10 ms·

Grayjay Desktop App

544 points by pierrelf 2y ago

josephcsible 2y ago
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 2y ago
  Indeed, it is "Source First" license, dev(s) reasoning here: https://futo.org/about/futo-statement-on-opensource/ https://futo.org/about/futo-statement-on-opensource/
  - globular-toast 2y ago
    They make a very good case against corporate-friendly licences like MIT/BSD, which I definitely agree with, but say nothing about why they don't use AGPL. Honestly I think the problem with A/GPL is that they are considered "uncool". You just can't use them, because reasons. Who decides what is cool? That's right, the marketing departments of huge corporations...
    - xmcqdpt2 2y ago
      AGPL would still allow a third party to fork their code and create a commercial product out of it, which is what they are opposed to. The AGPL only requires that the host also provides their code.
      - globular-toast 2y ago
        No, it also requires that it's licensed under the AGPL, meaning the users get free software.
        xmcqdpt2 2y ago
        Right yes, provide their code licensed under AGPL, it's an important distinction, thanks. What it doesn't ban people from doing is selling a service, which is different from their license that allows only non-commercial uses.
- graemep 2y ago
  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.
- coconut08 2y ago
  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 https://github.com/userkilled/FDroid-List-Repository
  - paulnpace 2y ago
    > 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
  - SquareWheel 2y ago
    Yep, as a user I didn't find it confusing at all. F-Droid is designed for and around adding custom repos. FUTO links to their own repo and it all works fine. I'd definitely consider this as being "available on F-Droid".
    - exikyut 2y ago
      Should say "Available Via", that would further reinforce the status quo.
- 627467 2y ago
  It is available in fdroid on my ungoogled phone. I don't know what you're talking about
  - josephcsible 2y ago
    https://search.f-droid.org/?q=grayjay&lang=en https://search.f-droid.org/?q=grayjay&lang=en > It looks like F-Droid does not have any apps matching your search string "grayjay" You're using a third-party repo that allows proprietary apps. The real F-Droid only allows FOSS ones.
    - nalinidash 2y ago
      It should be written like "available as a f-droid repo"
- moeffju 2y ago
  Maybe F-Droid should just call their official blessed repo "F-Repo" to end the confusion, because this is clearly available through F-Droid, just not in the F-Droid official repo...
  - lrvick 2y ago
    Being able to side-load a random unsigned binary via the fdroid app, or getting it from the F-Droid repository where they do independently signed (and ideally reproducible) builds, are very different things. The F-droid team does not have a high bar to be dicks. They do it to ensure their users get binaries that match the published code to prevent increasingly supply chain attacks. The standards are there for good reason, and if you do not understand those reasons, then use a license that allows the people that do understand to distribute your software for you. Very very few software engineers understand supply chain attacks or how to prevent them.
pvg 2y ago
Thread last year https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37924776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37924776
- dang 2y ago
  Thanks! Macroexpanded: Grayjay – Follow Creators Not Platforms - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37924776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37924776 - Oct 2023 (106 comments)
IronWolve 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      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!
oaththrowaway 2y ago
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 2y ago
  Having no Shorts would be a huge plus imho
  - grahamj 2y ago
    yeah this is a feature not a bug lol
  - em-bee 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      Exactly
  - koen31 2y ago
    Grayjay dev here, shorts will come, but on a tab you can turn off.
    - oaththrowaway 2y ago
      Can't wait!
Hadriel 2y ago
What about Tiktok? Add that and i'm interested
- k3vinw 2y ago
  Lol. Don’t hold your breath. I used to enjoy TikTok until they forced me to create an account and install their spyware.
  - philsnow 2y ago
    What spyware? I don't have a tiktok account
    - RandallBrown 2y ago
      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.
      - k3vinw 2y ago
        I don’t care where they come from. Why do they force you to signup to see a video that can be played using standard web technology?
    - radicality 2y ago
      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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34109771
      - k3vinw 2y ago
        Yep. My point exactly!
    - k3vinw 2y ago
riazrizvi 2y ago
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.
- RobotToaster 2y ago
  You're right to be sceptical, they still have their proprietary license that basically forbids forking.
  - koen31 2y ago
    Grayjay dev here, forking is not forbidden.
    - RobotToaster 2y ago
      So the license has been changed from the previous futo one, but there's still heavy restrictions on what anyone can do with it: > You may distribute the software or provide it to others only if you do so free of charge for non-commercial purposes. >Notwithstanding the above, you may not remove or obscure any functionality in the software related to payment to the Licensor in any copy you distribute to others. >You may not alter, remove, or obscure any licensing, copyright, or other notices of the Licensor in the software. Any use of the Licensor’s trademarks is subject to applicable law. To me that says that if FUTO decide to paywall the entire app, nobody is allowed to fork it to remove that.
- oaththrowaway 2y ago
  I don't have a FUTO, Grayjay, or Youtube account and use the app just fine
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- koen31 2y ago
