So, starting now, Google started mandating full JS for YT, effectively breaking all third-party clients and locking the site to their official client.
This reeks of DRM.
UPDATE: Installing Deno and installing yt-dlp through PyPi fixes yt-dlp but the very idea that Google is mandating JS to lock down YT in an attempt at pseudo-DRM is still crappy.
UPDATE #2: inv.nadeko.net is working again for now.
I’m on iOS so my options are rather limited, but I’ve had decent luck using Brave. Is there anything that the others do that a browser wouldn’t?
I don’t think Brave has any special magic that other browsers don’t.
My understanding is, all the workarounds in use recently work or fail depending on the IP address you have.
I don’t know anything about this change but it seems to simply require a JS engine in your client. Any browser has that, so the browser addons probably aren’t effected by this change.
However, it’s clear that YT is waging an incremental campaign here. Today it’s yt-dlp, next week… who knows.
Again, I think it’s mostly because it’s iOS - but Brave seems to be the only browser that allows both Picture-in-Picture and background play while also blocking ads.
Both Safari and Firefox display ads, and struggle with PiP.
Vinegar works really well, and hasn’t been affected by this change: https://apps.apple.com/au/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303229