So I created an open-source Lemmy bot to reply to posts/comments with YouTube links with converted Piped links to preserve your privacy.
Piped is an open-source alternative privacy-friendly frontend to YouTube. You can watch the same content from YouTube without connecting to Google’s servers.
Turns out I did not try enough instances! Piped.lunar.icu threw a certificate date error and piped.yt threw a js error (or semething). Piped.video works fine!
Is the bot currently online looking for new YouTube links all over Lemmy, or do we need to start up our own if we’re interested in using this in a community?
Just wondering as I couldn’t see a readme on the repo to find out.
Piped can be more privacy friendly in a few cases, as you don’t need an account for subscriptions or playlists.
Here are some differences to Invidious:
Subscriptions don’t necessarily require an account
Playlists don’t necessarily require an account
Piped supports Infinite scrolling
Piped supports Webm videos
Piped can stream videos from Odysee if the same video is available there.
Piped is a lot lighter on the server
Piped always proxies your traffic to Google’s servers (most Invidious servers don’t proxy videos to YouTube by default)
Piped has SponsorBlock integrated (DeArrow will be added soon)
Piped has ReturnYouTubeDislike support via RYD-Proxy
Piped can only be self-hosted on a server. Invidious on the other hand can work fine on local networks.
Piped is a lot easier to administer than Invidious as an instance operator.
I’ll conclude by saying that I was once an Invidious user. I decided to write Piped at a time when Invidious was riddled with extremely odd bugs and performance issues. Some of these issues still persist to this day. I’ve always kept performance a top priority in Piped. I wanted to create a better alternative to YouTube than Invidious for my use case and threat model. I think I have succeeded in that :)
No, you don’t have to self-host it. You have a large number of public instances hosted generously by people! You may want to however self-host it however if you don’t live close to an instance, or want to actually own your own data.
Are there instances out there that this redirects to or a single server?
You can switch instances directly from the preferences page. You don’t need to change your URL for switching instances.
Is it a sort of P2P thing where different servers host different videos or parts of different videos?
No, Piped has no P2P aspects at all. What you describe is technically infeasible/difficult since we don’t store videos at all, just proxying them.
How will this be affected by Youtube cracking down on adblockers?
Time will tell, so far we aren’t affected. But, we could be affected when it fully rolls out rather than as an A/B test.
That’s neat, but anyone using Piped on a regular basis should probably look into something like LibRedirect for their browser to redirect every YouTube link to Piped regardless of where they encounter them.
To add on to this tip, for anyone who is reluctant to or cannot install an extension on their browser, you can copy and paste the YouTube link into the search bar of your favorite Piped instance and hit Enter.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !privacyguides@lemmy.one
In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.
This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.
You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:
Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We’ve tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!
Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!
This community is the “official” Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other “Privacy Guides” communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.
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Thank you @kavin@feddit.rocks! Thank you for piped and the bot. It is now activated on !france@lemmy.world.
Good to hear that :) Inviting the bot definitely helps it reach more communities, so thanks for that!
PS: I’m the author of Piped :P
Thank you so much OP!
I’ve tried a few different instances and videos will not play. I’m using Brave and a VPN: blacklisting issues?
There shouldn’t be any, is this on iOS for the setup?
This is on PC.
I would try looking at the JavaScript console for errors, and the network tab for issues with requests. Something seems oddly wrong, unfortunately.
Turns out I did not try enough instances! Piped.lunar.icu threw a certificate date error and piped.yt threw a js error (or semething). Piped.video works fine!
Is the bot currently online looking for new YouTube links all over Lemmy, or do we need to start up our own if we’re interested in using this in a community?
Just wondering as I couldn’t see a readme on the repo to find out.
You can now try sending it a message mentioning communities in the format
!community@instance.tldand it will try joining it :)You can find more information at https://feddit.rocks/comment/39147, it tries to look all over Lemmy, but doesn’t have enough communities to scan :/
What is the difference between piped and invidious?
Piped can be more privacy friendly in a few cases, as you don’t need an account for subscriptions or playlists.
Here are some differences to Invidious:
I’ll conclude by saying that I was once an Invidious user. I decided to write Piped at a time when Invidious was riddled with extremely odd bugs and performance issues. Some of these issues still persist to this day. I’ve always kept performance a top priority in Piped. I wanted to create a better alternative to YouTube than Invidious for my use case and threat model. I think I have succeeded in that :)
Thank you so much for your work!
Wow, that’s nice! Looking forward to give it a try later today.
Questions:
Is Piped something that you have to self host
Are there instances out there that this redirects to or a single server?
Is it a sort of P2P thing where different servers host different videos or parts of different videos?
How will this be affected by Youtube cracking down on adblockers?
No, you don’t have to self-host it. You have a large number of public instances hosted generously by people! You may want to however self-host it however if you don’t live close to an instance, or want to actually own your own data.
You can switch instances directly from the preferences page. You don’t need to change your URL for switching instances.
No, Piped has no P2P aspects at all. What you describe is technically infeasible/difficult since we don’t store videos at all, just proxying them.
Time will tell, so far we aren’t affected. But, we could be affected when it fully rolls out rather than as an A/B test.
Thanks for the reply. I’ll definitely have to check it out.
I love Piped. I use it so much every day. I just wanted to thank you for creating and maintaining the project. It’s huge.
Also, this bot is going to be great for me on iOS because access to extensions on safari are really limited.
Thanks Kavin!
Omg I’ve wanted something like piped for so long!! Thanks for letting me know about it!
You’re welcome! Now, anyone who creates a post/comment with a YouTube link will know about it too :)
That’s neat, but anyone using Piped on a regular basis should probably look into something like LibRedirect for their browser to redirect every YouTube link to Piped regardless of where they encounter them.
Good suggestion, thanks!
To add on to this tip, for anyone who is reluctant to or cannot install an extension on their browser, you can copy and paste the YouTube link into the search bar of your favorite Piped instance and hit Enter.
Thnk you so very much for that recommendation!
Thanks for this. I had just been manually replacing the
youtube.compart of the URL to my favourite Piped instance. The breadth of the addon is great.