you cannot watch youtube on a libre software computer?
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My debian 8 64bit main mate computer can display youtube videos. I noticed some write about youtube dl. Is non libre software required to display youtube videos in the browser also on a computer which has a libre software system installed? Thanks.
The YouTube website sends proprietary JavaScript code which loads the video. You really ought to disable JavaScript on your browser entirely if possible; I've outlined why here:
https://onpon4.github.io/other/kill-js/
As for YouTube, you can watch its videos with an alternative program such as ViewTube (which is what I use):
Is greasemonkey software to run viewtube?
Greasemonkey is a Mozilla Firefox extension that allows users to install scripts that make on-the-fly changes to web page content after or before the page is loaded in the browser (also known as augmented browsing). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greasemonkey
Greasemonkey is available in the Abrowser (along with some scripts)
https://trisquel.info/en/browser/addons?keys=greasemonkey&tid=All
Once Greasemonkey installed you download (install) scripts such as Viewtube or from
http://www.userscripts.org
(It is no diferent operation than when you install an addon in Abrowser)
Greasemonkey is available in Qupzilla via > Preferences > Extensions
In Midori via > Preferences > Extensions > User Scripts
>As for YouTube, you can watch its videos with an alternative program such as ViewTube
Not easy when you do not know how to do the setup.
- Add GreaseMonkey to the Web browser through https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/
- Download the ViewTube (and, if you wish, the ViewTube+) script from http://isebaro.com/viewtube/
- Enjoy.
I want to try this. I have installed Seamonkey and the script. I am unsure of how to actually use it. Will I still need to go to https.//youtube.com? In that case it's not of much use (I guess) because I would have to allow script on that page.
Am I mistaking?
Most browsers I'm aware of refuse to run user scripts unless scripts are enabled across the board. Maybe SeaMonkey is like that; I don't know. Greasemonkey for Firefox works without normal scripts enabled, though.
But to watch the actual video on e.g. youtube, I would still have to go the youtube homepage which requires me to accept some terms - I believe they would have to put something on my computer to keep track of that.
Maybe this quetion could be put in another way: How do you actually use ViewTube?
> which requires me to accept some terms - I believe they would have to put something on my computer to keep track of that.
Why do you believe that?
In any case, the terms are not about opening Web pages. They're about any use of the service. Whether you use it through a Web page or through an external program is irrelevant. It's also not a contract and the worst Google could do is ban you from the site (which they would probably never do), so I don't know what you're worried about.
Well, there is no doubt that ignorance can lead to paranoia. Given the behaviour of e.g. Google, I think that paranoia is fair enough. But of course, one is better off in the light of scepticism than in the shade of paranoia.
'Fear' would have been a better formulation than 'believe' in my former post.
Have you allowed scripts from youtube.com* ?
> Have you allowed scripts from youtube.com* ?
I normally keep JavaScript off, period. I only turn it on when I can't find any other option. In the case of YouTube, the only cases where I need to turn JavaScript on are:
* Uploading a video
* Posting a comment
I watch videos with JavaScript off and ViewTube enabled.
Are you not concerned about cookies from youtube?
Of course not. My browser deletes all cookies when I close it.
This is really turning off topic (sorry) but I really want to understand how to use browser well. I'll start a new thread on use of browsers. Please contribute.
You can watch youtube videos with VLC just by pasting the url of the video you wish to watch in a terminal
$ vlc https:// ....
This will launch VLC, enjoy!
Please don't say that! Have you ever compare the Consumption of system resources between seeing a video in vlc and in the browser using say duckduckgo??? It's almost the double of consumption! And plus the quality of the video decreases tremendously.
It's not very wise, I think.
Compliments to all in this beautiful forum.
Interesting, I've never checked.
I guess it makes sense since it's streaming/downloading the video, whereas watching on the browser might be using the server's resources.
But regarding video quality, at least with youtube-dl, you can select it.
@Takumi, i agree with you the RAM consuption is quite enormous, (thought depending on how much RAM one has) this is a "solution" among others.Personnaly i do not watch videos per site but navigate without javascript and download what seems of interest with wget, Flashgot, youtube-dl ;-)
Instead of VLC, I use mpv.
