Invidious

An open source alternative front-end to YouTube

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Screenshots

Player	Preferences	Subscriptions

Features

Patches

• revert d9df90b
• add redis patch
• sig helper reconnect patch
• token updater patch (mooleshacat)

User features

• Lightweight
• No ads
• No tracking
• No JavaScript required
• Light/Dark themes
• Customizable homepage
• Subscriptions independent from Google
• Notifications for all subscribed channels
• Audio-only mode (with background play on mobile)
• Support for Reddit comments
• Available in many languages, thanks to our translators

Data import/export

• Import subscriptions from YouTube, NewPipe and Freetube
• Import watch history from YouTube and NewPipe
• Export subscriptions to NewPipe and Freetube
• Import/Export Invidious user data

Technical features

• Embedded video support
• Developer API
• Does not use official YouTube APIs
• No Contributor License Agreement (CLA)

Quick start

Using invidious:

• Select a public instance from the list and start watching videos right now!

Hosting invidious:

• You will need a default redis install apt install -y redis-server
• You still need postgresql
• You still need sighelper
• You still need to figure out how to update the tokens in config file (with bash script or otherwise)
• Invidious will automatically reload the tokens from the config file every 1 minute
• Follow the installation instructions

inv_sig_helper

You will need an installation of sig helper. https://github.com/catspeed-cc/inv_sig_helper or https://github.com/iv-org/inv_sig_helper will do fine. I personally set up miltiple sig helpers, one for each process. Sometimes it will crash and you need to make a crontab entry to restart inv_sig_helper and invidious. You will notice the processer usage and memory usage spike now and then. You can control that with service file cpu limits.

redis-server

You will need a default installation of redis-server apt install -y redis-server

You still need postgresql. If you've followed the installation instructions it should still be there. Do not uninstall it.

po_token and visitor_data

This branch has the token monitor patch from myself (mooleshacat) which will check every 1 minute your config file for updated tokens. Now all you have to do is make a bash script that updates the tokens in the config file and a cronjob to execute it at the desired interval. No longer do you have to restart invidious service for the tokens to update.

This patch is a temporary workaround until inv_sig_helper itself can get the tokens for us. unixfox (invidious dev) raised this idea to techmetx11 (inv_sig_helper dev) and they are working on an implementation that will eventually make this patch useless. This is OK, as it is only a patch and that setup would be better performance wise than my current implementations. You can read about it here https://github.com/iv-org/inv_sig_helper/issues/10

Documentation

The full documentation can be accessed online at https://docs.invidious.io/

The documentation's source code is available in this repository: https://github.com/iv-org/documentation

Extensions

We highly recommend the use of Privacy Redirect, a browser extension that automatically redirects Youtube URLs to any Invidious instance and replaces embedded youtube videos on other websites with invidious.

The documentation contains a list of browser extensions that we recommended to use along with Invidious.

You can read more here: https://docs.invidious.io/applications/

Contribute

Code

1. Fork it ( https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/fork ).
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature).
3. Stage your files (git add .).
4. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature').
5. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature).
6. Create a new pull request ( https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/compare ).

Translations

We use Weblate to manage Invidious translations.

You can suggest new translations and/or correction here: https://hosted.weblate.org/engage/invidious/.

Creating an account is not required, but recommended, especially if you want to contribute regularly. Weblate also allows you to log-in with major SSO providers like Github, Gitlab, BitBucket, Google, ...

Projects using Invidious

A list of projects and extensions for or utilizing Invidious can be found in the documentation: https://docs.invidious.io/applications/

Liability

We take no responsibility for the use of our tool, or external instances provided by third parties. We strongly recommend you abide by the valid official regulations in your country. Furthermore, we refuse liability for any inappropriate use of Invidious, such as illegal downloading. This tool is provided to you in the spirit of free, open software.

You may view the LICENSE in which this software is provided to you here.

16. Limitation of Liability.

IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.