Google’s experimental Android WebView Media Integrity API could patch the YouTube Vanced loophole once and for all

Google could kill YouTube Vanced for good::The company is exploring an integrity API that could lock down WebViews with DRM

  • @GissaMittJobb@lemmy.mlEnglish
    221•1 year ago

    Wow, this article is just like 100% wrong. I’m surprised no one has mentioned this yet.

    To get why this could be a problem for YouTube Vanced’s successors, we need to understand how they work. Rather than modding the YouTube app itself, Vanced apps are essentially tweaked and modded browsers that display videos via a WebView that shows YouTube, adding extra features to the experience like adblock and other YouTube Premium perks. If YouTube was able to check which apps or devices are trying to access its servers before displaying content, this would be an easy route to stop Vanced successors from working.

    The YouTube-app, and Revanced in turn, does not utilize a WebView to display video. They are most certainly not ‘modded browsers’.

    Seriously, who wrote this shit? An AI? It’s baffling.

    • @rdri@lemmy.worldEnglish
      70•1 year ago

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Manuel Vonau • Senior Google Editor

      (2251 Articles Published)

      • ElPussyKangarooEnglish
        48•1 year ago

        Given that Revanced patches the YouTube app, Monsieur Vonau is most certainly wrong.

      • @Marruk@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31•1 year ago

        Manuel Vonau

        From his bio on that site (https://www.androidpolice.com/author/manuel-vonau/):

        Manuel studied Media and Culture studies in Düsseldorf, finishing his university career with a master’s thesis titled “The Aesthetics of Tech YouTube Channels: Production of Proximity and Authenticity.” His background gives him a unique perspective on the ever-evolving world of technology and its implications on society. He isn’t shy to dig into technical backgrounds and the nitty-gritty developer details, either.

        So he’s a marketing guy with possibly zero tech background beyond watching YouTube videos, who isn’t afraid to discuss “nitty-gritty developer details” despite apparently not actually understanding them.

        • @neutron@thelemmy.clubEnglish
          3•1 year ago

          To be fair, you can be a developer maintaining a website or an app for a company that operates on stuff you have no idea about. Working for a hospital doesn’t mean you can perform surgery.

          • @Marruk@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3•1 year ago

            I actually am a developer who works for a hospital. I wouldn’t write articles or otherwise create materials discussing the “nitty gritty medical details”.

      • Echo DotEnglish
        11•1 year ago

        I don’t know any apps that work like that. I’m pretty sure even the YouTube is just an app

    • @FrostKing@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20•1 year ago

      I’m surprised no one had mentioned this yet

      It’s because there’s an annoying trend of everyone reading the headline and not the article. Drives me bonkers

      • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        20•1 year ago

        Headline: “THING IS HAPPENING”

        Body: “Here’s 1000 words unrelated to the headline. Here’s some ads. Here’s interviews with three people saying nothing of interest. Here’s the thing you clicked under the headline for and it adds a bit of nuance to the headline along with a bunch of waffling and uncertainty. Here’s a pointless anecdote. More ads! Here’s a recipe for chicken wings and a bunch of pictures of celebrities. Oops! Article ended a full screen ago. Nothing down here but clickbait and more ads.”

        Gee, I wonder why people just take the headline at face value.

        • @Asafum@feddit.nlEnglish
          11•1 year ago

          The recipe thing… OMG lol…

          Peanut butter and jelly recipe:

          My family had a farm and my mother loved to run around with the chickens. We would play kick the neighbors dog all summer while the crows chased my father around. Donkey season can be a wonderful time when the leaves just start to turn and the beavers come home for winter. Three times in my life have I encountered such joy, one was when I had my first hit-and-run, the second was when I learned how to make napalm, and finally the last joy was in writing such absolute nonsense that just wont ever end when all you wanted was a goodamn simple fucking list of ingredients and maybe a temperature to cook at. Well the seasons change and I still waffle on, maybe one day you’ll get your recipe, but you won’t find it here. Or will you? Turn to page 36 for recipe, turn to page 4 to continue down this path into madness with me.

          Recipe: Peanut butter. Jelly. Bread.

        • Altima NEOEnglish
          2•1 year ago

          So many articles these days add nothing to the headline. They literally repeat the same paragraph, slightly reworded. It’s getting so bad that the first paragraph is usually made up of the same few sentences, repeated.

    • @papertowelsEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      How does it work under the hood? I remember googling around and never found out

      • @GissaMittJobb@lemmy.mlEnglish
        7•1 year ago

        To play video, the YouTube app does API calls directly to the YouTube API instead of loading any web code, then gets a reference to the media to play back and plays it back in a native media playback SDK.

        Revanced does their stuff the way they do by manipulating the bytecode that the YouTube app consists of, to add/remove things.