[HN Gopher] Grayjay Desktop App
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Grayjay Desktop App
        
       Author : pierrelf
       Score  : 250 points
       Date   : 2024-12-20 17:33 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (grayjay.app)
 (TXT) w3m dump (grayjay.app)
        
       | pvg wrote:
       | Thread last year https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37924776
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Thanks! Macroexpanded:
         | 
         |  _Grayjay - Follow Creators Not Platforms_ -
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37924776 - Oct 2023 (106
         | comments)
        
       | IronWolve wrote:
       | We always been missing good 3rd party search/trending for online
       | videos.
       | 
       | I've been using a youtube frontend called pockettube, where I
       | could make lists(channels) for content I like, without youtube
       | forcing me what to watch.
       | 
       | Example. I have an Art and Food channels with my favorite content
       | creators, I get to see the list in order of newest videos first,
       | totally bypassing youtubes forced interface.
       | 
       | In fact, if people started creating front ends to youtube with
       | real search/suggestion engines, you could find new content and
       | help the less viewed but good content that gets bypassed.
       | 
       | Grayjay is great, since it uses multiple video providers, but you
       | still have to "Know" who to follow. The search "Knowing" part is
       | still word of mouth, random change of seeing a creators video, or
       | the platforms showing it to you. Combine the 2, and it would be
       | unstoppable.
       | 
       | I think if someone came up with a external database of content
       | providers on multiple platforms that allows apps like
       | grayjay/pockettube/etc to find new content, that is the missing
       | piece.
        
         | duxup wrote:
         | Finding content is so hard.
         | 
         | All YouTube wants me to watch are "OMG YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE
         | WHAT THIS COP DID" content. I have no idea why they want me to
         | watch those videos, I never do and I block the videos and the
         | channels from recommendations but they keep coming ...
         | 
         | All I get are ads for weird suspect drugs and products, just
         | going on these platforms is such a bad vibe.
        
           | johan914 wrote:
           | YouTube has become especially horrific. It seems a couple
           | years ago they gave up on video search- after 5 videos it
           | will suddenly start recommending random videos under "you may
           | like". If I watch one UFC video I am flooded with
           | recommendations of Joe Rogan, despite my subscriptions all
           | being unrelated.
        
             | slater wrote:
             | Best thing is, if I search for something it'll give me
             | hundreds of search results. But if I then decide to filter
             | by upload date, whooopsie! there are no search results,
             | sorry!
        
             | throwawayq3423 wrote:
             | You watch 2-3 videos on autopilot and Joe Rogan always pops
             | up eventually. With that kind of promotion I dont
             | understand why he's not bigger.
        
               | macinjosh wrote:
               | He's pretty big. He helped tip a presidential election.
        
               | layer8 wrote:
               | I don't remember ever getting a Joe Rogan recommendation.
        
               | hollerith wrote:
               | I have (recently).
        
             | Fauntleroy wrote:
             | Have you tried informing YouTube that you are not
             | interested in Joe Rogan? There are several places and ways
             | to do so in the application, and they seem to have worked
             | for me.
        
           | munificent wrote:
           | My experience is that YouTube recommendations are heavily
           | weighted based on my watch history. If I watch a single video
           | on, say, videogames, all of a sudden my recommendations are
           | all gamer stuff.
           | 
           | Fortunately, you can easily edit your watch history. I just
           | go through mine periodically and remove any kind of video
           | that I don't want recommendations related to. Doing that has
           | given me a very dialed in recommendation feed. If anything,
           | it's _too_ dialed in, and I rarely get serendipitous
           | recommendations.
        
             | haltcatchfire wrote:
             | My YouTube recommendations are like 80% RC planes
        
             | johnny22 wrote:
             | > it's too dialed in, and I rarely get serendipitous
             | recommendations
             | 
             | Youtube is doing better here for me in that respect than it
             | used to. Once a week for the past month I get a button that
             | asks if i want to see things it doesn't usually show me and
             | I've even watched some of them. It's not perfect, but it
             | does seem like they are trying.
        