Latest version of mpv is available in Guix, I can simply do:
mpv [YouTube link.]
And it will automatically download and play using youtube-dl. Personally
I do:
mpv --ytdl-format="webm" [YouTube link.]
Happy hacking! :)
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- "People said I should accept the world. Bullshit! I don't accept the
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--- Richard Stallman
I am a member!
mpv uses youtube-dl.
youtube-dl runs JavaScript code from YouTube, which is nonfree.
Indeed, so far we have two options, but, at least for (a) and (b), these
*must be* evaluated:
a. GNU LibreJS + GreaseMonkey + ViewTube.
- Or: NoScript + GreaseMonkey + ViewTube (as long as you can make
NoScript not block the others).
b. GNU LibreJS + HTML5 Video Everywhere.
- HTML5 Video Everywhere comes by default in GNU IceCat. I can say
that this one is more user-friendly approach, as it's available
already.
c. Team up asking YouTube to free their JS.
- Can be innefficient if YouTube ignores us.
d. Team up asking for "content creators" to ask YouTube to free their JS.
- This can be as innefficient as (c).
e. Stop uploading YouTube videos.
f. And of course: Stop watching YouTube videos.
We can also combine these options.
--
- [[https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno]]
- Palestrante e consultor sobre /software/ livre (não confundir com
gratis).
- "WhatsApp"? Ele não é livre, por isso não uso. Iguais a ele prefiro
GNU Ring, ou Tox. Quer outras formas de contato? Adicione o vCard
que está no endereço acima aos teus contatos.
- Pretende me enviar arquivos .doc, .ppt, .cdr, ou .mp3? OK, eu
aceito, mas não repasso. Entrego apenas em formatos favoráveis ao
/software/ livre. Favor entrar em contato em caso de dúvida.
Forget about the "two options" part, it was part of my reply before I
got the extensive list of options down there. :)
That's quite interesting question indeed, and the wording you used to
ask makes up for a perfect answer:
Since you asked "Is non libre software required to display youtube videos
in the browser", my answer is:
Unfortunatelly, in most sites in the Internet, society is forced to run
some non-free software (through their browsers). In the technical side:
this is done through JavaScript (hereon called JS), but not all
JS is non-free, se we mustn't block it completely.
In most web browsers, there is either two options:
a. Allow all JS.
b. Deny all JS.
... and this is bad, because some are indeed free/libre software.
This is why we have GNU LibreJS, that only blocks non-free or
might-be-non-free JS.
Also, to watch YouTube videos, you do need youtube-dl, you can get it
from Trisquel's package manager (and repositories), and can also get it
from Guix. Both options are good in case some is outdated.
However, please do not upload videos to YouTube, and please ask people
not to upload videos there, it requires the visitors of the web site to
run non-free software.
--
- [[https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno]]
- Palestrante e consultor sobre /software/ livre (não confundir com
gratis).
- "WhatsApp"? Ele não é livre, por isso não uso. Iguais a ele prefiro
Ring, ou Tox. Quer outras formas de contato? Adicione o vCard que
está no endereço acima aos teus contatos.
- Pretende me enviar arquivos .doc, .ppt, .cdr, ou .mp3? OK, eu
aceito, mas não repasso. Entrego apenas em formatos favoráveis ao
/software/ livre. Favor entrar em contato em caso de dúvida.
- "People said I should accept the world. Bullshit! I don't accept the
world."
--- Richard Stallman
> but not all
> JS is non-free, se we mustn't block it completely.
There is an important technical reason why I say no JavaScript on Web pages should be executed, even if it's libre. My essay explains that reason:
https://onpon4.github.io/other/kill-js/
This can be overridden by a very drastic overhaul in how a libre browser handles JavaScript, but it would be such tremendous work that I doubt anyone is going to be able to step up to it. LibreJS is not a solution, nor even a step in the right direction.
Nice essay! I like the idea of making the browser to install the scripts you want to use, instead of always downloading the script and executing it. Our browser could install every version of jQuery if we wanted, and other useful and free software JS.