  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.
1zael 2y ago
[flagged]
- OsrsNeedsf2P 2y ago
  This isn't designed to be a hypergrowth company. It's a side project someone with money is funding out of passion
- coconut08 2y ago
  it looks like you just described the customer. apparently it isn't you. just because it isnt you and it isnt 90+ percent of people, doesn't mean it doesnt exist. there are all sorts of niche products for niche groups.
  - 1zael 2y ago
    Gotcha. I didn't realize this was open-source. In that case, cool. I'm all for it.
rollcat 2y ago
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 2y ago
  Grayjay dev here, noted. Thank you.
tines 2y ago
Instead of having to visit several drug dealers, this will aggregate all my favorite drugs into one convenient place. Fantastic!
- khana 2y ago
  [dead]
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Works well so far! Good work! Nit: the Linux release should use a compressed tarball, not .zip
- smithza 2y ago
  What is the functional difference? unzip is installed as a default on linux distros just as tar is...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
dgreensp 2y ago
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 2y ago
  It's broken on Android/Firefox, too.
xyst 2y ago
The modern day “Trillian” for video/musiv
- nurettin 2y ago
  The Trillian I knew was a jabber client
  - aidenn0 2y ago
    Jabber and AIM and ICQ and MSN messenger...
ramon156 2y ago
I don't get the motivation. You want to prevent doom-scrolling? I don't doom-scroll on Spotify, why is that there?
- RandallBrown 2y ago
  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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  It feels like there is a trend of apps out there that are "about" creators, but then happily shaft them ...
- Joe_Cool 2y ago
  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.
nixass 2y ago
[flagged]
- OsrsNeedsf2P 2y ago
  As someone who tried to build a browser-based, serverless Youtube video downloader, every hack under the moon doesn't work. But doing it from a fully controlled client is easy.
- RandallBrown 2y ago
  That's sort of the point of this isn't it? Instead of having an app for every damn thing, you have one app.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
tetrisgm 2y ago
This seems cool. Will test on Mac later today. Would like an iOS app
duxup 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqTYg6vnQvw edit: TOS not API
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    Grayjay may not be bound to TOS but users of Grayjay are still accessing YouTube services in a way YouTube would prefer they didn't. OTOH videos are available without having to log in or having an account at all so I don't know if there's any implicit agreement between someone accessing a URL and the service provider.
    - Joe_Cool 2y ago
      True. And they might close your account if you login. How I display, download or request data without an account and which browser or app I use to do it is still my choice. I'd guess if they could do anything about it, they would have half a year ago. The only way would be to DRM/widevine all videos and apparently they aren't ready for that yet. If they block my IP I'll just get a new one. I wouldn't even be thinking about using a 3rd party app or blocking the ads if their service was reasonable. No way I will endure that, if they block it I'll just watch something else.
    - pmontra 2y ago
      I don't think that's a problem: you can browse to YouTube's home page and search for and watch videos without logging in. Grayjay is just another user agent, as if it was another web browser.
ethagknight 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
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/ https://harbor.social/
AnonHP 2y ago
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 https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube
- Joe_Cool 2y ago
  Yes, you can download on both the mobile app and the desktop program.
WaltPurvis 2y ago
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 2y ago
  Somewhat ironic trusting malware to tell you what's malware and what's not
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- SpaghettiCthulu 2y ago
  Definitely a false positive
mawise 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
I’m excited. Are we ever going to see an iOS version?
- NotPractical 2y ago
  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/#intellectual-property https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#int... [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/federal-judge-rules-it-not-crime-violate-websites-terms-service https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/federal-judge-rules-it...
  - ferbivore 2y ago
    There is some precedent for Apple allowing apps that can be used for ToS or even copyright infringement, as long as they have a plausible legal purpose and all the infringement happens through third-party plugins that are not advertised in the app. The example I'm most familiar with is Paperback. There's also precedent for Apple not caring about Google's terms in particular, e.g. with Musi, though I guess that did get taken down in the end. Grayjay also uses a plugin model, possibly for this exact reason. On the other hand, the infringing plugins are first-party and advertised via their website, so I somewhat doubt that either Google or Apple would allow it on their stores.
alex-robbins 2y ago
"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/373cd8448cb0ede78a0a1f8a0cf25ca7666f56d4/LICENSE.md https://github.com/futo-org/Grayjay.Desktop/blob/373cd8448cb...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bramhaag 2y ago
  > 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 2y ago
  It's closer to source available than proprietary
mh-cx 2y ago
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 2y ago
  "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 2y ago
    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.
    - wetpaws 2y ago
