AltStore VS SmartTube

That is listed under "unofficial sideloading methods". A more accurate title would've been "Does iOS support sideloading?" but I wanted to keep the domain name as short as possible :)

The Apple Developer program is not intended as an option for end users to enable sideloading on their device, even if that is a side effect of joining it. It is only intended to allow developers to briefly test their apps in a limited capacity before uploading them to the App Store. Apps "installed" this way expire after a certain length of time and you must ask Apple's cloud service for a new certificate each time that happens. You're still tied to Apple indefinitely this way.

Therefore, I lump it into the same category as jailbreaking -- yes, you can argue that the existence of that means iOS already has sideloading, but it's not officially supported.

Sidenote: You don't need to spend $100/yr if you want to go the "unofficial sideloading" route; AltStore (Classic) is available for free: https://altstore.io/

AltServer from the AltStore folks allows you to automate the renewal of sideloaded apps. It’s not perfect, but it’s an excellent workaround.

http://altstore.io/

That's probably to prevent the most obvious workaround of creating a new shell company for every million users. (Which would be not so ridiculous as it sounds, there is plenty of software you cannot buy directly but only through a reseller. Epic could become a pure b2b shop on paper and sell Fortnite clients to regional distributors, or something like that.)

Some time ago somebody made an alternative App Store for emulators, https://altstore.io . I think it works by having users get a developer's certificate and installing the apps like an in-development app. I think it would be really neat if this model got tested in court and declared completely legal.

See: https://altstore.io/

2 apps, re-sign weekly maximum. 3 if you do it without AltStore. Unlimited with a $99/yr developer account.

you already could in a way... by using altstore[0] on non jailbroken devices... It's not as straightforward as on Android but it is possible (there were even some builds of blink engine)

[0] https://github.com/altstoreio/AltStore

I mean, that's fine. My argument about adblockers applies to other software too: the Apple ecosystem has some of the basics (like sync, browsers, etc) figured out for me so that I don't need to fiddle with it. While I'd like to use Firefox, I don't need to, and the tradeoffs that come with accepting Safari instead are worth it for my specific situation. Forcing myself into a different ecosystem so that I can use different software that does the same thing isn't a good tradeoff for me. It sounds like that's not the case for you - glad you've found an ecosystem that works for you.

There are a couple of things you might want to be aware of though:

* AltStore exists and works pretty well: https://altstore.io

* iOS 17.2 allows users in some locales to side load apps: https://medium.com/@rmndrathna4/ios-17-2-sideload-apps-what-... . This was sparked by the Digital Markets Act, which could also force Apple to allow alternate browser engines. It went into effect May 2023, but I'm not a lawyer and idk how this will actually affect the Apple ecosystem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act

/u/sevenlayercookie5 /u/rogo725 - I side load it with https://altstore.io/ - it keeps it refreshed every 7 days as well. If you need any help with it, hit me up.

Presumably this for now has only been seen for a specific tv client API that yt-dlp use and not all youtube videos (well, https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube/issues/4444 also saw it for "members-only" videos but again not all videos).

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Also I suppose you make a reference to software DRM like Widevine L3 vs L1 (same thing for PlayReady SL2000 vs SL3000) which is not exactly Firefox vs Chrome. Firefox has even be known to work on the availability of hardware DRM on windows right now, (through the Media Foundation API I think?).

In the worst scenarios seen right now for example seen on services like Netflix, would be to only have lower qualities (e.g. 480p max) on browsers with only Software DRM available (like firefox) and encrypt better qualities with keys only available when there is hardware DRM available.

For anyone considering whether watching YouTube on TV might be better or worse than on the phone, I'd like to point out SmartTube: https://github.com/yuliskov/smarttube

Ad blocking, integrated sponsorblock, and other desirable features.

and SmartTube (https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube) if you have an Android TV.

https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube Is great for chromecasts and other google tv boxes. Basically newpipe, but in a tv format.

They're apparently going hard this time, no known way to play anything anymore.

Playing on the website without an account still works.

https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/issues/11254

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/10397

https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube/issues/3606

The Brave browser and/or SmartTube seem to work for me. Now we just need a smooth way to transition from when clicking on a youtube link - to have an option to open one of those two (for desktop and mobile). Does anyone have any better options?

https://brave.com/

https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube

Can't recommend SmartTube enough: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube

Includes crowdsourced sponsor block as well. The day YouTube goes the Twitch route and starts embedding ads is the day I stop using it. Literally unwatchable at this point without adblocking.