I think that LibreJS is useful, and I hope the project moves forward, as it hasn't got any commit since Thu Jun 23 14:30:11 2016. It's a way to force web developers to let people know what they are executing. If you want to preserve freedom 0, just navigate with JS disabled and then check if you're willing to execute each JS file from a weblabel table (such as the one from my website: http://www.freakspot.net/pages/librejs.html). If you're okay with that, then go ahead and activate JS or just navigate using LibreJS; else just allow the scripts you want. However, this is really inconvenient, even for experienced people, and as you wrote upgrades are imposed.
Though LibreJS is not perfect, it serves the purpose of raising some awareness on the issue. Most of the time I use https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/javascript-toggler/ to block all JavaScript unless I whitelist a website. Unfortunately, LibreJS is not yet very comfortable to use, as it is most times very slow. I hope more people help the development of LibreJS and solve some of its issues.
Seconded. In fact, even putting issues of liberty aside, the flashy ads, re-implementations of features browsers handle just fine, and tax on page load times make webpage-loaded JS an absolute nightmare.
Good article onpon. I did not know javascript imports software on your computer and runs it. Referencing either the computer controls you or you control the computer, that is not acceptable.
I am a translator!
@ADFENO >
"However, please do not upload videos to YouTube, and please ask people
not to upload videos there, it requires the visitors of the web site to
run non-free software."
I agree, ¿and what about Vimeo, archive.org or Mediagoblin? i like MediaGoblin but you can't set privates videos all in that site must be public. ¿You know others sites of hosting videos?
Vimeo is in same issue as YouTube. Internet Archive seems to be in same
issue too, unfortunately.
MediaGoblin is, in fact, a software that one installs on a computer, so
that computer can act like a website to publish/share video, image,
text, audio, and some other things. But there is no need for everyone to
do it, because it also accepts accounts (for example, a friend of
yours successfully sets-up a MediaGoblin instance, then you can go there
and create an account). However, they are still working on federation of
MediaGoblin, because currently, each instance is really separated, you
can't communicate with your friend at "B" using your account from "A".
"nternet Archive seems to be in same
issue too, unfortunately"
Why's that?
This is because the average visitor goes to the website and is required
to run non-free software automatically.
Also, if the uploader of content in Internet Archive doesn't tell
otherwise, the Internet Archive will make alternative
video/audio/image/text in formats *unfriendly* to free/libre software,
and serve these to the visitors.
Adonay Felipe Nogueira wrote:
> This is because the average visitor goes to the website and is required
> to run non-free software automatically.
With one click the average visitor can see a video in a free
software-friendly format. I have Javascript turned off and I'm using a
Firefox derivative. I visited
https://archive.org/details/Sita_Sings_the_Blues and selected "Ogg Video"
and I was able to see the video using the browser's builtin video viewer.
Thus this seems to work and is far easier to use for viewing (download as
you play) or downloading (save to a file) than YouTube or Vimeo.
Any complaints about the quality of the video or audio are irrelevant for
this discussion; if an uploader doesn't like archive.org's quality
settings, one can choose to upload one's own conversions in free software
friendly formats. I suggest uploading FLAC for audio recordings and WebM
for audio+video, possibly with a high-quality Theora encoding and highest
quality Opus encoding muxed together using the WebM-complaint subset of
Matroska.
> Also, if the uploader of content in Internet Archive doesn't tell
> otherwise, the Internet Archive will make alternative
> video/audio/image/text in formats *unfriendly* to free/libre software,
> and serve these to the visitors.
This doesn't strike me as a problem, and I'd be surprised if the FSF saw
this as an issue. The issue is that with other video sharing sites the only
available copy both requires nonfree software (nonfree-Javascript) and the
site delivers the video in a format that doesn't favor free software
(moreso with sites other than YouTube, YouTube is switching many videos to
WebM which favors free software).
archive.org doesn't pose these problems.
I am guessing the FSF has no problem with hosting copies in a variety of
formats so long as free software friendly formats are available. I believe
this to be the case because of a recommendation I saw on their audio-video
mailing list (which largely echoes ticket feedback concerning uploading
multimedia for publication to the GNU Project website). There it is said
that it's better to capture a free software talk as best as one can and
deal with converting that into a free software friendly format later. The
important thing was not distributing, say, an MP4 or other currently free
software unfriendly format. The FSF realizes that people commonly do
multimedia work in free software unfriendly formats. But we need not push
only those choices on others.