      [dead]
    - burkaman 2y ago
      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.
    - lewiscarson 2y ago
      Screenshots disappear for some reason on mobile. Home page has screenshots but only of the mobile app.
- nfriedly 2y ago
  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.
srid 2y ago
NixOS packaging request if anybody would like to contribute: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/366543 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/366543
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
high_priest 2y ago
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!
grahamj 2y ago
This looks cool. Sort of a FreeTube with plugins?
tambourine_man 2y ago
Content overflows viewport in iPhone SE
lkurtz 2y ago
Recommending (and running) `xattr -c` can be extremely dangerous. I would suggest withholding Mac releases until they can be distributed/run safely.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      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 2y ago
    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.
NotPractical 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
  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.
  - Joe_Cool 2y ago
    I can still save multireddits. Did they remove that on new.reddit.com ? Try https://old.reddit.com/r/multihub/ https://old.reddit.com/r/multihub/
- hysan 2y ago
  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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38101629#38104494
uxjw 2y ago
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/ https://reeder.app/
AiAi 2y ago
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 2y ago
  I also noticed that Youtube prevents me from watching videos on their site starting today because I have an adblocker (uBlockOrigin) installed.
  - tspng 2y ago
    Same here. But for the time being, I can just click away the modal (don't click any of the buttons) and the video starts anyway. I assume that will change soon.
jeroenhd 2y ago
Huh, weird license: https://github.com/futo-org/Grayjay.Desktop/blob/master/LICENSE.md 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.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
smcleod 2y ago
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 2y ago
  Grayjay dev here, good point, will add right click, paste.
  - josephcsible 2y ago
    Why wasn't it supported all along? Doesn't basically every text field support it by default?
bisby 2y ago
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/ https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/
- koen31 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    That's a windows-ism, we don't like that kind of stuff. Not on any other OS we don't.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      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 2y ago
        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.
        sunshowers 2y ago
        I agree that this should be in the XDG directory or AppData, but be kind, y'all -- this is open source, it is a gift someone has labored over and given you. There are much nicer ways to suggest improvements than calling it "sloppy shit". edit: it's not actually open source by the OSI definition it seems [1], but it is reasonably close. [1] https://futo.org/about/futo-statement-on-opensource/ https://futo.org/about/futo-statement-on-opensource/
lsowen 2y ago
FYI, the FAQ link in the footer (https://grayjay.app/faq https://grayjay.app/faq) appears to be broken (throws a 404)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
withinboredom 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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.
saltserv 2y ago
[dead]
Arnavion 2y ago
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 premieres, 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.
- harryvederci 2y ago
  You can use yt-dlp to get: - the channel id by youtube channel url - the duration + aspect ratio (<= 3 min + vertical = short) - whether or not it's a live / future video
  - Arnavion 2y ago
    Yes, I do do that. I meant that there's no way to filter them out of the feed directly, eg via some URL query parameters.
    - voitsykh 2y ago
      https://youtube.com/@handle/videos https://youtube.com/@handle/videos Handle is usually channel name without spaces, and is displayed under it on the website. So for Louis Rossmann that would be: https://youtube.com/@rossmanngroup/videos https://youtube.com/@rossmanngroup/videos
- DavideNL 2y ago
  Fyi, an automated alternative: https://github.com/jmbannon/ytdl-sub https://github.com/jmbannon/ytdl-sub
ddingus 2y ago
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.
chrismorgan 2y ago
The screenshot in the “Add and configure sources” section has the YouTube plugin with the caption: “One of the biggest video platforms owned by Google”. The stupid thing is that it’s entirely believable that Google would have multiple competing video platforms. Certainly they tend to have half a dozen competing chat things alive at any give point in time, two or three with the same name for bonus confusion. (The sentence could do with a comma: “One of the biggest video platforms, owned by Google”.)
H_Coronatus 2y ago
the FAQ page on the grayjay site is broken/404ing: https://grayjay.app/faq https://grayjay.app/faq
metadat 2y ago
How is this different from Jellyfin?
lrvick 2y ago
