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But I don't want to use the cookies, I used youtube-dl exactly to watch age-restricted videos without signing-in. I don't want YouTube to track which videos I w

But I don't want to use the cookies, I used youtube-dl exactly to watch age-restricted videos without signing-in. I don't want YouTube to track which videos I watch and make history-based suggestions so I never sign-in and reset cookies often. I occasionally stumble upon age-restricted videos and feel curious what's there but I don't want any of them to influence what does YouTube believe my interests are so I just use youtube-dl INSTEAD of signing-in. And by the way, I always mostly used random birth dates whenever registering anywhere because I consider that personal information and don't want to share it. I don't even know what birth date did I set when I got my GMail back in the days it required invitations. I don't feel like watching an age-restricted video ever again if this actually requires identification and leaves no workaround. UPDATE: I'm actually surprised this gets down-voted.

63 5y ago
This feels a bit overdramatic. You can remove videos from your watch history and, in my experience, YouTube will cease to give you recommendations based on them. You could also create a separate account used solely for watching videos with YouTube-dl instead of using your main one if you're worried about recommendations. I agree that it sucks that a workaround is necessary, but I don't think this particular one is worth getting too worked up about.
- Seattle3503 5y ago
  Does this work in practice? Most websites require text verification for accounts. With that they can just link separate accounts in the back end.
  - 63 5y ago
    It works for me in practice. YouTube definitely are capable of linking separate accounts in the back end, but in my experience they don't do so for recommendations. I have a separate account specifically for watching a given type of content and I don't receive any of its recommendations on my main account. Now, whether or not they use linking to give advertisements or sell data I'm not sure, but at that point they can link based on IP anyway and we're talking about a separate issue.
    - TheSmiddy 5y ago
      Yeah this is a very common strategy of language learners. Have a seperate YouTube account where you only watch content in your target language to keep the recommendations clean
  - rainbowzootsuit 5y ago
    Maybe get a cheap MVNO SIM like Ting Mobile and use that to register? I know I've had google accounts that didn't require any re authentication in the way of phone numbers for going on years so you can likely discard the number after you show you are human.
    - qwerty456127 5y ago
      Won't it still also require a credit card for YouTube to believe your age?
      - rainbowzootsuit 5y ago
        I'm sorry, I haven't registered a new account in a while. I tested an account I've had since 2016 that I made with a ex employer's landline phone and I've never registered a credit card to. It is able to play age restricted video by confirming that I want to and nothing else. It's under a fictional name and birthday etc.
- Vektorweg 5y ago
  is it just me, or are downvoters abusing their power to suppress divergent opinion?
  - DiabloD3 5y ago
    Yup, and as per the Internet's one golden rule (of which we have at least a dozen), "Do not (ab)use downvotes to disagree, put your disagreement in writing or stay silent". It is frowned upon here, but not against the rules. Downvotes on HN should, optimally, only be used to downvote comments that truly do not add anything to the conversation constructively. qwerty's comment, imo, was constructive, as that is a common use case of ytdl: to watch a video without being explicitly tracked by Youtube; although Youtube still does track you, but in ways that probably violate EU law, and might violate US law too.
    - gundmc 5y ago
      > although Youtube still does track you, but in ways that probably violate EU law, and might violate US law too. I was in agreement with your post until this throw-in line at the end. What reason do you have to believe that YouTube is breaking US and EU law?
      - aplorbust 5y ago
        1. They have betrayed user trust in the past and continue to do so. 2. They have been sued by the FTC, paid millions in settlements, and failed to prove that they did not break the law. 3. They are currently being sued by the DOJ and many states attorney general. 4. They have made numerous settlements in private privacy-related litigation as opposed to proving they were not liable, despite having enormous cash reserves available for legal costs. If someone were to suspect Google was "probably" breaking the law, this does not seem like an unreasonable suspicion.
    - jmiserez 5y ago
      Quoting dang: >On HN, downvoting for disagreement has always been fine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314 Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20258525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20258525
vasco 5y ago
I'm born in whatever far back year forms will let me choose in most internet services, over a 100 years old in a lot of cases, I assumed everyone did this.
- INTPenis 5y ago
