YouTube_RSS

YouTube_RSS is a simple YouTube client I've made for fun. The goal is to have a simple user interface for those who want to preserve their privacy when using YouTube, but who still want to be able to keep track of their favourite channels, etc.

YouTube_RSS manages subscriptions to channels using RSS, rather than YouTube's internal subscription system that requires a privacy violating Google account.

It also (optionally) uses Tor to hide the IP address of the user.

Dependencies

YouTube_RSS is developed and tested on Ubuntu Linux. It will probably work just fine in similar Unix-like operating systems, but probably not on Windows (at least not without a little bit of pain).

The following python modules are used and may need to be installed, e.g. using pip:

feedparser
urllib3
pysocks

If you want to get thumbnails for videos, you will additionally need to install the module ueberzug, e.g. using pip.

The project also uses Tor-Requests as a submodule, so make sure to run git submodule update --init --recursive before using YouTube_RSS.

The program also assumes that mpv is installed in the environment. In, for example, Ubuntu, this can be accomplished by running sudo apt-get install mpv. youtube-dl also needs to be installed (I use the latest version on their official website, and at the time of this writing, the version in the Ubuntu rebository seems too old to work the way this project uses it).

For using Tor, YouTube_RSS assumes that Tor is installed and currently running on port 9050 (which is the default for the Tor daemon anyway). It also requires that torsocks is installed.

Disclaimer

Note that while I am enthusiastic about privacy and security, I am not a professional, and may have missed something important. However, the surface to protect should be relatively small, and I've taken care to get rid of DNS-leaks, etc. as well as I can. If you are more knowledgable than I, then I would appreciate input on how to make YouTube_RSS more privacy preserving and secure.

Manual

Most of the way the application works is self-explanatory; I won't tell you that to search for a video, you enter the "search for video" option (although I guess I just did), but rather focus on the things not immediately obvious when opening the program.

Key binds

The keybindings are designed so that the user can do almost everything necessary by just using the arrow keys (except, of course, when writing search queries), or by using the hjkl keys for vi users.

When in a menu, the user can press KEY_UP or k to move to the previous menu item.

When in a menu, the user can press KEY_DOWN or j to move to the next menu item.

When in a menu, the user can press g (lower case) to go to the first menu item.

When in a menu, the user can press G (upper case) to go to the last menu item.

When in a menu, the user can type a number and then press either Enter or l or KEY_RIGHT to jump to the item indicated by the number typed by the user.

When in a menu, the user can press ENTER, l or KEY_RIGHT to select the highlighted item, if no number has been typed since last jump.

When in a menu, the user can press q, <Ctrl>-C, h or KEY_LEFT to go back to the previous menu.

When browsing subscriptions, in the menu where channels are displayed as menu items, the user can press a to toggle all entries of the currently highlighted channel as seen or unseen

When browsing subscriptions, in the menu where videos from a particular channel are displayed as menu items, the user can press a to toggle the highlighted entry as seen or unseen

Thumbnails

Thumbnails are disabled by default. If you want to view video thumbnails, you need to run YouTube_RSS with the option --use-thumbnails. If you intend to do this in the long run, you might want to alias it into the base command.

Thumbnail support is still a bit new and experimental, so for now, use it at your own risk. The main concern to keep in mind is that thumbnail files will take up additional storage.

Files managed by the program

The database file that is used to keep track of subscriptions is saved under ~/.youtube_rss/database, and is formated as json.

If you are using thumbnails, thumbnail files are stored under ~/.youtube_rss/thumbnails/