             | Nextgrid wrote:
             | It's biased by your watch history, but it's never _just_
             | that. In my experience (browsing without accounts, in
             | private browsing with no cookies, on rotating IPs), there
             | seems to be a distinct spot in the algorithm for some
             | inflammatory engagement bait regardless of your history.
             | That bait is not dependent on your watch history and is
             | based on your geographic location by the looks of it.
             | 
             | Regardless of what I watch, in the middle of otherwise on-
             | topic recommendations, there will always be one or two
             | videos that are attempts at getting me to engage with some
             | complete off-topic inflammatory political bullshit. Of
             | course, once you click on that, the "regular"
             | recommendation system takes over and feeds you more of that
             | (which is _somewhat_ fine), but the fact that it 's trying
             | to suck the user into this in the first place despite no
             | indications the he desires to be exposed to such content in
             | the first place is disgusting.
        
           | DrillShopper wrote:
           | > I block the videos and the channels from recommendations
           | but they keep coming
           | 
           | Part of this is channels opening side or mirror channels that
           | they upload their videos to as well (since you'll sometimes
           | see the exact same video but no ContentID strike) so they can
           | get around people doing that.
        
           | grahamj wrote:
           | It's funny eh, the world's largest personal data collection
           | company and they still have no idea what videos you want to
           | watch lol
        
             | rel_ic wrote:
             | Their goal is not to show you videos you want to watch!
        
           | layer8 wrote:
           | Select "not interested" for those videos. There's also "don't
           | recommend this channel". "Like" videos that you like. Your
           | feed will quickly adjust.
        
             | duxup wrote:
             | Done that, no joy.
        
             | PittleyDunkin wrote:
             | > Your feed will quickly adjust.
             | 
             | It does adjust in _some way_ , but somehow it never picks
             | up on the signal that actually made me like or dislike a
             | video. It's very clear that some video-makers have figured
             | out how to exploit this poor signal reception to shove
             | really crappy content at people. Other video-makers, who
             | aren't trying to dominate youtube revenue, are buried and
             | difficult to find.
             | 
             | TikTok, meanwhile, takes about an hour of scrolling and
             | reacting to cultivate a feed that is _very_ tailored to my
             | taste. It 's truly remarkable. If the app gets banned it'll
             | be a huge loss for finding people and content with similar
             | interests.
             | 
             | (I also just don't have the desire to watch an entire
             | 10-minute video packed with filler when I'm trying to relax
             | unless it's very dense, and that's the entire revenue model
             | of youtube. edit: I forgot youtube has shorts now)
        
             | nkrisc wrote:
             | The problem is it never stops recommending stuff. So if I
             | say to never show me some channel (because maybe it's
             | irrelevant to me), then it just fills that spot with the
             | next slightly more irrelevant channel.
             | 
             | Pretty soon all the recommendations are way far off what I
             | would ever watch, because of course _i don't want to watch
             | everything YouTube has_. There is a point where there is
             | nothing left that I will ever wanted to watch.
        
           | franczesko wrote:
           | Watching hobby channels every now and then is very
           | refreshing. I wish YT would recommend me more of those
        
           | heraldgeezer wrote:
           | For you. My recommendations are tech videos, documentaries
           | and good music. I find YouTube to have a great recommendation
           | engine. I do use ublock origin.
        
           | princevegeta89 wrote:
           | Look into DeArrow https://dearrow.ajay.app/
           | 
           | Cuts down a ton of crap and shows you thumbnails and titles
           | of things for what they really are.
        
           | sellmesoap wrote:
           | I've been using DeArrow
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36273890 it calms down
           | the thumbnail clickbait on YouTube, I feel like I enjoy
           | YouTube more by watching less.
        
         | damiante wrote:
         | The Grayjay Android app (which I use regularly) has a
         | "Recommended" tab under each video that provides anonymous
         | recommendations based only on the video you're watching. I
         | recall them asking me to opt-in to the creation of a database
         | like this as well recently, but I don't think it's available
         | yet.
        
         | koen31 wrote:
         | Grayjay dev here, the idea is to have a plugin system for
         | recommendation engines in the future. You can choose whichever
         | recommendation engine you like and it will tell you what data
         | will be sent to the recommendation engine in order to be able
         | to make recommendations for you. There will likely also be
         | recommendation plugins that run fully offline for people who
         | care a lot about privacy.
        