  Three dead trolls in a baggie even made a song about it way back in early 2000s. The privacy song, just fill their database with garbage. Also I'm a 43 year old nun.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    wouldn't it be better to change age/profession/etc stuff per website?
  - sam_goody 5y ago
    Oddly enough, it seems the internet [login forms] have created an uptick in 43 year old nuns. The church finally has a solution to their clergy loss. ;)
- mithr 5y ago
  Never had the patience to go all the way to the top, so I'm typically born in <couple of mouse scrolls up, random click>.
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    I was born in the year zero; if that breaks your database, good.
- xref 5y ago
  On a site like HN I assumed everybody’s birthday was Unix epoch 0
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Bah, young whippersnappers.
qu4z-2 5y ago
I ran into this earlier this week when I went to watch Kung Fury, a free movie hosted on YouTube which is now age restricted. I pretty much just couldn't. Luckily the Pirate Bay exists, and now I have a permanent copy which is what I probably should've done anyway. I guess this means I watch less YouTube, which is probably better for me in the long run. But like hell I'm signing in.
- NetOpWibby 5y ago
  What an excellent film
alphabet9000 5y ago
maybe one solution might be to create a new youtube account in an incognito browser, and then just use the cookie from that brand new account indefinitely for youtube-dl purposes. that way, the cookie you're using in youtube-dl wouldnt be 'tied' to your real account.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  I did this with another Google product and I'd be surprised if they didn't know that both accounts belong to the same person.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
I am not much of a youtube-dl user (I can download fine from YouTube with a few lines of shell script) but I notice youtube-dl tries to send a "consent" cookie for every video even when not logged in. For example: cookie: CONSENT=YES+cb.20210328-17-p0.en+FX+203
throwitaway12 5y ago
I was going to post something very similar, as I would use it specifically to watch videos that want me to give up information and sign in. I don't find that reasonable, thus I adjust accordingly my taking these countermeasures. You are being downvoted to suppress your well thought out information. It would be nice if HN had a public ledger of who up or down voted a post. You would click on the post and could see which usernames voted and which way. It would bring much needed transparency to combat these information suppression abuses.
- cooperadymas 5y ago
  "I want to maintain my privacy when watching videos." "I think the site should publicly post a list of users who upvoted and downvoted comments that I feel were wrongly suppressed." I had to read your comment multiple times to determine whether it was intended to be sarcastic or not.
  - est31 5y ago
    The moment you participate in voting, you become a participant , even if your participation is really small, instead of being a pure consumer. When the internet came along, so much content has been made available without requiring accounts. Then services appeared that began auth-walling their content. Nowadays you can't even visit someone's linked in page without logging in, and there are major restrictions for places like facebook or instagram. This "must have an account with us" internet isn't the internet the world deserves. And again, requiring accounts for participation is fine. Talking about consumption only.
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    Not sure I agree with it, but "Exactly those actions intended to cause publicly visible changes (such as comment graying) should be subject to transparency, which anything else (such as viewing videos or comments) should be subject to privacy." seems like a prefectly self-consistent position.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    And what did you determine?
xg15 5y ago
> But I don't want to use the cookies, I used youtube-dl exactly to watch age-restricted videos without signing-in. Yes, and I want a pony. We can absolutely discuss how useful or harmful age verification on the internet is, (and your points about tracking are certainly valid) - but fact is that Google implemented it. It is not youtube-dl's job to circumvent that. Their responsibility is letting me download the videos to my hard drive that I can already view in my browser. They never advertised themselves as a tool to circumvent access restrictions. If the new age verification broke youtube-dl in such a way that you couldn't download the video at all, I think the outrage would be justified - but that isn't the case.
- Bancakes 5y ago
  It's just FAANG being FAANG. Why make working software when you can make non-working software?
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    It's not about software, it's about appeasing advertisers and puritans who want to keep the children safe. It's a legal and business issue.
NetOpWibby 5y ago
I don’t have a Google account and yet I watch YouTube almost daily. The algorithm still curates a feed for me so why should I have to sign up? I ran into an issue where I was not able to download an age-restricted video last week and just moved on. Nothing Google does will make me want to create an account.
newdude116 5y ago
Get a second account just for yt?