I love the right to repair work Louis Rossmann does, and this project goal as a whole, but this license is a major step backwards for software distribution with high assurances of security, freedom and privacy. Debian, Arch, Guix, F-droid or any other independent signed reproducible build channels require a true Open Source license to function legally. The license thus forces users to download unsigned non-reproducible binaries off grayjay servers and trust blindly that their build server is creating binaries from exactly the published code and not compromised to inject tracking or malware not in the public repo (an increasingly common attack they may not even know about for years!). Or say the grayjay domain is hijacked or even a BGP attack or a LAN MITM. All sorts of ways they could be helping distribute malware and not know it with no signatures or reproducible build proofs. Thing is, your team would not have to solve these problems if you licensed it so the community could solve them for you, as we do for thousands of open source software projects. I really want to see a project like this take off and would gladly donate, but only if it can be opened up for accountability via third party compilation and distribution channels so it can never be backdoored or co-opted for surveillance if your leadership or release engineers are ever compromised. Said license: https://github.com/futo-org/Grayjay.Desktop?tab=License-1-ov-file#readme https://github.com/futo-org/Grayjay.Desktop?tab=License-1-ov... There are other licenses like AGPL that would kill any attempt for someone to rip your code off to make their own proprietary offering, without locking yourself out of established freedom, security, and privacy preserving software distribution channels. If anyone from the team is reading this, I would be happy to detail and discuss my concerns further as a software supply chain security specialist. Hit me up.
- ferbivore 2y ago
  FUTO develops, for the most part, proprietary software that they plan to monetize. The license choice isn't some mistake that you can get them to recant by explaining the virtues of the AGPL and third party distributors. (They're already aware of these things; one of the products under their umbrella is Immich, which was relicensed to AGPL after they started employing the original developer, as a compromise between his goals and FUTO's.) They're deliberately going for the same model as Unreal: source access is only provided a courtesy to users, and/or as part of a marketing strategy, and they have zero interest in allowing you to fork their software.
vanjajaja1 2y ago
will grayjay do the push/creation side as well, or is that a different product?
thih9 2y ago
> Our Apple signing/notarization is not entirely done yet, thus you have to run the following command once to run the application This is unclear to me, what does “not entirely done” mean in this context? Has the process been started and they are waiting for Apple?
monkeynotes 2y ago
Last thing I want is even more ways to distract myself. I want an anti-algorithm or something to permanently ban me from addictive content.
pxoe 2y ago
Does this app has any creator monetization in mind, or does 'your way' means 'fuck you, i'm not paying you for shit, i'm just taking it'? None of it is "your content", or their content, it's just someone else's content they're leeching on. "full ownership" - of what? literally just, what are their thoughts on that. do people deserve being paid? or don't? and if they don't and it's not worth paying for, how is it still worth watching? what is this bizarre mix of disdain and yet desire and entitlement to things, that they'll try to get them in whatever roundabout way, instead of just not watching the thing?
- emaro 2y ago
  Grayjay allows you to view member (pay only) content if you log in with an account that has access. That allows creators to monetize their content. I'm glad Grayjay includes an adblocker, I wouldn't use it otherwise.
  - pxoe 2y ago
    So they're stripping away people's monetization just to insert themselves as a middleman for their own monetization? Very cool!
- Liquix 2y ago
  creators deserve to be paid. viewers deserve to not be psychologically manipulated by advertisements and algorithms. insisting viewers "pay" by subjecting themselves to ads is an unethical business model; refusing to support the practice is a rational reaction.
  - pxoe 2y ago
    "rational" as in, rationalizing the contradiction of "not paying" and "getting content anyway". just don't watch. don't support the practice entirely. it's not really as much of a stance as it is just a contrived way to excuse away getting the thing you simultaneously hate and crave. like, the content has already manipulated you even without you paying for it and refusing to pay for it, by making you do this little dance, of trying to get it and trying to rationalize getting it.
int0x29 2y ago
God those content screenshots contain so much reactionary BS.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
thegeekpirate 2y ago
Would be great if we could change the playback speed to more than 2.25, as I'm normally between 2.5x and 3.5x.
willywanker 2y ago
Of course it's an Electron app that unzips to about half a gigabyte for the Linux version thanks to having to bundle a whole Chrome browser runtime. Totally insane for a streaming video application. If only there was a Qt version, that respects keyboard and mouse focused desktop UI conventions.
c54 2y ago
I'm interested in trying this out and started to go through the login flow for youtube, for some reason it opens in a tab within the Grayjay app which then means I can't use Google's passkey auth, and something is even preventing me from copy/pasting my Google password in from my password manager (it's too long for me to want to type out just to try the app.) Gentle feedback to open the auth flow in the default browser, might make things easier.
eZwa_306 2y ago
I've unzipped Grayjay for Windows into a folder and is ready for use, and am trying to set up the "grayjay://" URI so that it opens Grayjay when a link is clicked on. Namely, trying to add plugins to my Grayjay install via https://plugins.grayjay.app/ https://plugins.grayjay.app/, but my browser doesn't know how to handle links that have the "grayjay://" URI as a prefix. Any help with this is welcomed. I'm also hoping that future releases will either be distributed as an executable installer that automagically takes care of this, or with a patch that can be applied to allow for true "OOTB" functionality without having to tweak/meddle with Windows settings/registry. EDIT 1: Running Win 10 EDIT 2: Found a way within Grayjay to install plugins, but would like to still have this URI set up for future use.

