I’ve already been paying for YouTube Premium for many years to get rid of advertisement, and I’ve been using SponsorBlock for a year or so on my laptop to skip the inline ads, but because most of my watching of YouTube happens on the TV I always had to use the remote to skip it. It helps to see the “most rewind” area so you can fast forward to it, but it’s still very cumbersome.

Now a couple of days someone mentioned SmartTube on Lemmy and I installed it on my Chromecast with Google TV OS and oh boy is this software great! I did it to get SponsorBlock, but that is by far not the only feature I love about it.

  • flexible time hiding the UI of a video (have it to 1 sec now)
  • not showing UI when pausing
  • way faster scrolling
  • instant loading
  • way faster account switching
  • instant voice search

But there is one feature missing, changing the search language. We speak combined 7 languages at home and it’s impossible to search anything other than in English which is really annoying.

Anyway, check it out if you can on your TV.

  • Staple_Diet@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    Awesome, I’ve been running SmartTube on a Sony Android TV for a bit. Works really well, almost seamless. Regular updates appear via the Telegram chat too. SmartTube coupled with YT Pro for phone is a perfect combination.

    • Jeena@jemmy.jeena.netOP
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      1 year ago

      For the phone there is also ReVanced, but it’s not as nice as SmartTube, but does the job to SponsorBlock.

      • Staple_Diet@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        I find YT Pro to be more polished. It uses MicroG and is closed source which can put some people off, but I’ve had nil issues.

      • venusenvy47@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        I wonder why SmartTube doesn’t work on phones and tablets? I’ve looked into ReVanced but I can’t figure out the whole process. SmartTube is just an apk.