           | IronWolve wrote:
           | Be interesting if someone makes a nice recommendation engine
           | (search) that does trending of real videos by views/votes,
           | not fake hand picked curated trending like yt.
           | 
           | Seems like people are finally annoyed at being controlled on
           | what they are fed while they consume content. Thats what i
           | like about grayjay, it embraced that freedom of the original
           | internet, not letting corps control what you, putting the
           | control back into the hands of the viewers.
           | 
           | I toyed with an idea for a patreon clone, that would allow
           | users to post a thumbnail to their video, and underneath
           | quick links to other hosting providers. So the main choice is
           | upto the creator, but also allow users to choose a different
           | content streamer. I always hated how these services
           | controlled creators too. What stores they can use.
           | 
           | The idea of a "plugin" or provider, creators could pick their
           | merch store provider even. Such ideas of opening a system to
           | different companies, making competition.
        
             | koen31 wrote:
             | Grayjay dev here. What you suggest you can already do in
             | the Grayjay Android app. Support has not been added in the
             | desktop app yet. Harbor is the app you can use to claim
             | that you own a specific account and then you can configure
             | for example which Merch to show. It supports the largest
             | storefronts if you input an URL it will automatically
             | scrape that specific page and cache the results. You can
             | however also input a JSON.
        
       | oaththrowaway wrote:
       | Linux version seems to work good. Was able to sync with my phone
       | with no issues. My only complaint with either of them is YT
       | Shorts support. I'll have to stick with Freetube for that I guess
       | since there is a couple of creators that I follow that only
       | release shorts
        
         | tonijn wrote:
         | Having no Shorts would be a huge plus imho
        
           | grahamj wrote:
           | yeah this is a feature not a bug lol
        
           | em-bee wrote:
           | i think the problem with shorts is not their length but how
           | youtube presents them.
           | 
           | freetube shows shorts in the same way it shows normal videos,
           | just in a separate category. you have to look for them and
           | click to see them and they don't push you to jump to the next
           | one, and most importantly they are not random, just your
           | subscribed channels.
           | 
           | some channels use them as intro/overview for their longer
           | videos which i find useful. other channels use them for
           | stupid stuff which i ignore.
           | 
           | you can ignore them completely if you want. freetube also has
           | a category for livestreams, which i ignore to the point that
           | i forget it's there.
           | 
           | grayjay could support shorts in the same way.
        
             | oaththrowaway wrote:
             | Exactly
        
           | koen31 wrote:
           | Grayjay dev here, shorts will come, but on a tab you can turn
           | off.
        
             | oaththrowaway wrote:
             | Can't wait!
        
             | ddingus wrote:
             | YES! And thank you for a great app that is getting better.
             | 
             | I bought in right away too. Louis gave a rundown on the
             | idea; namely, you can pay for it, or not pay for it, and in
             | either case we are going to do our best to make it work for
             | you, and maybe those you recommend it to.
             | 
             | Nice. Happy to support thinking like that.
        
         | dzhiurgis wrote:
         | Does freetube has macos arm app yet? I found emulated one
         | unbearably slow.
        
       | Hadriel wrote:
       | What about Tiktok? Add that and i'm interested
        
         | k3vinw wrote:
         | Lol. Don't hold your breath. I used to enjoy TikTok until they
         | forced me to create an account and install their spyware.
        
           | philsnow wrote:
           | What spyware? I don't have a tiktok account
        
             | RandallBrown wrote:
             | Because TikTok is a Chinese company most people just
             | consider the app to by spyware. It's probably not any more
             | spyware than other similar apps, but being owned by China
             | makes it a little more worrisome to some people.
        
             | radicality wrote:
             | Take a look at the following blog post that looks at
             | TikTok's encrypted VM and how it profiles you. And this is
             | just on the website, without even installing the app.
             | 
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34109771
        
         | koen31 wrote:
         | Grayjay dev here, TikTok plugin pretty much works already, we
         | just need to add the respective UI for both mobile and desktop
         | to make it work nicely.
        
       | riazrizvi wrote:
       | I'd like to believe it but I'm so jaded at this point. Give you,
       | one vendor, all my data from these different platforms to
       | 'protect my privacy', that I only have at this point because my
       | behavior is dispersed across platforms. Hmmm.
        
         | oaththrowaway wrote:
         | I don't have a FUTO, Grayjay, or Youtube account and use the
         | app just fine
        
         | RobotToaster wrote:
         | You're right to be sceptical, they still have their proprietary
         | license that basically forbids forking.
        
           | koen31 wrote:
           | Grayjay dev here, forking is not forbidden.
        
