Seriously this was very surprising. I’ve been experimenting with GrayJay since it was announced and I largely think it’s a pretty sweet app. I know there are concerns over how it isn’t “true open source” but it’s a hell of a lot more open than ReVanced. Plus, I like the general design and philosophy of the app.
I updated the YouTube backend recently and to my surprise and delight they had added support for SponsorBlock. However, when I went to enable it, it warned me “turning this on harms creators” and made me click a box before I could continue.
Bruh, you’re literally an ad-blocking YouTube frontend. What kind of mental gymnastics does it take to be facilitating ad-blocking and then at the same time shame the end-user for using an extension which simply automates seeking ahead in videos. Are you seriously gonna tell me that even without Sponsorblock, if I skip ahead past the sponsored ad read in a video, that I’m “harming the creator”?
Piped works mediocre at best and the quality settings and buffer is finicky depending on your settings. It’s not worth the hassle imo because it doesn’t even have Sponsorblock. Sadly on iOS I usually just stick to default YouTube app mostly with no Sponsorblock. But soon I want to try some of the modified youtube apps from Altstore.
On Android TV on my sony bedroom tv I recently switched from the default YouTube app to Smarttube which is GOAT tbh I had no idea what I was missing. I wish I could get that but on iOS yaknow?
It does have SponserBlock. You have to tick the box to enable it. Is it great? No, but it served me well enough whilst traveling so as the only option it works. I won’t use the default app. I don’t really watch too many videos on my phone. I wait to watch on a pc at home where I have better quality and control.