I’ve been having some weird issues over the last few days with not being able to search for things in YouTube when I’m logged in via SmartTube account.

So I decided to try accessing it directly. Well guess what? It looks like YouTube now requires age verification in AU.

Sorry Google… I’m not uploading my passport, drivers licence or govt id to watch your shit. I am however now very incentivized to use Tube archivist and Jellyfin, plus cron job to scrape your shit with gleeful abandon.

EDIT: Rather than removed about it, I did something and made Smarttube work without a google account. If that floats your boat, have at it. It supports direct import of your saved playlists via Google Takeout ZIP file, subscriptions etc without needing a youtube account.

Also, remember the excellent TubeArchivist exists if you want even more control.

  • muhyb@programming.dev
    1·
    2 days ago

    That’s what I though at first but after resetting my modem and got a new IP from a different range, the result was still the same. So now I’m not sure. Every digit is different in this new IP, not even close. Though maybe range thing works differently for IPs.

    Temp bans did happen time to time but they usually lifted after 6-12 hours at most. This one is persistent for days now. I suspect they know the every device in the household too so they know it’s me even though the IP has changed.

    Edit: I tried private window on Firefox to see if this is about ad-blockers, they serve me two ads and then the video is still unavailable. :)

      • muhyb@programming.dev
        1·
        2 days ago

        Well, my guess is as good as yours. :)

        I was downloading some documentary series, probably the last batch with 50 videos did trigger this. Those videos were 360p though, not even high in MBs. But I couldn’t download anthing after that.