544 points by pierrelf 2y ago

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 2y ago
Indeed, it is "Source First" license, dev(s) reasoning here: https://futo.org/about/futo-statement-on-opensource/ https://futo.org/about/futo-statement-on-opensource/
- globular-toast 2y ago
  They make a very good case against corporate-friendly licences like MIT/BSD, which I definitely agree with, but say nothing about why they don't use AGPL. Honestly I think the problem with A/GPL is that they are considered "uncool". You just can't use them, because reasons. Who decides what is cool? That's right, the marketing departments of huge corporations...
  - xmcqdpt2 2y ago
    AGPL would still allow a third party to fork their code and create a commercial product out of it, which is what they are opposed to. The AGPL only requires that the host also provides their code.
    - globular-toast 2y ago
      No, it also requires that it's licensed under the AGPL, meaning the users get free software.
      - xmcqdpt2 2y ago
        Right yes, provide their code licensed under AGPL, it's an important distinction, thanks. What it doesn't ban people from doing is selling a service, which is different from their license that allows only non-commercial uses.
graemep 2y ago
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.
coconut08 2y ago
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 https://github.com/userkilled/FDroid-List-Repository
- paulnpace 2y ago
  > 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
- SquareWheel 2y ago
  Yep, as a user I didn't find it confusing at all. F-Droid is designed for and around adding custom repos. FUTO links to their own repo and it all works fine. I'd definitely consider this as being "available on F-Droid".
  - exikyut 2y ago
    Should say "Available Via", that would further reinforce the status quo.
627467 2y ago
It is available in fdroid on my ungoogled phone. I don't know what you're talking about
- josephcsible 2y ago
  https://search.f-droid.org/?q=grayjay&lang=en https://search.f-droid.org/?q=grayjay&lang=en > It looks like F-Droid does not have any apps matching your search string "grayjay" You're using a third-party repo that allows proprietary apps. The real F-Droid only allows FOSS ones.
  - nalinidash 2y ago
    It should be written like "available as a f-droid repo"
moeffju 2y ago
Maybe F-Droid should just call their official blessed repo "F-Repo" to end the confusion, because this is clearly available through F-Droid, just not in the F-Droid official repo...
- lrvick 2y ago
  Being able to side-load a random unsigned binary via the fdroid app, or getting it from the F-Droid repository where they do independently signed (and ideally reproducible) builds, are very different things. The F-droid team does not have a high bar to be dicks. They do it to ensure their users get binaries that match the published code to prevent increasingly supply chain attacks. The standards are there for good reason, and if you do not understand those reasons, then use a license that allows the people that do understand to distribute your software for you. Very very few software engineers understand supply chain attacks or how to prevent them.

pvg 2y ago

Thread last year https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37924776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37924776

dang 2y ago
Thanks! Macroexpanded: Grayjay – Follow Creators Not Platforms - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37924776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37924776 - Oct 2023 (106 comments)

IronWolve 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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!

oaththrowaway 2y ago

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 2y ago
Having no Shorts would be a huge plus imho
- grahamj 2y ago
  yeah this is a feature not a bug lol
- em-bee 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    Exactly
- koen31 2y ago
  Grayjay dev here, shorts will come, but on a tab you can turn off.
  - oaththrowaway 2y ago
    Can't wait!

Hadriel 2y ago

What about Tiktok? Add that and i'm interested

k3vinw 2y ago
Lol. Don’t hold your breath. I used to enjoy TikTok until they forced me to create an account and install their spyware.
- philsnow 2y ago
  What spyware? I don't have a tiktok account
  - RandallBrown 2y ago
    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.
    - k3vinw 2y ago
      I don’t care where they come from. Why do they force you to signup to see a video that can be played using standard web technology?
  - radicality 2y ago
    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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34109771
    - k3vinw 2y ago
      Yep. My point exactly!
  - k3vinw 2y ago

riazrizvi 2y ago

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.

RobotToaster 2y ago
You're right to be sceptical, they still have their proprietary license that basically forbids forking.
- koen31 2y ago
  Grayjay dev here, forking is not forbidden.
  - RobotToaster 2y ago
    So the license has been changed from the previous futo one, but there's still heavy restrictions on what anyone can do with it: > You may distribute the software or provide it to others only if you do so free of charge for non-commercial purposes. >Notwithstanding the above, you may not remove or obscure any functionality in the software related to payment to the Licensor in any copy you distribute to others. >You may not alter, remove, or obscure any licensing, copyright, or other notices of the Licensor in the software. Any use of the Licensor’s trademarks is subject to applicable law. To me that says that if FUTO decide to paywall the entire app, nobody is allowed to fork it to remove that.
oaththrowaway 2y ago
I don't have a FUTO, Grayjay, or Youtube account and use the app just fine
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
koen31 2y ago
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.