63 5y ago

This feels a bit overdramatic. You can remove videos from your watch history and, in my experience, YouTube will cease to give you recommendations based on them. You could also create a separate account used solely for watching videos with YouTube-dl instead of using your main one if you're worried about recommendations. I agree that it sucks that a workaround is necessary, but I don't think this particular one is worth getting too worked up about.

Seattle3503 5y ago
Does this work in practice? Most websites require text verification for accounts. With that they can just link separate accounts in the back end.
- 63 5y ago
  It works for me in practice. YouTube definitely are capable of linking separate accounts in the back end, but in my experience they don't do so for recommendations. I have a separate account specifically for watching a given type of content and I don't receive any of its recommendations on my main account. Now, whether or not they use linking to give advertisements or sell data I'm not sure, but at that point they can link based on IP anyway and we're talking about a separate issue.
  - TheSmiddy 5y ago
    Yeah this is a very common strategy of language learners. Have a seperate YouTube account where you only watch content in your target language to keep the recommendations clean
- rainbowzootsuit 5y ago
  Maybe get a cheap MVNO SIM like Ting Mobile and use that to register? I know I've had google accounts that didn't require any re authentication in the way of phone numbers for going on years so you can likely discard the number after you show you are human.
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
    Won't it still also require a credit card for YouTube to believe your age?
    - rainbowzootsuit 5y ago
      I'm sorry, I haven't registered a new account in a while. I tested an account I've had since 2016 that I made with a ex employer's landline phone and I've never registered a credit card to. It is able to play age restricted video by confirming that I want to and nothing else. It's under a fictional name and birthday etc.
Vektorweg 5y ago
is it just me, or are downvoters abusing their power to suppress divergent opinion?
- DiabloD3 5y ago
  Yup, and as per the Internet's one golden rule (of which we have at least a dozen), "Do not (ab)use downvotes to disagree, put your disagreement in writing or stay silent". It is frowned upon here, but not against the rules. Downvotes on HN should, optimally, only be used to downvote comments that truly do not add anything to the conversation constructively. qwerty's comment, imo, was constructive, as that is a common use case of ytdl: to watch a video without being explicitly tracked by Youtube; although Youtube still does track you, but in ways that probably violate EU law, and might violate US law too.
  - gundmc 5y ago
    > although Youtube still does track you, but in ways that probably violate EU law, and might violate US law too. I was in agreement with your post until this throw-in line at the end. What reason do you have to believe that YouTube is breaking US and EU law?
    - aplorbust 5y ago
      1. They have betrayed user trust in the past and continue to do so. 2. They have been sued by the FTC, paid millions in settlements, and failed to prove that they did not break the law. 3. They are currently being sued by the DOJ and many states attorney general. 4. They have made numerous settlements in private privacy-related litigation as opposed to proving they were not liable, despite having enormous cash reserves available for legal costs. If someone were to suspect Google was "probably" breaking the law, this does not seem like an unreasonable suspicion.
  - jmiserez 5y ago
    Quoting dang: >On HN, downvoting for disagreement has always been fine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314 Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20258525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20258525

vasco 5y ago

I'm born in whatever far back year forms will let me choose in most internet services, over a 100 years old in a lot of cases, I assumed everyone did this.

