Since we're on Lemmy, which uses ActivityPub, I'd first recommend using PeerTube since it's also a fediverse ActivityPub platform. But it's pretty small right now.

Alternatively, Odysee has an established creator base and it's easy for YouTubers to sync video uploads, so it has a real chance at becoming mainstream if we can push adoption outside of the tech-sphere.

In terms of just YouTube privacy-respecting frontends, with your browser I recommend using Piped or Invidious.

For more instances for privacy-respecting front-ends, this link is a good resource. Furthermore, you could consider installing the LibRedirect extension to automatically redirect you to privacy-respecting frontends.

On Android, I strongly recommend downloading LibreTube or NewPipe from the F-Droid store. LibreTube is actually really pretty, so I prefer it to ReVanced on that basis as it doesn't require any level of login to manage a subscription list I think. Newpipe is already very well established and I use it personally, very good app.

Happy to answer any questions, but I'm not an engineer, I'm just a guy :p

For desktop: Piped or Invidious instances, like piped.kavin.rocks

If you want to completely get rid of YouTube, then PeerTube or Odysee is nice.

NewPipe. Newpipe is feature rich and does not require an account. It holds all subscriptiouns localy and does not use the API. Customizable and had tons of features.

Newpipe is an open source youtube client, unfortunatly it's missing any features that require an account.

If you want those features check out Revanced, a patched youtube app. Unfortunetly since Revanced uses the stock youtube app its not fully open source.

If you decide to use revanced be careful as there are a lot of fake websites. The real one is revanced.app or the github. You also need to patch the app yourself.

newpipe on android is a way to view youtube, invidious on desktop, i dunno about ios, peertube is the federated alternative to youtube but it's gonna be a bit before it gets good.

Edit: I don’t ever use it on mobile. Desktop via Firefox only.

An Invidious instance or mpv (with yt-fzf for example).

Personally, I use yt-fzf for searching (no thumbnails though) and newsboat (a cli rss reader) for subscribing to YouTube channels then I can load up videos from there to mpv. I just press the "o" key on my keyboard when a new video comes out and it plays on mpv.

I've been alternating between using Invidious and Piped in the past week or so, which are both open-source ways to access Youtube videos.

Piped seems to be more consistent with fetching captions, so I'm leaning towards that. You can setup an addon like LibRedirect to change any YouTube URLs to whatever instance of Piped or Invidious (and a couple others I haven't checked out).

LibreTube is what I've been using on Android since Youtube Vanced died.

I personally self host my own Viewtube using docker and it works really well.

Take a look at Odysee. I even have a browser extention that redirects me from youtube to the video on Odysee if it is avilable their.

There's LibRedirect for Firefox and Chrome on the PC.

If you’re on iOS, there is uYou++. It’s a YouTube client, but you could find the experience better. You can use AltStore or similar to side load it

Revanced on android has been good for me lately

On desktop, first try VLC Media Player. It's very good for streams and videos on both YouTube and Twitch. Failing that, mpv is also very good.

If you'd just prefer a website, have a look at Piped. Invidious and CloudTube are also good, but they can be a bit hit-and-miss with which videos they can play, in my experience; and Invidious is also currently being attacked by Google's lawyers.

in what way is watching YouTube on an open source web browser not open enough?

Rumble is a major one, but they're more well-known for housing creators that have been banned from mainstream platforms, like Andrew Tate, Sneako, Donald Trump, etc.

I'm using libredirect right now, it redirects Youtube and all kinds of other links to open source frontends. I wish there was a video hosting platform with a lot of creators, but I think the only real one is Curiosity Stream.

What are you hoping to achieve here? If you just dont want the tracking then I've found Firefox containers and the CookieAutoDelete extensions to be excellent. Contain YouTube to its own container that no other site uses and as soon as the tab closes all the cookies are deleted too. Enable all the strict privacy controls in FF too.

Peertube, Odysee, and YouTube via Newpipe or another client/proxy are my first suggestions. I also enjoy some content from Nebula on occasion.

If you want a way to view YouTube with no ads, no trackers and with dislikes, Vanced is the way to go. As far as I know their github is still active.

Because YouTube videos keep getting deleted I download all my favorites and host on my Jellyfin server.