Yup. Installed, opened it to find it wants permissions, uninstalled it.
But that’s why I’m working this stuff out now before my Brax3 arrives.
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How does Youtube react when your are using Brax3 and a browser instead of an app?
I have a couple of ways I do yt successfully. I have pipepipe working [took a while fiddling with api instances and which countries to connect through with my vpn] and I also downloaded the DuckDuckGo browser which has its own media player [duck player] that automatically pulls yt content without ads and without signing in. It works for everything except age flagged adult/mature content which is now true for most of the yt front/back end apps. Just a matter of playing with settings until you find what works.
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I should add that I have DDG locked down as tight as it will go in regards to settings/privacy etc.
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Thank you for the information. I need Youtube. Youtube helped me build my house, grow my plants, fancy recipes for goat milk cheese, feed my goats and use Linux. I found Dr Brax on YT also.
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I didn’t know that about the DuckDuckGo browser. Very cool. I have been using the Iode Browser that came with Brax3. It seems like a repackaged Firefox. It allows me to install the uBlock Origin extension to kill Youtube ads. I also use the “Add to Homescreen” feature to save my “Youtube in a browser” as an icon on the homescreen. That way I pretend it is just a regular Youtube app on my homescreen.
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every browser in the open-source and Linux landscape is a modified Firefox, exceptions are Chromium (Chrome without Google proprietary code), Brave (modified Chromium), Gnome Web(ex-Epiphany, based on a port of Apple’s Webkit engine to Gnome’s GTK ) and many other little known small projects
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Thank you helpful information. So the GNU Linux Seamonkey browser is based on Firefox, yet has a folder labeled Chrome inside of it?
I was using the Seamonkey suite in the past, it still has an IRC client!
The “chrome” directory is unrelated to Google’s browser, Why there is a chrome folder under firefox directory ? Is it related to google's chrome ? | Firefox Support Forum | Mozilla Support
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Brave does likewise and is pretty good at it.
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So - further to this discussion - I have been leaning towards GrayJay, and at this stage am planning to use it initially to see how it goes. I was already looking at it for the Linux desktop app, and if I hadn’t got sidetracked (by BraX3 
) would have been using it on my PC for the last 3-4 months. Anyway quick summary of the reasons in simple terms are:
- It’s a FUTO app and although I am wary of his (possible) politics Eron Wolf seems to largely support the right type of apps and attitudes towards privacy - so supporting FUTO in some way is probably good?
- Functionally it seems up there and it has reportedly fast updates and plugins, which are updated frequently. It doesn’t rely on piped resources and you can use it to watch content from other platforms like rumble, twitch etc ( I know some of the other alternatives may also do this).
- Some people argue it’s the only one focused on both privacy and having censorship resistant comments? The latter is through its encrypted signed comments system (utilising polycentric social network which I am not familiar with)? Also the sources are the creators so supposedly only app resistant to the heavy YouTube censorship as you can retain connection with them, etc…
However a couple of downsides are:
- You need to buy a license to get the full functionality (not an issue for me per se, but it leads onto #5),
- And (I was not clear on this previously) it’s not FOSS - some people say the user license reads potentially dangerously for the users in some ways (so not in keeping with FOSS licenses). You also only have their privacy statement on what they do with data, etc (as it’s not clear in the licence on privacy aspects) and because it’s not open-source no one can inspect the source code (to understand what the software actually does)?
Are all these fair and reasonably accurate assumptions / statements, and up to date? If so despite #1-3 should more weight be put on #5 about considering using it? Despite the high regard for FUTO is it an appropriate app for a privacy focused device? Is there a risk of not truly knowing what it’s doing; much like Mark Zuckerberg’s classic comment on What’s App (paraphrasing here) “yeah, she’s encrypted mate, just trust me”!
(P.S. If not GJ, at this stage I think I’d look to initially use LibreTube as the best alternative, it is fully FOSS as I understand; and has next best functionality although it lacks the non-YT sources, and the Linux Desktop app option GrayJay has. Otherwise I’ll just stick with Brave or DuckDuckGo browser(s) for YT video streaming - and maybe the RSS Feed trick.)
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Will using grayjay and using it to log into YouTube compromise the brax 3?
Shouldn’t do - FWIW that’s my intend app to use initially - just haven’t got around to using it (it’s been installed on my phone for 3 months).
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I’ve been using newpipe for a long time on several phones and brax3 with and without VPN. Sometimes some videos won’t play with VPN but otherwise its flawless. Yay. No yt algorithm.
Using freetube on desktop and it works pretty much the same as newpipe
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