> I moved to iPhone anyways

https://github.com/yattee/yattee

I use ublock on desktop and newpipe on mobile and i only see ads when i am looking at someone elses screen.

I never watch youtube on my phone, always desktop and like you sponsorblock has become essential.

I can't bring myself to give YT money when I can address my use case for free. YT's hostile user approach also rubs me the wrong way, I can't reward that behavior

How exactly is YouTube user hostile?

Aggressively pushing shorts, opaque/biased moderation, lack of appeals, removing power user features such as sorting creator videos, disabled the like button, totally ruined comment hierarchy when G+ was pushed aggressively, etc.

Just use revanced or libretube, who uses stock YouTube app!?

> Also gave downloads for offline viewing.

I used to have those "downloads" on Youtube. There are not a real downloads because I do not have an access to the file. Also the feature tends to be misworking - from time to time one of "downloads" just stucks with eating 100% of 1 CPU core and the recipe is to remove all the "downloads". This was one of the stupidiest features I ever had, because if I need a video for offline wieving but do not want to get a file, I can just watch 100% of video (of course with adblock because YT advertisements use to destroy cache) and do not close the tab, then suspend my PC and unsuspend it in the place I want to watch.

Downloads are working and very useful on mobile - they give you offline version on a device that you can later watch.

I click download on videos that I'm interested in morning and have something to listen to during commute without worrying about spotty connections and mobile traffic consumptions. So yes, file is downloaded to the device.

If I want to download something to have it forever, I use yt-dlp on pc.

I use new pipe for downloading and ReVanced for watching

The downloads feature works pretty good when you are going to be on a plane or train without an internet connection. Predownload a bunch of educational content and then you'll have it for your trip.

I use Firefox mobile with Ublock on my phone, plus I have DNS ad blocking, so I don't see ads on the apps either.

> new pipe just sucks

What's wrong with newpipe ?

Incessant crashing, for one.

It was crashing like all the time on stock Galaxy Note 9. Also downloads somehow were much slower than native youtube.

Newpipe has to use workarounds to the limitations put in place by youtube; I find it expected that downloads will be slower, since they won't be using secret shibboleth done by youtube on the backend and on the app but standard web access.

It has been crashing for me as well but since it's so stateless it has never been an issue: playback continues, playlists remain, ads ana tracking stay nonexistent.

After Elsagate, I am flabbergasted any parent would trust YouTube kids to show appropriate content. Even one that works for Google.