1zael 2y ago

[flagged]

OsrsNeedsf2P 2y ago
This isn't designed to be a hypergrowth company. It's a side project someone with money is funding out of passion
coconut08 2y ago
it looks like you just described the customer. apparently it isn't you. just because it isnt you and it isnt 90+ percent of people, doesn't mean it doesnt exist. there are all sorts of niche products for niche groups.
- 1zael 2y ago
  Gotcha. I didn't realize this was open-source. In that case, cool. I'm all for it.

rollcat 2y ago

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 2y ago
Grayjay dev here, noted. Thank you.

tines 2y ago

Instead of having to visit several drug dealers, this will aggregate all my favorite drugs into one convenient place. Fantastic!

khana 2y ago
[dead]

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

Works well so far! Good work! Nit: the Linux release should use a compressed tarball, not .zip

smithza 2y ago
What is the functional difference? unzip is installed as a default on linux distros just as tar is...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

dgreensp 2y ago

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 2y ago
It's broken on Android/Firefox, too.

xyst 2y ago

The modern day “Trillian” for video/musiv

nurettin 2y ago
The Trillian I knew was a jabber client
- aidenn0 2y ago
  Jabber and AIM and ICQ and MSN messenger...

ramon156 2y ago

I don't get the motivation. You want to prevent doom-scrolling? I don't doom-scroll on Spotify, why is that there?

RandallBrown 2y ago
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 2y ago

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 2y ago
It feels like there is a trend of apps out there that are "about" creators, but then happily shaft them ...
Joe_Cool 2y ago
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.

nixass 2y ago

[flagged]

OsrsNeedsf2P 2y ago
As someone who tried to build a browser-based, serverless Youtube video downloader, every hack under the moon doesn't work. But doing it from a fully controlled client is easy.
RandallBrown 2y ago
That's sort of the point of this isn't it? Instead of having an app for every damn thing, you have one app.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

tetrisgm 2y ago

This seems cool. Will test on Mac later today. Would like an iOS app

duxup 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqTYg6vnQvw edit: TOS not API
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  Grayjay may not be bound to TOS but users of Grayjay are still accessing YouTube services in a way YouTube would prefer they didn't. OTOH videos are available without having to log in or having an account at all so I don't know if there's any implicit agreement between someone accessing a URL and the service provider.
  - Joe_Cool 2y ago
    True. And they might close your account if you login. How I display, download or request data without an account and which browser or app I use to do it is still my choice. I'd guess if they could do anything about it, they would have half a year ago. The only way would be to DRM/widevine all videos and apparently they aren't ready for that yet. If they block my IP I'll just get a new one. I wouldn't even be thinking about using a 3rd party app or blocking the ads if their service was reasonable. No way I will endure that, if they block it I'll just watch something else.
  - pmontra 2y ago
    I don't think that's a problem: you can browse to YouTube's home page and search for and watch videos without logging in. Grayjay is just another user agent, as if it was another web browser.

ethagknight 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago

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/ https://harbor.social/

AnonHP 2y ago

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 https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube

Joe_Cool 2y ago
Yes, you can download on both the mobile app and the desktop program.

WaltPurvis 2y ago

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 2y ago
Somewhat ironic trusting malware to tell you what's malware and what's not
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
SpaghettiCthulu 2y ago
Definitely a false positive

mawise 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago

I’m excited. Are we ever going to see an iOS version?

NotPractical 2y ago
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/#intellectual-property https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#int... [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/federal-judge-rules-it-not-crime-violate-websites-terms-service https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/federal-judge-rules-it...
- ferbivore 2y ago
  There is some precedent for Apple allowing apps that can be used for ToS or even copyright infringement, as long as they have a plausible legal purpose and all the infringement happens through third-party plugins that are not advertised in the app. The example I'm most familiar with is Paperback. There's also precedent for Apple not caring about Google's terms in particular, e.g. with Musi, though I guess that did get taken down in the end. Grayjay also uses a plugin model, possibly for this exact reason. On the other hand, the infringing plugins are first-party and advertised via their website, so I somewhat doubt that either Google or Apple would allow it on their stores.

alex-robbins 2y ago

"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/373cd8448cb0ede78a0a1f8a0cf25ca7666f56d4/LICENSE.md https://github.com/futo-org/Grayjay.Desktop/blob/373cd8448cb...