         | koen31 wrote:
         | Grayjay dev here, you are not giving us any data. You can
         | review the source code, the only data being sent to us is a
         | single data on bootup to let us know how many users we have.
        
       | rollcat wrote:
       | Bug report (macOS): the app does not allow copy/paste, text
       | selection, or even quitting thru Cmd-* shortcuts - it has no
       | entries in the top menu bar whatsoever. There are also no context
       | menus.
        
         | koen31 wrote:
         | Grayjay dev here, noted. Thank you.
        
       | tines wrote:
       | Instead of having to visit several drug dealers, this will
       | aggregate all my favorite drugs into one convenient place.
       | Fantastic!
        
       | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
       | Works well so far! Good work!
       | 
       | Nit: the Linux release should use a compressed tarball, not .zip
        
         | smithza wrote:
         | What is the functional difference? unzip is installed as a
         | default on linux distros just as tar is...
        
       | dgreensp wrote:
       | The site CSS is a little broken on iPhone, causing elements to
       | hang off the screen or overlap. FAQ link gives a 404.
       | 
       | Technically, I think this is against YouTube (for example) TOS,
       | though I don't expect that would be enforced against end users.
        
         | aniviacat wrote:
         | It's broken on Android/Firefox, too.
        
       | xyst wrote:
       | The modern day "Trillian" for video/musiv
        
         | nurettin wrote:
         | The Trillian I knew was a jabber client
        
           | aidenn0 wrote:
           | Jabber and AIM and ICQ and MSN messenger...
        
       | ramon156 wrote:
       | I don't get the motivation. You want to prevent doom-scrolling? I
       | don't doom-scroll on Spotify, why is that there?
        
         | RandallBrown wrote:
         | I think the point is to follow a creator. So if you like an
         | artist, you'd follow them and get their Instagram, YouTube,
         | Spotify, Twitch, etc. all in one place.
        
       | Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
       | Seems like a verry brittle setup. Since it adds adblock by
       | default all this will do is make youtube crack down on adblock
       | even more.
        
         | duxup wrote:
         | It feels like there is a trend of apps out there that are
         | "about" creators, but then happily shaft them ...
        
         | Joe_Cool wrote:
         | I thought so too when I started using the android version. I
         | was surprised when GrayJay's Youtube plugin was promptly
         | updated the same day Youtube broke it. NewPipe needed a few
         | days to work again.
        
       | leshokunin wrote:
       | This seems cool. Will test on Mac later today. Would like an iOS
       | app
        
       | duxup wrote:
       | This feels like a central hub for media you like?
       | 
       | I would assume these privacy claims would also include a ToS
       | violation for the given platform?
       | 
       | And then of course the user has given Grayjay a lot of info so
       | privacy?
       | 
       | Are they scraping the actual content too or just accessing it in
       | some different way?
        
         | Joe_Cool wrote:
         | It doesn't use any API (at least the YouTube plugin). So they
         | are (according to their lawyers) not bound to any TOS. All it
         | does is open the page (like a browser) and grab it and only
         | show stuff to the user that's "relevant".
         | 
         | You can check it yourself, while it is not "open-source" or
         | "free" in the usual sense its source is available.
         | 
         | More details from Rossmann himself:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqTYg6vnQvw
         | 
         | edit: TOS not API
        
       | ethagknight wrote:
       | This looks really interesting. Specifically I would love to be
       | able to set up something like this for my kids so that I have
       | control over what they are able to watch on YouTube. I want to
       | offer my kids whitelisted shows and creator accounts. I know
       | theres a lot of interesting and high quality stuff out there but
       | I do NOT want YT recommending things to my kids without going
       | through me first.
       | 
       | Grayjay looks like it may be a solution!
        
         | oaththrowaway wrote:
         | I have NewPipe on my kid's tablets which is pretty good too,
         | but it breaks more often. But it's great to have no ads +
         | sponsorblock.
         | 
         | Between that and pirated shows/movies my kids are absolutely
         | puzzled by commercials when we stay at a hotel or with family.
        
         | foxbarrington wrote:
         | This is the most maddening thing about all content now. It's
         | all platform based and every platform wants to constantly
         | push/"recommend" things to you and your kids. Right now I use
         | Roku and Plex but even both of those are constantly trying to
         | break down the wall.
        
