March 26, 2024

YouTube Vanced has SHUT DOWN! A List of Alternatives

YouTube Vanced Shut Down Thumbnail

A popular custom YouTube client, Vanced, had been recently shut down due to legal issues with Google. This has left a major impact on the community as Vanced served to enhance the stock Google YouTube app with more features, ad blocking, and sponsor skipping. These are all features that you can achieve on a web browser, but it is exceedingly difficult to do the same thing on a phone. Here are three alternatives that you can use to replace YouTube Vanced.

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#1 – YouTube Premium (the closest to YouTube Vanced)

YouTube vanced alternative #1
YouTube Trending Page in YouTube Premium

The premium version of YouTube has been around for many years, starting off as YouTube Red in 2015. While the subscription itself is nothing new, it can be something worth looking into if you would prefer a more “plug-n-play” experience with your YouTube apps. To set it up, you download the regular YouTube app from your Google Play Store OR Apple Appstore and sign in. After that, you receive an ad-free YouTube experience with downloadable YouTube videos.

A problem with this option, however, is that it lacks many of the features that Vanced had brought to their client. For example, a configurable UI, sharing a specific video timestamp, and SponsorBlock. All of these are missing, not to mention RYD (Return YouTube Dislike). Giving up these features does have its own benefits. Because you’re using YouTube Premium, you are actually supporting creators without seeing ads. Creators can receive a small commission based on how many YouTube Premium members view their content, so it’s a win-win for both ends! Additionally, YouTube Premium is bundled with YouTube Music Premium, so you get ad-free music as well as ad-free videos.

#2 – NewPipe

YouTube vanced alternative #2
Homepage of NewPipe

Another extremely popular unofficial YouTube option is NewPipe. This is a YouTube client that is focused on giving you the core features of regular YouTube, but in a client that does not interact with the YouTube API whatsoever. It’s a super barebones and simple YouTube client as it gives you basic features that have nothing to do with your YouTube account. The app lets you make local subscription lists so that you get an aggregated list of all of your favorite creators, like the Subscriptions tab of the official YouTube app.

While this app is a very polished YouTube client that is completely separate from YouTube itself, it does have some basic issues that have to do with YouTube itself. When viewing an offline live stream, it shows a big error that does not make it clear that the live stream is offline. Additionally, Picture in Picture is a bit difficult to work with due to not tying into the built-in Android API. Sure, it makes it usable for older versions of Android before Android 8 Oreo, but it hurts the usability on newer devices.

#3 – LibreTube

YouTube vanced alternative #3
Homepage of LibreTube

While not nearly as well-known, LibreTube is a YouTube client that is truly unique as it never touches the official YouTube website whatsoever. Instead, it uses an application called “Piped” to find videos and play them. This is a self-hosted option, however, the Piped team does provide their own front-end online. It is used as the default Piped server in LibreTube.

In terms of aesthetics, this is the app that I like the most. This one is built off of the newer Material UI framework and it looks very nice. That said, problems when it comes to stability can be a bit complicated. As this is an open-source app in beta, you have the ability to report issues directly to the developers on GitHub. There, you can see other users with possibly similar issues, and then you also get the option to check out the code for the app and change it yourself for your own liking if you’re a developer.

We will miss YouTube Vanced

Vanced was an extremely powerful app that brought great features to the mobile YouTube app, without needing to proxy your YouTube content and make local subscriptions over Google Account ones. Obviously, everyone has their own options and decisions, but hopefully, this article helped you make the decision of whether or not you want to buy YouTube Premium, or figure your way around custom clients. Personally, I will be following the guide to turning my desktop YouTube into Vanced and since I already use YouTube Premium, I don’t need to worry about any ads on my content.

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Chaney Goldstein

I'm a consumer technology reviewer who likes to take a deeper dive into technology and how it affects the average day-to-day life of someone. You can count on me for reliable and up-to-date technology reviews about any field of tech.

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