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bramhaag 2y ago
> 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 2y ago
It's closer to source available than proprietary

mh-cx 2y ago

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 2y ago
"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 2y ago
  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.
  - wetpaws 2y ago
    [dead]
  - burkaman 2y ago
    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.
  - lewiscarson 2y ago
    Screenshots disappear for some reason on mobile. Home page has screenshots but only of the mobile app.
nfriedly 2y ago
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.

srid 2y ago

NixOS packaging request if anybody would like to contribute: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/366543 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/366543

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high_priest 2y ago

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!

grahamj 2y ago

This looks cool. Sort of a FreeTube with plugins?

tambourine_man 2y ago

Content overflows viewport in iPhone SE

lkurtz 2y ago

Recommending (and running) `xattr -c` can be extremely dangerous. I would suggest withholding Mac releases until they can be distributed/run safely.

crazygringo 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
  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.

NotPractical 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
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.
- Joe_Cool 2y ago
  I can still save multireddits. Did they remove that on new.reddit.com ? Try https://old.reddit.com/r/multihub/ https://old.reddit.com/r/multihub/
hysan 2y ago
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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38101629#38104494

uxjw 2y ago

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/ https://reeder.app/

AiAi 2y ago

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 2y ago
I also noticed that Youtube prevents me from watching videos on their site starting today because I have an adblocker (uBlockOrigin) installed.
- tspng 2y ago
  Same here. But for the time being, I can just click away the modal (don't click any of the buttons) and the video starts anyway. I assume that will change soon.

jeroenhd 2y ago

Huh, weird license: https://github.com/futo-org/Grayjay.Desktop/blob/master/LICENSE.md 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.

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smcleod 2y ago

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 2y ago
Grayjay dev here, good point, will add right click, paste.
- josephcsible 2y ago
  Why wasn't it supported all along? Doesn't basically every text field support it by default?

bisby 2y ago

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/ https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/

koen31 2y ago
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 2y ago
  That's a windows-ism, we don't like that kind of stuff. Not on any other OS we don't.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      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.
      - sunshowers 2y ago
        I agree that this should be in the XDG directory or AppData, but be kind, y'all -- this is open source, it is a gift someone has labored over and given you. There are much nicer ways to suggest improvements than calling it "sloppy shit". edit: it's not actually open source by the OSI definition it seems [1], but it is reasonably close. [1] https://futo.org/about/futo-statement-on-opensource/ https://futo.org/about/futo-statement-on-opensource/

lsowen 2y ago

FYI, the FAQ link in the footer (https://grayjay.app/faq https://grayjay.app/faq) appears to be broken (throws a 404)

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withinboredom 2y ago

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 2y ago
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.

saltserv 2y ago

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Arnavion 2y ago

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 premieres, 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.

harryvederci 2y ago
You can use yt-dlp to get: - the channel id by youtube channel url - the duration + aspect ratio (<= 3 min + vertical = short) - whether or not it's a live / future video
- Arnavion 2y ago
  Yes, I do do that. I meant that there's no way to filter them out of the feed directly, eg via some URL query parameters.
  - voitsykh 2y ago
    https://youtube.com/@handle/videos https://youtube.com/@handle/videos Handle is usually channel name without spaces, and is displayed under it on the website. So for Louis Rossmann that would be: https://youtube.com/@rossmanngroup/videos https://youtube.com/@rossmanngroup/videos
DavideNL 2y ago
Fyi, an automated alternative: https://github.com/jmbannon/ytdl-sub https://github.com/jmbannon/ytdl-sub

ddingus 2y ago

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.

chrismorgan 2y ago

The screenshot in the “Add and configure sources” section has the YouTube plugin with the caption: “One of the biggest video platforms owned by Google”. The stupid thing is that it’s entirely believable that Google would have multiple competing video platforms. Certainly they tend to have half a dozen competing chat things alive at any give point in time, two or three with the same name for bonus confusion. (The sentence could do with a comma: “One of the biggest video platforms, owned by Google”.)

H_Coronatus 2y ago

the FAQ page on the grayjay site is broken/404ing: https://grayjay.app/faq https://grayjay.app/faq

metadat 2y ago

How is this different from Jellyfin?