         | koen31 wrote:
         | Grayjay dev here, this is for sure a use case we have in mind.
         | The idea is in the future to allow you to share subscription
         | groups you've made for your kids with friends.
         | 
         | Maybe there can be a website where people share subscription
         | groups with each other in general. Good archery channels, good
         | fitness channel, kid safe channels, etc.
         | 
         | Another thing I am pondering is if it is worth adding a mode
         | that prevents your kids from accessing other content then what
         | is in a specific subscription group.
        
           | ethagknight wrote:
           | Thanks for the reply, I will give Grayjay a shot.
           | 
           | I think just letting the primary account specify
           | creators/channels and then have a sub accounts with no
           | ability to modify would be sufficient.
           | 
           | Im sure there are already all sorts of recommendation groups
           | or sites, maybe just provide links to quality ones?
        
       | NelsonMinar wrote:
       | Looks interesting, does it allow for offline caching or archiving
       | of media?
       | 
       | It mentions using the Harbor identity service, that's new to me.
       | https://harbor.social/
        
       | AnonHP wrote:
       | I'm getting a 404 error for the FAQ link in the footer. It seems
       | like this is similar to FreeTube [1] (which is YouTube only
       | though, whereas Grayjay supports multiple platforms). Does
       | Grayjay allow downloading videos (and if yes, does it also allow
       | choosing the quality/format)?
       | 
       | [1]: https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube
        
       | WaltPurvis wrote:
       | What is this app? Avast blocks the site as malware. False
       | positive?
       | 
       | "This URL contains malicious code that could harm your computer.
       | If you're willing to risk it, you can turn off your Avast Web
       | Shield to continue. But we strongly recommend walking away from
       | this one."
        
         | DaSHacka wrote:
         | Somewhat ironic trusting malware to tell you what's malware and
         | what's not
        
         | SpaghettiCthulu wrote:
         | Definitely a false positive
        
       | mawise wrote:
       | Oh cool, it's like RSS consumption for video content (I think). I
       | worry that since it isn't using blessed APIs it would get shut
       | down by the platforms if it gets much traction. Also "trust me
       | instead of them" can be a tough sell to the privacy-focused
       | crowd. I'd love something that makes it trivial effort for the
       | creators to directly publish on more open platforms--more like
       | RSS publishing for video content. But youtube gives you discovery
       | and a cut in the ad revenue, so I'm not sure how to get the
       | incentives to align...
        
         | altairprime wrote:
         | You don't need APIs if your app includes a web browser, though;
         | you just need the patience to hook into the browser's APIs,
         | rather than the page's, in order to backup content when viewed.
         | User-operated Selenium is legitimately the biggest threat model
         | to content islands. It's too bad a third-party had to invent
         | Grayjay as a standalone, rather than one of the browsers
         | figuring this out and shipping it as subscription-payment
         | functionality :/
         | 
         | (It has to be subscription payment to deal in a scaleable and
         | timely manner with sites changing their page schemas
         | anticompetitively.)
        
       | daft_pink wrote:
       | I'm excited. Are we ever going to see an iOS version?
        
         | NotPractical wrote:
         | The App Store forbids any app that violates the terms of
         | service of any company [1], regardless of the legality [2].
         | Since YouTube forbids alternative clients in their terms of
         | service, Apple will not allow Grayjay onto the App Store. Even
         | in the EU, where multiple app stores are available, you still
         | need to follow a subset of the App Store guidelines. I looked
         | through them and it appears that the ToS violation guideline is
         | in fact exempt for EU apps [1], so they could release a version
         | in the EU exclusively. However, they may be subject to the Core
         | Technology Fee.
         | 
         | [1] 5.2.2, 5.2.3: https://developer.apple.com/app-
         | store/review/guidelines/#int...
         | 
         | [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/federal-judge-rules-
         | it...
        
       | alex-robbins wrote:
       | "Source First License 1.1" is an interesting choice. Sounds like
       | something specific to this developer (so far, at least). I'm not
       | savvy enough to be sure, but it doesn't sound compatible with any
       | of the commonly accepted-as-FOSS licenses.
       | 
       | https://github.com/futo-org/Grayjay.Desktop/blob/373cd8448cb...
        
         | bramhaag wrote:
         | > it doesn't sound compatible with any of the commonly
         | accepted-as-FOSS licenses.
         | 
         | Correct, it violates the four essential freedoms by placing
         | restrictions on commercial use amongst other things.
        
