this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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Google could kill YouTube Vanced for good::The company is exploring an integrity API that could lock down WebViews with DRM

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[–] [email protected] 221 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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 70 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Manuel Vonau • Senior Google Editor

(2251 Articles Published)

[–] ElPussyKangaroo 48 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Marruk 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

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[–] FrostKing 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 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.

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[–] [email protected] 142 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's a waste of time. People who bother installing Vanced are not likely to click a single god damn ad even if it's forced on them.

So yes, Google can choose to bother some people and get higher statistics on ad views, but the companies paying for the ad will not see one single fucking sale more. This lowers the value of the ad.

They're chasing imaginary revenue.

The value of exposure isn't real either. The phone might play it but I don't fucking watch something that I don't want to watch. I've been online since before online ads were a thing and not once have I bought anything from any online ads.

Just let me opt out of that circus for fuck sake.

[–] nutsack 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I don't understand this toxic level of optimism found on this platform. if they do client integrity checks, nobody will be able to use an ad blocker. you will have to use an approved YouTube client. it will result in higher ad revenue to Google.

all of these folks who are using revanced will watch annoying ads repeating a thousand times over and the content of the ad will be stuck in their brains exactly as intended. the companies that pay for the ads don't care if you think you are immune to propaganda. they want you to watch.

what part of this is imaginary?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

companies that pay for the ads don't care if you think you are immune to propaganda. they want you to watch.

They don't pay for ads just to waste my time. They buy ads to sell products.

Forced advertising does not work on the kind of people who already do everything they can not to watch ads.

if you think you are immune

I'm literally not watching my phone if YouTube or other stream goes into ad mode. I do not see the ad.

The imaginary part is that Google gets paid just as much for showing ads that don't work as they do for showing ads that do work.

Forced advertising is good for Google. It's not good for the users nor the companies who pay Google.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The majority of ads are toxic on a medical need level for me. I’d sooner build an ai to prewatch and live record videos. Cutting out the cursed segment.’

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (8 children)

If you aren’t paying them for Premium, or viewing their ads, you’re literally costing them money. They’d rather stop you from even consuming the bandwidth.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (4 children)

On the other hand, they are spending real money on development time to fight against an army of independents doing it for fun or personal satisfaction. That's throwing money into a hole they can never fill up

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, that part is working really well. I've been using YouTube less and less every time they've worsened the free service. I don't even bother with the revanced loopholes, I'll just don't use YouTube to find stuff. Most of the content is made for monetisation purposes anyway.

I'm not saying they shouldn't do it, or that I don't understand why. It's just a prime example of the internet going to shit.

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[–] bitwaba 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you give thumbs ups and add comments, you're still providing user generated content that increases the value of the content you watched, so they're still getting something out of it. Your contributions could go on to drive someone else to watch the video which could end up seeing the ad you blocked.

It's a question of what that value is that you've provided to the service. It's the same question Reddit will be finding out the answers to over the next couple months.

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[–] not_that_guy05 69 points 1 year ago (3 children)

No matter what, people will always find a way to mod the apps they really want to have free.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's definitely a danger if attestation becomes widespread enough that they can require it.

Not a danger of being unable to mod the apps, but they will be able to restrict access to their servers to the official unmodified app, when it's running on specific trusted operating systems.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yup. I remeber the girls at school listening to bootlegged YouTube videos from shitty rip off apps from the appstore lol. Before revanced, there was vanced, after revanced, a new Phoenix will emerge. The people will it.

[–] Butterpaderp 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Reeeeeeeeeeevanced

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remeber the girls at school listening to bootlegged YouTube videos from shitty rip off apps from the appstore

That could have been yesterday or like 15 years ago

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Haha fair enough. For what its worth they had iPhone 4's and Ipod touches. It was close to a decade ago then it was to yesterday.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is just the mini version of what they tried to do in Chrome. Since you don't have to use the built in webview it's meaningless.

[–] deweydecibel 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Apps can easily be redesigned with some kind of webview integration, and some apps already do have random things that bring up webview, and thia would kill them on a rooted device.

The inherent issue here is they're arguing this will help prevent fraud, but they're not looking for fraud. They're looking for an altered device and assuming fraud.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I nuked a food app recently because instead of opening so I could give them money in exchange for food they decided to police my phone for PCAPdroid by way of refusing to run beyond showing a message stating that I can't have PCAPdroid installed and closing after a 5 second timeout.

Fuck you, Papa Murphy's. What's your app doing that you're afraid I'll be able to see? You're blacklisted for life now.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Of course they would, the bastards. I'm assuming that would also affect newpipe and freetube too?

[–] takeda 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

At first I thought so too, but I believe those might still work as long as the attestation feature doesn't end up in browsers. Those applications likely can still pretend to be web user.

ReVanced is special because it patches original YouTube. So if the original YouTube would start doing this kind of verification, after being patched it would stop working. To fix it the whole playback code would have to be replaced, but at that point why not use NewPipe or GrayJay.

BTW: Google is doing that because it has monopoly in that market. They similarly have monoly with browser market. Still after uproar they backed off. We really should try to break it and apps that support multiple platforms (like mentioned NewPipe and GrayJay are probably the best way to dethrone them)

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

I'm making good use of yt-dlp while I still can

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Surely as long as there's a way to access YouTube on devices without attestation, this won't kill anything.

[–] alvvayson 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Indeed. And if they decide to brick or degrade all legacy apps, people will just transcode and torrent.

Information wants to be free, and millions of people have the skills to make it happen.

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[–] AlmightySnoo 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can someone confirm whether YouTube ReVanced really uses WebView?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's the official app apk with some mods. So probably not.

[–] AlmightySnoo 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In that case the premise of the entire article is wrong then.

[–] deweydecibel 6 points 1 year ago

Google can redesign the official app and kill functionality to the previous version.

[–] takeda 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think it matters. ReVanced patches original YouTube so it will use whatever YouTube is using. Even if current YouTube app doesn't use WebView that's nothing stopping them from adding it in the future.

If I'm reading article right, Google supposedly "discontinued" the attestation technology in Chrome, because of the shit storm, but looks like they are thinking of adding it to Android and use it to verify the devices and applications are genuine. The YouTube server for example might refuse to serve the video if the application is not genuine.

[–] muntedcrocodile 16 points 1 year ago (8 children)

If they are testing application genuinity im more concerned they might break all the google services hacks etc used by graphene os.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)
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