lrvick 2y ago

I love the right to repair work Louis Rossmann does, and this project goal as a whole, but this license is a major step backwards for software distribution with high assurances of security, freedom and privacy. Debian, Arch, Guix, F-droid or any other independent signed reproducible build channels require a true Open Source license to function legally. The license thus forces users to download unsigned non-reproducible binaries off grayjay servers and trust blindly that their build server is creating binaries from exactly the published code and not compromised to inject tracking or malware not in the public repo (an increasingly common attack they may not even know about for years!). Or say the grayjay domain is hijacked or even a BGP attack or a LAN MITM. All sorts of ways they could be helping distribute malware and not know it with no signatures or reproducible build proofs. Thing is, your team would not have to solve these problems if you licensed it so the community could solve them for you, as we do for thousands of open source software projects. I really want to see a project like this take off and would gladly donate, but only if it can be opened up for accountability via third party compilation and distribution channels so it can never be backdoored or co-opted for surveillance if your leadership or release engineers are ever compromised. Said license: https://github.com/futo-org/Grayjay.Desktop?tab=License-1-ov-file#readme https://github.com/futo-org/Grayjay.Desktop?tab=License-1-ov... There are other licenses like AGPL that would kill any attempt for someone to rip your code off to make their own proprietary offering, without locking yourself out of established freedom, security, and privacy preserving software distribution channels. If anyone from the team is reading this, I would be happy to detail and discuss my concerns further as a software supply chain security specialist. Hit me up.

ferbivore 2y ago
FUTO develops, for the most part, proprietary software that they plan to monetize. The license choice isn't some mistake that you can get them to recant by explaining the virtues of the AGPL and third party distributors. (They're already aware of these things; one of the products under their umbrella is Immich, which was relicensed to AGPL after they started employing the original developer, as a compromise between his goals and FUTO's.) They're deliberately going for the same model as Unreal: source access is only provided a courtesy to users, and/or as part of a marketing strategy, and they have zero interest in allowing you to fork their software.

vanjajaja1 2y ago

will grayjay do the push/creation side as well, or is that a different product?

thih9 2y ago

> Our Apple signing/notarization is not entirely done yet, thus you have to run the following command once to run the application This is unclear to me, what does “not entirely done” mean in this context? Has the process been started and they are waiting for Apple?

monkeynotes 2y ago

Last thing I want is even more ways to distract myself. I want an anti-algorithm or something to permanently ban me from addictive content.

pxoe 2y ago

Does this app has any creator monetization in mind, or does 'your way' means 'fuck you, i'm not paying you for shit, i'm just taking it'? None of it is "your content", or their content, it's just someone else's content they're leeching on. "full ownership" - of what? literally just, what are their thoughts on that. do people deserve being paid? or don't? and if they don't and it's not worth paying for, how is it still worth watching? what is this bizarre mix of disdain and yet desire and entitlement to things, that they'll try to get them in whatever roundabout way, instead of just not watching the thing?

emaro 2y ago
Grayjay allows you to view member (pay only) content if you log in with an account that has access. That allows creators to monetize their content. I'm glad Grayjay includes an adblocker, I wouldn't use it otherwise.
- pxoe 2y ago
  So they're stripping away people's monetization just to insert themselves as a middleman for their own monetization? Very cool!
Liquix 2y ago
creators deserve to be paid. viewers deserve to not be psychologically manipulated by advertisements and algorithms. insisting viewers "pay" by subjecting themselves to ads is an unethical business model; refusing to support the practice is a rational reaction.
- pxoe 2y ago
  "rational" as in, rationalizing the contradiction of "not paying" and "getting content anyway". just don't watch. don't support the practice entirely. it's not really as much of a stance as it is just a contrived way to excuse away getting the thing you simultaneously hate and crave. like, the content has already manipulated you even without you paying for it and refusing to pay for it, by making you do this little dance, of trying to get it and trying to rationalize getting it.

int0x29 2y ago

God those content screenshots contain so much reactionary BS.

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thegeekpirate 2y ago

Would be great if we could change the playback speed to more than 2.25, as I'm normally between 2.5x and 3.5x.

willywanker 2y ago

Of course it's an Electron app that unzips to about half a gigabyte for the Linux version thanks to having to bundle a whole Chrome browser runtime. Totally insane for a streaming video application. If only there was a Qt version, that respects keyboard and mouse focused desktop UI conventions.

c54 2y ago

I'm interested in trying this out and started to go through the login flow for youtube, for some reason it opens in a tab within the Grayjay app which then means I can't use Google's passkey auth, and something is even preventing me from copy/pasting my Google password in from my password manager (it's too long for me to want to type out just to try the app.) Gentle feedback to open the auth flow in the default browser, might make things easier.

eZwa_306 2y ago

I've unzipped Grayjay for Windows into a folder and is ready for use, and am trying to set up the "grayjay://" URI so that it opens Grayjay when a link is clicked on. Namely, trying to add plugins to my Grayjay install via https://plugins.grayjay.app/ https://plugins.grayjay.app/, but my browser doesn't know how to handle links that have the "grayjay://" URI as a prefix. Any help with this is welcomed. I'm also hoping that future releases will either be distributed as an executable installer that automagically takes care of this, or with a patch that can be applied to allow for true "OOTB" functionality without having to tweak/meddle with Windows settings/registry. EDIT 1: Running Win 10 EDIT 2: Found a way within Grayjay to install plugins, but would like to still have this URI set up for future use.