this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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DeGoogle Yourself

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I'd like some feedback on a YouTube decentralization project I'm working on: Torrent-Tube (github.com)
submitted 1 day ago by dessalines@lemmy.ml to c/degoogle@lemmy.ml
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/49015971

YouTube is still one of the major points of centralization on the internet, so I've been brainstorming ways around the problem.

From the readme:

Torrent-Tube is a set of tools to help decentralize YouTube videos, by moving them to torrents, which can be shared by many people. It includes:

  • A Torrent-Tube search site which searches the Torrents-csv search engine to see if the given YouTube video already exists, and is being seeded.
    • It does this by extracting the YouTube [VIDEO_ID] from a link, which you can also do manually if you like (IE, the text after watch?v=...).
  • A script to download, and create torrent files from YouTube videos, with a uniform naming style and format, taken from TheFrenchGhosty's YouTube-DL-Scripts.
  • You will need to upload these torrent files yourself to a service (details below), and seed them.

Torrent-Tube Search

In the future, it may be possible to create a browser plugin that checks a video link that you're currently watching for existing torrents.

Create torrent script

Requirements

Instructions

Copy a YouTube video URL.

# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/dessalines/torrent-tube

# Run the script
./create_torrent.sh [YOUTUBE_URL]

The video will download, and is saved in the videos folder. The torrent file is saved in the torrents folder.

Add the torrent to your torrent app, such as qbittorrent.

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[โ€“] 45o3b@lemmy.ml 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I like your logic here. Torrent index -> alternative platforms -> YT proper.

Assuming the torrent index becomes decentralized, there are really two categories where it makes sense to build this in:

  1. The YouTube frontends, as you mention

  2. The self-hosted downloaders that already exist, like Tube Archivist

I think the second category is where you get all the seeding traction. Sure, it would be great if the Android frontends also participate, but there are thousands of NAS devices that are already downloading YouTube videos for a single user. If there was an addon that allowed all of these users to share content automatically, I think there would be a lot of buy in / seeding.

[โ€“] dessalines@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 hours ago

Yes, this could potentially be used in youtube front-ends. IE show the magnet link of a given video if it exists, so that it could be torrented.