INTPenis 5y ago
Three dead trolls in a baggie even made a song about it way back in early 2000s. The privacy song, just fill their database with garbage. Also I'm a 43 year old nun.
- dylan604 5y ago
  wouldn't it be better to change age/profession/etc stuff per website?
- sam_goody 5y ago
  Oddly enough, it seems the internet [login forms] have created an uptick in 43 year old nuns. The church finally has a solution to their clergy loss. ;)
mithr 5y ago
Never had the patience to go all the way to the top, so I'm typically born in <couple of mouse scrolls up, random click>.
- a1369209993 5y ago
  I was born in the year zero; if that breaks your database, good.
xref 5y ago
On a site like HN I assumed everybody’s birthday was Unix epoch 0
- CRConrad 5y ago
  Bah, young whippersnappers.

qu4z-2 5y ago

I ran into this earlier this week when I went to watch Kung Fury, a free movie hosted on YouTube which is now age restricted. I pretty much just couldn't. Luckily the Pirate Bay exists, and now I have a permanent copy which is what I probably should've done anyway. I guess this means I watch less YouTube, which is probably better for me in the long run. But like hell I'm signing in.

NetOpWibby 5y ago
What an excellent film

alphabet9000 5y ago

maybe one solution might be to create a new youtube account in an incognito browser, and then just use the cookie from that brand new account indefinitely for youtube-dl purposes. that way, the cookie you're using in youtube-dl wouldnt be 'tied' to your real account.

heavyset_go 5y ago
I did this with another Google product and I'd be surprised if they didn't know that both accounts belong to the same person.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

I am not much of a youtube-dl user (I can download fine from YouTube with a few lines of shell script) but I notice youtube-dl tries to send a "consent" cookie for every video even when not logged in. For example: cookie: CONSENT=YES+cb.20210328-17-p0.en+FX+203

throwitaway12 5y ago

I was going to post something very similar, as I would use it specifically to watch videos that want me to give up information and sign in. I don't find that reasonable, thus I adjust accordingly my taking these countermeasures. You are being downvoted to suppress your well thought out information. It would be nice if HN had a public ledger of who up or down voted a post. You would click on the post and could see which usernames voted and which way. It would bring much needed transparency to combat these information suppression abuses.

cooperadymas 5y ago
"I want to maintain my privacy when watching videos." "I think the site should publicly post a list of users who upvoted and downvoted comments that I feel were wrongly suppressed." I had to read your comment multiple times to determine whether it was intended to be sarcastic or not.
- est31 5y ago
  The moment you participate in voting, you become a participant , even if your participation is really small, instead of being a pure consumer. When the internet came along, so much content has been made available without requiring accounts. Then services appeared that began auth-walling their content. Nowadays you can't even visit someone's linked in page without logging in, and there are major restrictions for places like facebook or instagram. This "must have an account with us" internet isn't the internet the world deserves. And again, requiring accounts for participation is fine. Talking about consumption only.
- a1369209993 5y ago
  Not sure I agree with it, but "Exactly those actions intended to cause publicly visible changes (such as comment graying) should be subject to transparency, which anything else (such as viewing videos or comments) should be subject to privacy." seems like a prefectly self-consistent position.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  And what did you determine?

xg15 5y ago

> But I don't want to use the cookies, I used youtube-dl exactly to watch age-restricted videos without signing-in. Yes, and I want a pony. We can absolutely discuss how useful or harmful age verification on the internet is, (and your points about tracking are certainly valid) - but fact is that Google implemented it. It is not youtube-dl's job to circumvent that. Their responsibility is letting me download the videos to my hard drive that I can already view in my browser. They never advertised themselves as a tool to circumvent access restrictions. If the new age verification broke youtube-dl in such a way that you couldn't download the video at all, I think the outrage would be justified - but that isn't the case.

Bancakes 5y ago
It's just FAANG being FAANG. Why make working software when you can make non-working software?
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  It's not about software, it's about appeasing advertisers and puritans who want to keep the children safe. It's a legal and business issue.

NetOpWibby 5y ago

I don’t have a Google account and yet I watch YouTube almost daily. The algorithm still curates a feed for me so why should I have to sign up? I ran into an issue where I was not able to download an age-restricted video last week and just moved on. Nothing Google does will make me want to create an account.

newdude116 5y ago

Get a second account just for yt?