If you use an app like SmartTube or NewPipe, you may have received error 403 messages when trying to play videos on YouTube recently.
This happened to me on two occasions in the past days. SmartTube was the app that I used on Amazon’s Fire TV Stick. I could browse YouTube and run searches, but any video that I tried to play returned a 403 error.
Note: An update fixed the issue on my end. Maybe this is also working on your end to get the issue resolved.
Whenever something like this happens, it is likely that Google-owned YouTube has made a change. Whether it is a deliberate change to torpedo adblockers or third-party YouTube apps, or something unintentional is not always clear right away.
This time, it appears, that Google seems to have made a change to block bots from accessing its videos. The information comes from the developer of NewPipe, who published details on Reddit.
Here is the summary:
- YouTube has been testing an anti-bot check on streaming URLs from its HTML5 clients for at least a few weeks.
- This added a new URL query parameter, which in turn caused invalid responses “after some time”.
The developer claims that the anti-bot check is “hard to implement” and that it “requires a full browser environment”.
Google furthermore has started to require the parameter on YouTube, which also resulted in 403 responses. Last but not least, Google rolled out a new JavaScript player, which turned out to be another cause for the experienced issue.
The developer’s analysis suggests that the changes that Google made this time may not have been aimed directly at users of third-party apps.
YouTube’s terms of service state that third-party apps may not block advertisement on the platform. It is likely that Google will continue its fight against content blocking and third-party apps that block ads. This time, it appears that it was likely just a side-effect.
The big question: if you could watch YouTube only with ads, would you? Would you pay for YouTube Premium to get rid of them?
Pay for youtube? /ROFLMFAO
NewPipe also has an update available on their github today, version 27.1, that seems to fix the issue.
SkyTube is not fixed yet, despite an update yesterday.
No biggie. Kiwi Browser with uBlock Origin works well, so does the latest FreeTube on my computer.
Small answer to the big question,
if I could watch YouTube only with ads, would I? : no
Would I pay for YouTube Premium to get rid of them? : no
Corollary,
If I could watch YouTube for free and without ads, would I? Who wouldn’t?
YouTube front-ends exist.
No idea if Google change having caused playback issues for third-party Youtube apps is involved in recent ‘Piped’ issues, but I presume it is.
‘Piped’ contrarily to other YouTube front-ends, faces very few issues, especially if the instances are chosen and set correctly. Yesterday 2024-11-07 all Piped instances were KO (retrieving the video that is, sites themselves opened correctly), but service was restored in the evening (CET).
Personally I use ‘Piped’ for channels and videos but have set a redirect-based configuration to easily switch to direct YouTube connections should a problem such as yesterday’s occur, but that will only concern videos and accessed in the embedded format, which is immediate and free of ads. I never open YouTube’s homepage nor any of it’s channels’ pages, heavy as a sumo, sweating advertisement ans trackers, bloated and purposely Firefox unfriendly. Even if we manage to counter the ads, the machine remains cumbersome, complicated, slow, painful.
Google is getting really aggressive just lately with their behaviour towards users. I just bought a new Android phone and because I have (actually had) an arrangement with my ISP to have the app charged to my phone account I went ahead wth the purchase. But hen it said in red type “No longer available” underneath which a list of alternative payment options appeared one of which was iDeal. That was formerly a Dutch payment application, but was sold to somebody else (don’t remember who) but when I tried to use it a screen appeared that said “Oops, something went wrong”. When I tried a second time the only payment option was Google Wallet. All the others were gone. There was no way I was going to give my credit card details to Google so I cancelled the sale.
But WTF? Why is Google permitted to run over users rights in this way and demand they only use Google’s payment system, and don’t say because they own Android. That excuse doesn’t wash anymore. This is all about user privacy and there are laws that protect that, or at least in the EU there are.