         | akimbostrawman wrote:
         | It's closer to source available than proprietary
        
       | srid wrote:
       | NixOS packaging request if anybody would like to contribute:
       | https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/366543
        
       | high_priest wrote:
       | I love the dictation (STT) app from the same (FUTO) creator. It
       | has completely replaced any other dictation solutions on my phone
       | & it is fully offline!
        
       | mh-cx wrote:
       | Can someone explain what this is? The page has almost no
       | information (on mobile) and I don't want to install just to find
       | out.
        
         | moralestapia wrote:
         | "Grayjay combines video content from multiple platforms, such
         | as YouTube, PeerTube, Twitch, and others, into one app,
         | removing the need to switch between different platforms."
        
           | infotainment wrote:
           | Aside from vaguely implying it's some kind of media player
           | that plays content from the internet, that doesn't tell a
           | whole lot.
           | 
           | Some screenshots would be a nice addition to their page.
        
             | lewiscarson wrote:
             | Screenshots disappear for some reason on mobile. Home page
             | has screenshots but only of the mobile app.
        
             | burkaman wrote:
             | There are a bunch of screenshots on the linked page, you
             | might have a plugin that is interfering with the content if
             | you don't see them.
        
         | nfriedly wrote:
         | Grayjay is a video player for YouTube and other services. I
         | believe its ad-free and "algorithm-free", meaning it just gives
         | you every video from every channel you subscribe to, in
         | chronological order. It was initially for Android and iOS.
         | 
         | It's backed by Louis Rossmann, who does a lot of right to
         | repair advocacy, among other things.
        
       | grahamj wrote:
       | This looks cool. Sort of a FreeTube with plugins?
        
       | tambourine_man wrote:
       | Content overflows viewport in iPhone SE
        
       | NotPractical wrote:
       | The best feature of alternative YT clients IMO is "multiple
       | subscription lists". I have so many subscriptions, when using the
       | official YouTube app or site the "subscriptions" feed is
       | overwhelming, and I prefer not to use the algorithmically-
       | generated "home" feed. Since YT has kind of become the de facto
       | "place to upload videos on the Internet", video topics are broad
       | enough to constitute multiple web sites, and I like to be able to
       | filter channels by topic rather than having them all grouped
       | together.
       | 
       | If you're opposed to using a separate app just for this, you can
       | achieve something similar using an RSS reader and YT's official
       | RSS feeds (which I'm surprised they still publish tbh).
        
         | jimmydddd wrote:
         | Great point. There are many yt channels that I would subscribe
         | to if yt had multiple subscription lists. Channels I find
         | interesting, but not enough so that I want them to "clog up" my
         | main subscription channel.
        
         | ortusdux wrote:
         | Reddit had the same issue not too long ago. I remember a
         | popular post where a user described their workaround of
         | creating an account for each field of interest. To Reddit's
         | credit, they did implement custom feeds not to long after,
         | which lets you group batches of subreddits. Not something I'd
         | expect YouTube to do.
        
         | hysan wrote:
         | Did you know that YouTube used to have this exact feature? It
         | was called subscription collections and they publicly promised
         | that they would replace that feature with something better when
         | they removed it. That never happened. It's been 9 maybe 10
         | years since they said that. [1]
         | 
         | The removal of that feature was an intentional push to take
         | away user agency and push them into using YouTube's
         | recommendation algorithm. The lying was a way to misdirect user
         | complaints until it was too late.
         | 
         | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38101629#38104494
        
           | toomuchtodo wrote:
           | Never trust the platform. User sovereignty or bust.
        
           | gryn wrote:
           | Yup. I really liked that feature, but hey who cares about
           | user preferences. the only thing that matter is engagement
           | metrics. it's not like there's any real competition to
           | YouTube you can run to. and the hunt for ad-blockers is
           | getting fiercer.
           | 
           | my workaround to getting different topics separated have been
           | to have multiple YouTube channels inside a single account,
           | each with separate likes/sub channels/recommendations etc.
           | one per Firefox container.
        
         | em-bee wrote:
         | freetube has multiple subscription lists. they call it
         | profiles. any channel can be in multiple profiles of your
         | choice.
        