So it shouldn't be a problem that archive.org uploaders are probably mostly
uploading free software unfriendly videos because the site will convert
them into free software friendly formats. As you can see on
https://archive.org/details/Sita_Sings_the_Blues there are free software
friendly video, audio, and synchronized audio+video formats to choose from
(all made at the time this movie was uploaded so the list doesn't include
WebM). More recently uploaded fare probably includes WebM and not Ogg
Theora or Ogg Vorbis audio.
Therefore archive.org is a great place to host one's files intended for
indiscriminate publication and we should donate to them for their work.
> possibly with a high-quality Theora encoding and highest
quality Opus encoding muxed together using the WebM-complaint subset of
> Matroska.
WebM is not allowed to contain Theora video, and you wouldn't want to anyway because VP8 is generally speaking better (slower, but better compression for any given quality and not slow enough for it to actually matter that much).
By the way, I must echo the general sentiment. the fact that archive.org supplies a JavaScript-based video player is not a problem if the user can just click on one of the video files and watch it that way, and that archive.org supplies MP4/MP3/etc conversions alongside favorable formats is not a problem. Archive.org is imperfect (my complaint is that uploading videos requires JavaScript), but it's not anywhere near as bad as YouTube and Vimeo and has no problems from a viewing perspective.
> my complaint is that uploading videos requires JavaScript
Check out https://github.com/jjjake/internetarchive, a Python and Command-Line Interface to Archive.org. I haven't tested it; maybe with this you can upload videos without executing proprietary software.
Ah, cool. Yeah, skimming the documentation, you can upload videos with that.
In that case, the Internet Archive's problems are all minor. Normal use of the site other than uploading does not require JavaScript, and while uploading through normal use of the site does require JavaScript, there's a tool that can be used to do the job without it.
About the format used during *reconding*: it's as you say, not
important. We are only talking about the format used for
distribution. Also, video quality is *not* important indeed. We can
overcome these problems over time. :)
Still, even if *we* (two of us) can see the link to "Ogg video" im some
contents in Internet Archive, the average user will most probably watch
using the page's player. However, there is no need to go to the player
itself in order to see that the page seems to require non-free software
to be automatically run, because I see the following list of fragments
in the beginning of pages related to video content:
- window.archive_setup=[]
- analytics.js
- jwplayer.js
- play.min.js
- archive.min.js
... and many others that have no indication of license, nor
indication/comment on where to get corresponding source code (when
applicable for minified/obfuscated code), so that the average visitor
can read it and understand where he must go in order to get it.
So I can't recommend Internet Archive until this issues are
fixed.
Besides, we have to support initiatives such as MediaGoblin and GNUnet
(for which I suggested MediaGoblin to integrate with, and I also suggest
people to go suggest the same to them, because this would allow easing
the "load" on MediaGoblin service providers, and also distribution of
mutable content with possibility of roll-backs).
There are many pages in Internet Archive that I didn't look, so there
might be other work to do.
One other aspect of archive.org I forgot to mention in my previous post in
this thread: you can use archive.org for hosting data and completely
obviate the need for the user to encounter any code archive.org uses when
visiting that site by linking to the download URL for the data.
The movie "Sita Sings the Blues", for instance, is available at
https://archive.org/download/Sita_Sings_the_Blues/Sita_Sings_the_Blues.ogv
Include that URL in an HTML5 video element, pass on the URL for others to
download or view, and the user will get the data from archive.org without
needing to visit archive.org's website at all.
I recommend browsing the web with Javascript (JS) turned off by default in
order to avoid the insecurities that come with running indiscriminate JS. I
also don't know of any browser where one can easily choose to run modified
JS instead of the JS that is pointed to by the site. So I appreciate the
effort to restrict running only free JS, but I'm more inclined to skip
sites that require JS. This means that the
https://archive.org/download/Sita_Sings_the_Blues URL is another way to get
data from archive.org without dealing with archive.org's interface while
getting what I want from archive.org -- the
https://archive.org/download/Sita_Sings_the_Blues URL gives me a simple
directory I can pick from.
This makes archive.org a great place to host another copy of one's data
files intended for indiscriminate distribution.
