Good day! It’s finally time that I talk about NewPipe, an app that I’ve been using to watch YouTube videos for almost two years now and have been very happy using it so far that I can only recommend it to about anyone.
So anyway, what is NewPipe and how does it work? Should you use it? The answer is yes – if you can. Now let me explain why:
Let me get the cons straight out of the way so you know what the limitations of this app is:
The cons:
- You can’t comment or like
- Videos (sometimes) seem to not load or take longer to load
- Only avaliable on Android phones (iOS bad Apple sucks yes)
…aaaannd that’s pretty much all it. So if you think you can deal with not being able to comment or liking your favortie Shane Dawson X Ariane Grande video 14 times than you should be set to go on and read about what makes this app really so great in the upcoming part.
The pros (tldr):
- FREE (should be obvious but just putting it here so everyone is sure)
- No ads, no tracking from the Google overlords (other than IP adress which can be obfuscated with a VPN or even better – TOR)
- Open-source and privacy-friendly
- No account neccessary (hence no comments or likes)
- Subscription via internally managed RSS feed
- Great UI and UX – modern, customizable and intuative
- Downloads to both mp3 and mp4 files as well as other with resolution options
- Listen in background (great for music or podcasts)
- Support of other services (i.e SoundCloud; media.ccc.de; FramaTube; Bandcamp)
- Regular updates alomst every month
…and probably other things that I forget to mention because there are just soo many things that NewPipe does better than the regular (or any other app like it that I’ve tried in the past) YouTube app at watching videos on YouTube.
You aren’t convinced yet? Here are some screenshots taken from the official NewPipe.org website from the app itself showcasing some of it’s features:
To skip ahead to my final verdict click here
All pictures bellow are from https://newpipe.net/press/screenshots/ and are licensed under a GPLv3 license
My final verdict
Is NewPipe a great app? Yes. Should you use it? Yes.
To round up I have used this app for almost two years now and it has been a great eversince the first day.
Of course, sometimes it’s annoying that it takes longer to load some videos (not NewPipes fault directly has to do with the whole process I’m no expert on that tho) but this is easily looked past when you compare it to how interruptive and annoying YouTube ads are. There is none of that at NewPipe.
Being able to watch any video regardless of lengh or creator without the ads would easily be the biggest upside for anyone directly.
Besides that you get access to direct downloads as well as the background player – two features alongside the ads which are free out of the box which are only availiable throught the YouTube Premium subscriptions which goes for €11.99/month in Germany.
Now what do you do? I’ll tell you. Download NewPipe on Android on F-Droid or by downloading the APK form the official NewPipe.net website
With all that said, please try it out and give it a go yourself. I and most other people that have used it have not regretted it so you won’t likely either.
If you have any questions leave ’em in the comment section down below or contact me elsewhere if you know me personally. Have a good rest of your day!
