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For a few months I wasn't able to watch #YouTube videos on my work computer without signing in to the remnants of my Google account, and since today I'm given the same restrictions on my personal computer. I refuse on principle, which means I can't watch YouTube videos anymore.

You'd think it would mainly affect me on youtube.com, but this unpleasant circumstance has made me realize the amount of people who use the YouTube embed on their website. Notably I can't watch video game trailers on GOG or Itch anymore.

It is just another drop in the walled garden bucket, you think you published a video/text publicly but many people still can't access it, and you can't know about it because you're logged in, right? Same as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc... the experience for non-logged users is terrible, even though you thought you were reaching everyone, account or not.

@Hypolite Petovan I've been making an effort to move as much of my watching as possible to Dropout and Nebula and off YouTube. This sucks because device sign-in limits as a person with too many devices.

The main issue is that the things I wanna watch are all locked in YouTube due to their creators. But the project to divest is good! It's hard isn't it?

Have you tried newpipe/invidious as part of the ween-off process?

@silverwizard No, if I click on a public link and it doesn't show me anything, I don't feel like going the extra mile. If I wanted to browse YouTube specifically, I've tried Freetube successfully, but these days I don't even care anymore.

@Hypolite Petovan yeah, that makes sense. I wonder if there's an extension to swap that, I'm curious now.

Sorry, I was thinking about the larger project not the specific complaint, that was my bad.

@silverwizard It's okay, I know you! There probably is a browser extension, but it wouldn't solve GOG and itch client YouTube integrations. Steam self-hosts videos so it isn't critical yet for video games for me.

@Hypolite Petovan I've been forced to be logged in on and off - but I've never had it go that intense on me. Huh.

I wonder if it's a Chrome thing (since I assume those clients are just reaching out to your default browser to load that content?)

@silverwizard I’m using Vivaldi in both contexts, so it could be.
@Hypolite Petovan Yeah - I wonder if Firefox's sandboxing queues Google better. I dunno - but I'm wondering - because I've never had that issue.
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