I would say use http://www.ytdl.info
I am a translator!
The archive website is fine. I just wget the vids.
You can watch google earth in the browser. Does it require non free software?
https://www.openstreetmap.org/
is much better than Google something..
there is also KDE application Marble which has Openstreet map and very nice Atlas's (available in Trisquel 7 repositaries)
https://marble.kde.org/
I am a member!
I was an avid user of youtube-dl, until I figured out that it runs the nonfree JS from YouTube, and that the developers plan an making it do that in the future.
https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/12129#issuecomment-279647782
ell then, one more reason to team up and give a petition or something
similar to YouTube, asking them to fix it.
I actually have a template of the request, and it's on Action Items page
at LibrePlanet wiki. If for some reason the list in that page doesn't
mention YouTube, look at the subpages of the Action Items page (go to
page information/properties and see what referes to that page).
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- Palestrante e consultor sobre /software/ livre (não confundir com
gratis).
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- Pretende me enviar arquivos .doc, .ppt, .cdr, ou .mp3? OK, eu
aceito, mas não repasso. Entrego apenas em formatos favoráveis ao
/software/ livre. Favor entrar em contato em caso de dúvida.
It seems I was mistaken, I created an action item about Google Groups,
but not about YouTube.
I tried finding a way to contact YouTube directly, but I gave up,
because it only allows you to do so if you register. Also, there is a
contact form, but it will only address content issues and suggestions,
not loegal ones.
Besides, their page is so varying that sometimes I see one page source,
while other times I see other, so it's somewhat impossible for me to
suggest something, let alone find out which JavaScript-written projects
they are making use of.
In light of these issues, I no longer have interest on contacting
YouTube, and will continue recommending people to avoid it entirely
(even for watching videos or linking to videos posted on it).
--
- [[https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno]]
- Palestrante e consultor sobre /software/ livre (não confundir com
gratis).
- "WhatsApp"? Ele não é livre, por isso não uso. Iguais a ele prefiro
GNU Ring, ou Tox. Quer outras formas de contato? Adicione o vCard
que está no endereço acima aos teus contatos.
- Pretende me enviar arquivos .doc, .ppt, .cdr, ou .mp3? OK, eu
aceito, mas não repasso. Entrego apenas em formatos favoráveis ao
/software/ livre. Favor entrar em contato em caso de dúvida.
This is an interesting thread. Considering non-free scripts as non-free software comes as a shock in the first moment, because it means that if we are to avoid non-free software we should limit ourselves to a fraction of the world wide web. The good news is that there's something we can do to get around this problem.
For information, these are some extensions I install on both Abrowser and IceCat browsers:
Firebug, Greasemonkey, HTML5 Video Everywhere!, HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript, Privacy Badger, Quick Locale Switcher, RefControl, User Agent Switcher, YouTube Video and Audio Downloader.
In addition to this, IceCat comes with GNU LibreJS already installed, so I the only thing I needed to install was ViewTube so I could test the first two options on IceCat and the last one on Abrowser:
1. GNU LibreJS + GreaseMonkey + ViewTube.
2. GNU LibreJS + HTML5 Video Everywhere.
3. NoScript + GreaseMonkey + ViewTube
My impressions:
-I could watch YouTube on all options.
-Results on IceCat were confusing, at first it seemed that I could not watch embedded YouTube videos on webpages on option 1 only, now it seems that I cannot watch them on neither options 1 and 2.
-GNU LibreJS slows down everything.
-I can watch embedded YouTube videos on webpages on Abrowser, but I have had a problem for a long time: audio starts sounding right away, and I cannot stop it - I can only mute it by clicking on the loudspeaker icon shown in the tab. If I click over the embedded video, I get it to start... and then I get the sound twice. This problem seems unchanged with ViewTube. So far my way to get around the problem is to mute the tab, watch other tabs until the video ends, then unmute the tab and play the video - but only if the video is short, if the wait is too long I have to search for it on YouTube.
-I like the small ViewTube bar shown just above the video, it causes the video resolution to automatically change to a better one and provides other functions.
By the way, I installed MPV too before calher warned us that "youtube-dl runs JavaScript code from YouTube, which is nonfree".
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