It's a lot less crashy nowadays (at least from what I can tell from using it daily).

I want to like NewPipe but I've always had problems with resuming videos after pausing them in the background. Most of the time my progress is just completely lost. Also, full screen and popover mode have been broken since Android 12. I use Vanced at this point.

Resuming issues were bug in the last few versions, but has been fixed in the latest release.

Still broken for me, and I've used the thing for years - very familiar with the quirks.

Also a long time user, but the issues described were only the last few months for me. Perhaps there are device specific bugs. I just rolled back to an earlier version until they were remedied

I assume most of NewPipe crashing when trying to open a video, is Google changing the YouTube video page to stop non-official clients from being able to watch the video.

NewPipe has had multiple unfixed regressions around opening videos, the pop-up player, and losing the time index of the current video.

They started (for me) in the version that addressed the youtube change then the last two did nothing to fix them (for me) I used NewPipe for years many hours a day on multiple tablets and this recent issues are the only ones that's a showstopper - I'm on Vanced until the next update.

I personally use a different, fame account for Vanced. Most people should be doing that anyway because who knows when Google will crackdown on it and start blocking any account using Vanced.