       | uxjw wrote:
       | Seems similar to the updated Reeder app for mac/iOS. Its an RSS
       | reeder that now works with Youtube channels, Reddit subreddits,
       | Bluesky, Flickr, etc. https://reeder.app/
        
       | lkurtz wrote:
       | Recommending (and running) `xattr -c` can be extremely dangerous.
       | I would suggest withholding Mac releases until they can be
       | distributed/run safely.
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | As someone not very familiar, is there any legitimate reason
         | why they say "Our Apple signing/notarization is not entirely
         | done yet"?
         | 
         | It feels extremely suspicious, given that I download lots of
         | other popular utility software from independent devs and I've
         | never had to do that before.
        
           | jeroenhd wrote:
           | As a platform that basically started as a way to watch
           | Youtube without tracking and ads, I think Grayjay should be
           | sceptical of any third party code signing validation
           | requirements. The copyright lobby has gone after software and
           | its distributors before, even if it doesn't inherently pirate
           | any content without user configuration.
           | 
           | I don't know why this app would need Apple's signature in the
           | first place, seeing as it's not distributed through the app
           | store. Is this like how you need to pay for a certificate to
           | make the "are you sure you want to run this" prompt look less
           | scary?
        
             | lkurtz wrote:
             | There are certainly valid, conflicting opinions around
             | signing/notarization requirements for software. But
             | notarization does provide end users with some safety
             | guarantees that legitimately make running the software less
             | risky. The scariness of "are you sure you want to run this"
             | prompts is fairly grounded in real risk assumed by the end
             | user.
        
           | lkurtz wrote:
           | There are a couple of legitimate reasons, namely the
           | expense/KYC process of an Apple Developer Program membership
           | and/or the complexity of integrating signing + notarization
           | into existing build pipelines (but XCode does makes it pretty
           | straightforward to cut an ad-hoc release that is signed and
           | notarized).
           | 
           | In my opinion at least, the most likely reason is that Apple
           | is refusing to notarize the software. If this is the case,
           | people really should not be running it.
        
           | rane wrote:
           | Not everyone wants to pay $99/year to be able to notarize
           | software that is not going to make them any money.
           | 
           | https://github.com/disable-gatekeeper/disable-
           | gatekeeper.git...
        
         | josephcsible wrote:
         | That doesn't map to safety or danger at all. It's purely a way
         | of opting out of the developer having to pay the Apple tax.
        
       | AiAi wrote:
       | Trying this since YouTube just started blocking my ad blocker. It
       | seems to be working well on Linux.
       | 
       | I didn't find a feedback button on the app itself, so if the
       | authors are reading, some things I miss from using YouTube's
       | website:
       | 
       | - Videos in new tabs; - Search bar always visible.
        
         | jhund wrote:
         | I also noticed that Youtube prevents me from watching videos on
         | their site starting today because I have an adblocker
         | (uBlockOrigin) installed.
        
       | jeroenhd wrote:
       | Huh, weird license: https://github.com/futo-
       | org/Grayjay.Desktop/blob/master/LICE... Not sure what this means,
       | guess I'll have to treat it as good old "source available"
       | software.
        
       | smcleod wrote:
       | Weird that it disables the use of right click, paste and
       | seemingly your password manager when trying to login to services
       | via the app.
        
         | koen31 wrote:
         | Grayjay dev here, good point, will add right click, paste.
        
           | josephcsible wrote:
           | Why wasn't it supported all along? Doesn't basically every
           | text field support it by default?
        
       | bisby wrote:
       | Launching the Linux release and noticed in the logs:
       | 
       | Directories:User Directory: /home/bisby/Grayjay
       | 
       | And there is a directory there now. I absolutely hate having
       | stuff automatically create anything in my home directory like
       | this. Ideally, this should be following XDG directory guidelines
       | on linux: https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-
       | spec/latest/
        
         | koen31 wrote:
         | Grayjay dev here. If you want it to use your user directory
         | like other apps, just remove the file called "Portable". Keep
         | in mind that it just uses your working directory to write files
         | otherwise.
        
           | godDLL wrote:
           | That's a windows-ism, we don't like that kind of stuff. Not
           | on any other OS we don't.
        
             | freedomben wrote:
             | Parent is not wrong, but definitely could have some
             | improved manners and tact.
             | 
             | As a linux user I wanted to make sure to say thank you for
             | supporting and thinking about linux!
        
