4 ms·

Everytime* we have a thread about third-party YouTube clients, there are comments like yours by folks who fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of these third

Everytime* we have a thread about third-party YouTube clients, there are comments like yours by folks who fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of these third-party tools. The same happened year(s) ago with a thread about NewPipe. The purpose of these apps (including Vanced) is not solely to get past ad-block; Vanced (and NewPipe, and Piped, and Invidious) do far more than just give an ad-free viewing experience -- they provide a breadth of quality of life features on top of usually being more privacy-friendly. The frustrating thing about this is that we can avoid these questions if commenters would just click the link and read.

wbobeirne 5y ago
You're totally right and I wish I had clarified that more in my original comment. I will probably try out Vanced even though I pay for Premium. I was really looking to hear from the people who primarily use it to circumvent ads, which I assume is the primary draw. But there are a lot of other good features worth discussing.
- toastercat 5y ago
  I think it is definitely a primary draw; I no longer use Vanced (used it years ago) but I remember the killer feature back then was being able to listen to audio from videos while having your phone screen off (a feature that YouTube eventually added to the official app). I primarily use NewPipe. I enjoy the benefit of not having ads, but more than that, I enjoy the simplicity and the drastically lower system resource usage.
jsnell 5y ago
The HN title is "Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android". The app being an adblocker is the one thing the submitter thought was worth highlighting. It is also the first feature the app's webpage mentions. The webpage even has paid ads for other adblockers before going into any of the advanced features. Given the above, it seems pretty darn obvious why the GP thinks that the real selling point of the app is to block ads. If this had been submitted as "Vanced: YouTube app with an AMOLED black theme", do you think it would be at the top of the frontpage?
- toastercat 5y ago
  You're right, it's a mistake by the OP.
gaius_baltar 5y ago
> being more privacy-friendly. That's exactly the point! YT Premium just give more data points to Google to track (by thing to your IRL identity) and don't get rid of all ads.

wbobeirne 5y ago

You're totally right and I wish I had clarified that more in my original comment. I will probably try out Vanced even though I pay for Premium. I was really looking to hear from the people who primarily use it to circumvent ads, which I assume is the primary draw. But there are a lot of other good features worth discussing.

toastercat 5y ago
I think it is definitely a primary draw; I no longer use Vanced (used it years ago) but I remember the killer feature back then was being able to listen to audio from videos while having your phone screen off (a feature that YouTube eventually added to the official app). I primarily use NewPipe. I enjoy the benefit of not having ads, but more than that, I enjoy the simplicity and the drastically lower system resource usage.

jsnell 5y ago

The HN title is "Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android". The app being an adblocker is the one thing the submitter thought was worth highlighting. It is also the first feature the app's webpage mentions. The webpage even has paid ads for other adblockers before going into any of the advanced features. Given the above, it seems pretty darn obvious why the GP thinks that the real selling point of the app is to block ads. If this had been submitted as "Vanced: YouTube app with an AMOLED black theme", do you think it would be at the top of the frontpage?

toastercat 5y ago
You're right, it's a mistake by the OP.

gaius_baltar 5y ago

> being more privacy-friendly. That's exactly the point! YT Premium just give more data points to Google to track (by thing to your IRL identity) and don't get rid of all ads.