Works also on handhelds since it has gamepad controls unlike revanced
SmartTube is a free and open-source YouTube client for Android TV and TV boxes. It removes ads, supports SponsorBlock, works without Google Services, and is designed for large screens and remote controls.
Note: the developer recently disclosed a build environment compromise and has since rotated keys, rebuilt the environment, and added additional verification steps. Users should update to the latest version and verify sources. GitHub: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube
Be careful!
Author made an announcement that Smartube may be compromised.
Read his notes.
the author also announced a workaround to get a clean copy
I don’t know people have heard of Odysee. Good alternative for YouTube
can it block ads?
It wonderfully does! And as the other reply states, it also can automatically skip over paid promotional segments and “remember to like, comment and subscribe” stuff. It’s wonderful. You can also customize those settings and skip or not skip whatever bits you want. For example, I turned off a setting that would skip “non-music portion” of music videos. That was a tad annoying to me. But it’s the only form of youtube I would use on my tvs. I can’t stand constant ad interruptions on youtube.
I didn’t realize that setting existed, I’ve gotta go find and disable it. So sick of rewinding davie504 videos to hear what he has to say about the song. Thank you!
It blocks ads and promotional segments by default
Yes
then i’m sold.
I dropped it after the devs response was to be silent about what actually happened “to focus on the f-froid builds”. It’s still unclear, and because of the way they’ve set up the GitHub repo, it’s still possible for the apk to be compromised.
Is there any other alternative you’d recommend?
Edit: Actually I think after this I’m going to just use a VPN set to Albania and the stock YouTube app
What’s the difference between this and FreeTube?
freetube is an electron based desktop program, this is an android tv app
I used to use SmartTube before using yt-dlp and Jellyfin which was maybe 2 years ago.
Have SmartTube removed the direct connection youtube.com for subscriptions?
No, but as a result of behaving like the official client it is more robust than yt-dlp or Freetube when Google does crackdowns on third party clients. It’s a tradeoff of privacy v robustness, but it still has no ads and sponsorblock. It’s a way more acceptable option for normies and works well on GoogleTV (which is going to be spying on what you’re watching and phoning that home to Google anyway).
I’ve been using it on my Amazon firetv stick, and I’m loving it. I first tried it because I cannot use revanced on the fire stick, but it’s actually pretty good.
Also, you can link it to your official YouTube app and control it from your phone
It works great!
You just can’t save local playlists like with newpipe so that I can’t save anything on my TV
