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Maybe this is common knowledge, if so, ignore me, but I've recently discovered a cool little trick I thought I'd share.

I watch a lot of YT videos, but I despise Google, so I never sign into a Google/YT account. This means that occasionally I run across a video that requires me to log in, in order to verify my age, or whatever. I found a quick work around for this.

Open the video and when in asks you to log into Google to sign in, just go up to the URL and convert the youtube URL to a hooktube URL … just like we did when HT was all the rage and play. [NSFW] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHo9bsPK9aU to [NSFW] https://www.hooktube.com/watch?v=RHo9bsPK9aU …

Sorry to corrupt you and can't guarantee it works for everyone on YT video, but has worked so far for me … Also sorry to anger all you Google shills who may lose a paycheck … but enjoy if you find this trick useful.

Maybe this is common knowledge, if so, ignore me, but I've recently discovered a cool little trick I thought I'd share. I watch a lot of YT videos, but I despise Google, so I never sign into a Google/YT account. This means that occasionally I run across a video that requires me to log in, in order to verify my age, or whatever. I found a quick work around for this. Open the video and when in asks you to log into Google to sign in, just go up to the URL and convert the youtube URL to a hooktube URL … just like we did when HT was all the rage and play. [NSFW] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHo9bsPK9aU to [NSFW] https://www.hooktube.com/watch?v=RHo9bsPK9aU … Sorry to corrupt you and can't guarantee it works for everyone on YT video, but has worked so far for me … Also sorry to anger all you Google shills who may lose a paycheck … but enjoy if you find this trick useful.

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[–] • 1 pt

Hooktube is one of the best things ever. It isolates you from all the google tracking and as you said bypasses all the age verify B.S... Also if you are on an old computer you can actually watch the video as it isn't trying to make 10,000 connections to the point where it is unwatchable. Annnd it also fixes the google "bandwidth saving feature" they implemented a while back where you load a video and it will only buffer 20 or so seconds because in google world everybody should be on the newest hardware in a large city with gigabit connections and neo liberal values. I am kind of sad they haven't brought back the inline mp3/mp4 convert feature they had a few years back and now rely on external sources that are spotty at best.

[–] • 1 pt

All good points. Most of what I watch is just normal, short clips, so I don't have much in the way of problems, so it's just easier to watch without bothering to convert. But I do when I need to and HT is a great asset.

[–] • 1 pt

Youtube has gotten so bloated (as well as the rest of the internet) these days and you don't realize it until you are on an older computer. The machine I am on at the moment is an IBM Think center 32bit core2duo with three gigs of ram and the internet is unusable without all kinds of tracker and ad blockers. Youtube at best is a slideshow @ 1 frame per second. Hooktube runs @ parity as to what it is supposed to do. Also google can burn in eternal hellfire.