Well I don't want my Google account to be associated with the videos I watch. Nor do I want to be automatically signed into YouTube if I login to my Google account and watch a YouTube video.
As long it plays YouTube videos and it removes Google's tracking, then that is enough for me, UX changes is a bonus.
I frequently watch YouTube over Tor, and they've started making me do lots of reCAPTCHAs and occasionally even rejecting me after I've completed the reCAPTCHAs.
HookTube is an improvement over the real YouTube interface in the sense that it never makes me do CAPTCHAs, except some proportion of videos don't work on HookTube, it just gives a black box saying "Watch this video on YouTube".
From a sample of 1 video that I couldn't watch on HookTube, it worked straight away on Invidious. So it's useful in that sense if nothing else.
No (direct) YouTube tracking.
No need to sign in for 18+ / age restricted video.
Within the past few days, YouTube's mobile website has changed the player, for me, removing:
- Removing double tap left/right to skip forward/back within the video.
- Removing mute audio control.
- Adding skip forward/back in playlist. A feature I never use (YT's suggestions suck, I curate my own playlist.)
For now, Invidious retains the old player controls, allowing me to mute annoying-ass video and skip forward/back to repeat / bypass interesting / annoying bits.
Well that sounds horrendous.
I would much rather see something like this implemented: https://uxdesign.cc/my-attempt-at-redesigning-youtube-for-a-...