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Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support

(github.com)
798 points bertman | 2 comments | 12 Nov 25 10:12 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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embedding-shape ◴[12 Nov 25 14:06 UTC] No.45900337[source]▶
Seems its already in Arch's repositories, and seems to work, just add another flag to the invocation:

    yt-dlp --cookies-from-browser firefox --remote-components ejs:github -f "bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best" 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXX'
It is downloading a solver at runtime, took maybe half a second in total, downloads are starting way faster than before it seems to me.

    [youtube] [jsc:deno] Solving JS challenges using deno
    [youtube] [jsc:deno] Downloading challenge solver lib script from  https://github.com/yt-dlp/ejs/releases/download/0.3.1/yt.solver.lib.min.js
It would be great if we could download the solver manually with a separate command, before running the download command, as I'm probably not alone in running yt-dlp in a restricted environment, and being able to package it up together with the solver before runtime would let me avoid lessening the restrictions for that environment. Not a huge issue though, happy in general the start of downloads seems much faster now.
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WD-42 ◴[12 Nov 25 14:59 UTC] No.45901047[source]▶
Glad to hear it’s faster now!

YouTube barely works in a full-on browser these days, props to the team that keeps it accessible via a Python script!

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1. mschuster91 ◴[12 Nov 25 16:31 UTC] No.45902158[source]▶
> YouTube barely works in a full-on browser these days

Agreed. Shorts about half the time don't display comments, the back button breaks in mysterious ways. And I use Chrome on both Intel and M macOS machines, so the best in class there is, but my Windows Chrome doesn't fare much better. And Adblock ain't at fault, I pay for premium.

And that's just the technical side. The content side is even worse, comments sections are overrun by bots, not to mention the countless AI slop and content thieves, and for fucks sake I get that high class youtubers have a lot of effort to do to make videos, but why youtube doesn't step in and put clear regulations on sponsorship blocks is beyond me. Betterhelp, AG1, airup, NordVPN (and VPNs in general) should be outright banned.

And the ads, for those who aren't paying for premium, are also just fucked up. Fake game ads (Kingshot who stole sound effects from the original indie Thronefall ...) galore.

Google makes money here, they could go and actually hire a few people to vet ads and police the large youtubers with their sponsors.

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2. ranger_danger ◴[12 Nov 25 16:59 UTC] No.45902566[source]▶
I use an extension that turns shorts back into regular videos, and another one that undoes the auto-dubbing when watching videos in a (different) language that I understand.

With that, uBO and Sponsorblock, I never see any ads and have a great YT experience. (I don't have premium either)