I’ve been having some weird issues over the last few days with not being able to search for things in YouTube when I’m logged in via SmartTube account.

So I decided to try accessing it directly. Well guess what? It looks like YouTube now requires age verification in AU.

Sorry Google… I’m not uploading my passport, drivers licence or govt id to watch your shit. I am however now very incentivized to use Tube archivist and Jellyfin, plus cron job to scrape your shit with gleeful abandon.

EDIT: Rather than removed about it, I did something and made Smarttube work without a google account. If that floats your boat, have at it. It supports direct import of your saved playlists via Google Takeout ZIP file, subscriptions etc without needing a youtube account.

Also, remember the excellent TubeArchivist exists if you want even more control.

  • SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zoneOP
    2·
    3 days ago

    Odd. Newpipe and Smarttube (the one I just cooked) all seem to work here. I wonder if they’re doing IP range blocking now in certain geos.

    When you say “prove you’re not a bot” - do you mean they force you to sign in or is it just a CAPTCHA?

    Hmm. Can anyone else confirm similar issue to @muhyb@programming.dev

        • muhyb@programming.dev
          2·
          2 hours ago

          Just an addition: I couldn’t move around so I wanted to create a dummy account on an old Android device however it asked for a phone number to complete the creation so it didn’t worked. Later I remembered that I already had one from years ago. Had to guess a password but finally found it. That account doesn’t have a phone number or any other identification. Tried that with having yt-dlp --cookies-from-browser firefox --limit-rate 5M --sleep-requests 1 -f "bestvideo[height<=1080]+bestaudio/best[height<=1080] these parameters, basically tried to mimic a streaming here. Because if I continue as usual, they probably would ban this account as well. Will see I guess. Gotta go continue to download my educational videos.

          • SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zoneOP
            1·
            2 hours ago

            Interesting corollary for you. I had an old google account with an anon email address (skiff.com, I think it was).

            When I signed up, they accepted it, but in the intervening time, decided no-mas.

            For the longest time, I couldn’t post comments, upvote etc on Youtube (no great loss)…until I signed up with a new account using a @proton address.

            • muhyb@programming.dev
              1·
              1 hour ago

              Heh, I forgot Skiff even existed, haven’t heard that name for years.

              I actually haven’t tried signing up with a different provider but I suspect they still ask for a phone number? The device I tried it is an old phone so probably that didn’t work because of it. I might try with an old Google tablet again if I need further. I created the one I’m using with that last time. Though it was at least 6 years ago.

        • muhyb@programming.dev
          1·
          3 hours ago

          That’s what I though at first but after resetting my modem and got a new IP from a different range, the result was still the same. So now I’m not sure. Every digit is different in this new IP, not even close. Though maybe range thing works differently for IPs.

          Temp bans did happen time to time but they usually lifted after 6-12 hours at most. This one is persistent for days now. I suspect they know the every device in the household too so they know it’s me even though the IP has changed.

          Edit: I tried private window on Firefox to see if this is about ad-blockers, they serve me two ads and then the video is still unavailable. :)

            • muhyb@programming.dev
              1·
              1 hour ago

              Well, my guess is as good as yours. :)

              I was downloading some documentary series, probably the last batch with 50 videos did trigger this. Those videos were 360p though, not even high in MBs. But I couldn’t download anthing after that.

    • muhyb@programming.dev
      2·
      3 days ago

      I guess that’s possible. Well, in the household only I have this problem because others have a Google account login. However every device asking the same if they logout. I wonder if this time it’s country-level since IP change don’t work anymore.

    • muhyb@programming.dev
      1·
      3 days ago

      Just noticed the edit:

      It’s forcing me to login. I might go creating a dummy account using old Android devices just so I can download via yt-dlp if this doesn’t go soon.