one year anniversary of goin yt free

on this day, a whole year ago i stopped usin yt entirely. why? cuz ALSO on this day, a year ago, yt decided 2 add that stupid ai detection feature tht determined ur age based on ur history n sht. altho i alrd gave away my id the microinstant i turned 18, on 2023, a decision i deeply regret 2 this day, the main reason i left was nt only bcuz of that, but also as a form of protest towards yt's dictatorial decisions as a company. seein how little they valued privacy ovr profit was the cherry on top that marked my decision of my exit.

since then, i been usin alternative methods of browsin yt thru fork programs. heres a few iv used this past year n my experiences w it

Freetube: admittedly my fav. sumone on twittr suggested it. my vry first introduction 2 fork services as a whole. fully convenient, closest there is 2 the full yt exp. been usin it since then, tho not satisfied 2 the 100% w it due 2 evry update is a one step forward, one step back typa deal. 4 example, 4 a long period of time u couldnt view other ppl's channels. so they fixed it, n then u couldnt view playlists. so they fixed that, now u cant view comments. theres also that "reload from sabr client request" thing whtvr its called that forced a video into an endless reloadin loop.

Grayjay: been usin it as an alt 4 freetube, evry time it gets 2 broken 2 use that is. js as good as freetube tho i prefer the latter.

NewPipe/PipePipe: groupin em 2gether cuz they were p much the same thing. both mobile only, ended up deletin em cuz i couldnt get used 2 the ancient yt ui. 4 that reason i been usin the yt site on brave browser whenvr it came 2 mobile yt, nvr logged in.

it should b noted tht sumtimes these fork services would prevent me from usin them due 2 yt blockin my ip as i had 2 "sign in 2 confirm im not a bot". sumtimes theyd sent me this, sumtimes they wouldnt but these were the only times i used yt, on my acc n all. 

aside from fork services, i also been tryin sum yt alternatives too

BitView: MY FAV!! a recreation of early 2010s yt, found out abt it back in summer of 24. sadly its been under maintenance 4 a couple of months now :(

LiiVid: HEEEELL NOOOOOOO!!! alt right cesspool, literally. it rlly fuckn sucks cuz it seems 2 hav the most active users in the "old yt alt" genre. stay away. 

KamTape: recreation of 2006 yt. back when i joined, it was called "EpikTube". was kinda hesitant of joinin at first due 2 the owner bein a literal 15 yr old n not sure js how well they could handle private user info but gave it a risk. altho satisfied w it, still prefer bitview ovr it

Glomble. unlike the former, this one was its own thing. admittedly i stopped usin it al2gether cuz i got bored of it.

all in all, im rlly disappointed cuz in the end nothn came out of it. ppl kept usin yt n yt got away w another shitty update w many more 2 come. ik boycottin a site like yt would b impossible due 2 the billions of ppl usin it daily but stil.. wouldnt hurt 2 try...

on a positive not, it certainly did good 4 me. despite my criticisms towards those fork services n alternatives, it still brought me a much better exp than yt evr could these past few years. u got NO idea how good it felt 2 watch a vid knowin an ad would not show up in any way... hell, its gotten 2 the point where yt ads themselves bcame alien 2 me! evry time my friend wants 2 show me a vid on yt n an ad shows im like "oh wow an ad.. ye those exist". dont wanna make it seem like a flex, but it truly is!

welp.. here goes 2 another year!