Well THAT fucking sucks! 🤬

My main problem is that freetube perfectly remembers video position, without fail.
YouTube always fails

Weird. I don't have that problem.
- Some said it helps adding a tile to ublpfk, it didn't the only thing that helped was a plugin.
  
  Than again, I could use a chromium browser for it, they seek to work better
I’ve had the same problem, in my case it was that my adblocker was blocking the domains used to track video position, which are mildly tracking-ish in nature.

*.video-stats.l.google.com *.s.youtube.com
- unfortunately, this rule had little to no impact on youtubes ability to remember video positions
  
  that’s unfortunate. have you also tried removing the *. prefix?
  
  yep
- I'll look into if I have the rule already or not. Thanks
- Pretty sure only s.youtube.com is needed. It's the only domain on my AdAway allow list and it works for me
  
  i’ll do some testing later myself, but that’s good to know. i got those domains from random reddit threads after having had enough of the issue, and i’m pretty sure i tested if either one worked on its own but the memory is so fuzzy i’m just making up false memories. just a minute earlier i was convinced i didn’t actually do any testing.

I don't like having a google account that has google tracking any video I watch. Also... the recommendations are more addicting and with Tubular (NewPipe fork) and Freetube I just imported my subs and follow them a bit. Never had to deal with the shitty youtube website once. Also, ReVanced still uses the proprietary YouTube apk and I prefer free software on my phone

You're worried about Google watching what videos you watch, presumably while signed into your Google account on an android phone?

Unless you're running Graphene that level of abstraction isn't much in their way.
- I use /e/OS. Its an ungoogled android rom. Anyways, even if you use stock android privacy isn't black and white. Any bit of privacy you can bear to preserve is a step worth preserving. Theres a difference in google getting some of your data or all of your data. Stock youtube is also too much focused on retention maximation for me. I find some creators interesting but think the addictive nature of youtube is toxic
- On LineageOS build with no Google Service, download using Tubular/NewPipe/Seal/etc. Play on VLC. Makes for a better privacy experience.
  
  Lots of trouble to build, but worth it. The lack of spam and other spooky things is telling.
  
  Thanks for giving further info, there are lots of people that want more privacy but are uninformed on the depths of what's required.
  
  I'm looking at moving to Graphene on my P7P but I don't have the time to spend migrating my data and losing access to my digital only debit cards among other things.
  
  My server among many other services is running immich for photos, Syncthing + Keepass for passwords but there are many more services I'll need to spin-up to feel at ease leaving the Google ecosystem.
  
  Even Tailscale I want to migrate to Headscale / Netbird. I'll eventually get everything where I want it but there are only so many hours in the day, and so much coffee and ritalin I can consume before it's two sleeps to Christmas.
  
  It's baffling even with something simple like a DNS ad blocker - the volume of communication from my partners Windows laptop, her iPhone and my Android phone being blocked with no loss of functionality. I don't want to look at wireshark.
- With no Google account, on Cyanogenmod?

Never got revanced to work on my phone (in spite of reading all the documentation and online advice, doing literally everything that was supposed to make it work short of jail breaking or changing to Graphene) and as for ublock, I use it but I prefer YouTube on a dedicated client to a browser tab since I usually have far too many of the latter open at a time..

Besides, unlike revanced, NewPipe worked perfectly out of the box and it seems like PipePipe still does, so..

I'll just leave this here

https://grayjay.app/
have you tried revanced manager? i typically just download revanced manager, pop over to apkmirror and get the recommended version (in this case 19.43.41), downloading the v8 package, going back into revanced manager and clicking storage, selecting the apk, and then letting it run. if you select the custom branding patch you don't have to uninstall the original youtube.
- have you tried revanced manager
  
  Yep. And if I hadn't, that would be the first advice the documentation would give me lol
  
  typically just download revanced manager, pop over to apkmirror and get the recommended version (in this case 19.43.41), downloading the v8 package, going back into revanced manager and clicking storage, selecting the apk, and then letting it run. if you select the custom branding patch you don't have to uninstall the original youtube
  
  That's what I did, but it refused to patch. Tried every possible thing, but it just refused to work.
  
  NewTube, on the other hand, worked perfectly immediately.
  
  Did you make sure to turn on the "GmsCore Support" patch? (I think it used to be called "MicroG Support".) You have to enable that patch on unrooted devices in order for the app to work.
  
  Yep, did that.
  
  Did you make sure you have several GBs of free memory on the device while patching? At least until recently, ReVanced Manager would throw an error if it ran out of memory, and it actually needed (if I recall correctly) around 8 GB of free memory in order to finish the patching process or it'd throw one of several errors, depending on where in the process it ran out of memory.
  
  Supposedly they've fixed this issue with the latest update to ReVanced Manager, which included a new patching process, but I haven't had a chance to test it.
  
  Edit: Also, did you use the default patch selections? While there are other patches available to select and deselect, using anything other than the default selections can sometimes make things a little unstable. I once ran into an issue with patching, and the solution was just... reset the patch selection to just use the default patches. And it suddenly worked.
  
  You sure you weren't downloading the APK bundle? Revanced can't patch those
  
  Yes, I'm sure.
I remember revanced stopped working and I ended up getting premium because it wouldn't work on iPad anyway.

Are there any alternatives now?
- Well I've been using NewPipe until the above incident and now I'm trying out a fork of it called PipePipe. On my tv, I'm using SmartTube
  
  I haven't had this issue with newpipe yet but maybe it's because I'm just watching video game facts and ROM hack videos for games I'll never play.

How does Revanced even work.

I mean, newpipe is just download install and it works.

Anyone have a tutorial?

(Also how would Revanced bypass age restricted if you need to sign in before youtube even sends the video over to you? Does Revanced use burner accounts like Aurora store?)

I think revanced uses a modified patch of youtube spoofing premium. I'm able to sign in using my regular account.
- I wouldn't use regular account for any ToS breaking activities. I mean you can get banned.
  
  Sign in using irregular accounts then??
  
  Maybe even reservist accounts!

I like revanced but it is still the closed source YouTube client and I still don't know what it is doing. Plus you have to connect a Google account for some actions (like history).

Would you be willing to share what you're using? Either a response or a DM
- I use NewPipe that also can't play age-restricted videos at the moment. I didn't say that I was using something that works, just that I don't trust revanced so much.

Does revanced come with sponsorblock?

Yes, it does!

even if you do, youd need an account