               | santoshalper wrote:
               | Actually, parent is wrong. You're not supposed to do that
               | shit on Windows either. That's what AppData is for.
               | Writing configuration files and folders to "Documents" or
               | the user's home folder is sloppy shit.
        
             | indrora wrote:
             | Even Windows has %appdata% which is where you put stuff on
             | disk that you need to stash away. There's also function
             | calls iirc which will give you a handle to a temporary file
             | if you need it.
        
           | SpaghettiCthulu wrote:
           | You should be using `~/.local/share`, `~/.config`, and other
           | standard directories on Unix systems. macOS has its own
           | conventions.
        
             | zamalek wrote:
             | You shouldn't even use those, at least hardcoded. Follow
             | the XDG Base Directories spec:
             | https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/
        
           | Lariscus wrote:
           | Is a Flatpak release planned? I am interested in Grayjay but
           | don't really want to deal with a binary that lives outside of
           | my distros package manager.
        
           | ChocolateGod wrote:
           | [delayed]
        
       | lsowen wrote:
       | FYI, the FAQ link in the footer (https://grayjay.app/faq) appears
       | to be broken (throws a 404)
        
       | withinboredom wrote:
       | FYI: I accidentally logged into my wrong patreon account and
       | expected "logout then login" to prompt me to login again. It
       | doesn't. It just logs me back in with the same user.
        
         | koen31 wrote:
         | Grayjay dev here, that's a bug, I wrote it down. You can
         | probably work around it for now by logging out -> restart app
         | -> log back in.
        
       | josephcsible wrote:
       | Please remove "Also available on FDroid" from the page. This app
       | is not available on F-Droid and isn't allowed to be added to it
       | since it isn't open source.
        
         | ASalazarMX wrote:
         | Indeed, it is "Source First" license, dev(s) reasoning here:
         | https://futo.org/about/futo-statement-on-opensource/
        
         | graemep wrote:
         | I agree that is misleading. It has its own F-droid compatible
         | repo so you can use an F-Droid client. When I hear "available
         | on F-Droid" I assume it means its in the F-Droid repo.
        
         | risho wrote:
         | where it says available on fdroid it links to their personal
         | fdroid repository. plenty of projects both open source and not
         | have their own fdroid repository. fdroid is both a repository
         | that only allows open source software and a packaging
         | infrastructure tool for people hosting their own repositories.
         | based on the fact their claim that they are on fdroid literally
         | hyperlinks to their fdroid repository i don't see how anyone
         | could find that misleading. if anything it's fdroids fault for
         | giving their own repository the same name as their
         | infrastructure tool instead of doing what every other project
         | did and give them separate names. for example docker and
         | dockerhub, flatpak and flathub, etc.
         | 
         | here is a list of 100+ not official fdroid repositories.
         | https://github.com/userkilled/FDroid-List-Repository
        
           | paulnpace wrote:
           | > if anything it's fdroids fault for giving their own
           | repository the same name as their infrastructure tool instead
           | of doing what every other project did and give them separate
           | names. for example docker and dockerhub, flatpak and flathub,
           | etc.
           | 
           | F-That
        
       | Arnavion wrote:
       | For anyone who wants a lo-fi solution to subscribing to a youtube
       | channel without having to deal with the youtube.com website,
       | every channel has a built-in Atom feed that contains an entry for
       | each video. My pipeline for watching subscribed channels is to
       | just run a feed reader in one terminal (newsboat) and then copy-
       | paste new videos from that into an adjacent terminal running a
       | loop that runs `yt-dlp` on each pasted line.
       | 
       | You can find the feed URL by inspecting the HTML of the
       | youtube.com/channel/.../videos page and searching for "rssUrl";
       | it'll look like
       | `www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC...`
       | 
       | Downside: this feed will contain shorts and livestreams in
       | addition to videos and AFAIK there's no way to filter those out.
       | Depending on the channel, the title might make it obvious whether
       | it's one of those.
        
       | ddingus wrote:
       | Request: When I use NewPipe, I can drop a YT URL into the search
       | bar, which then treats it just like an address, more or less
       | immediately playing the video
       | 
       | This would be nice to see in GreyJay.
       | 
       | Edit: Oh never mind! I just took the update, and it is in the can
       | now!
       | 
       | You guys rock. Thank you.
        
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       (page generated 2024-12-20 23:00 UTC)