile in Android it seems I can install any .apk I wish by just downloading the .apk file.
I'm selling my iphone and getting an android this black friday. What phone is the most "open" and functional?