Brian May writes:

Tim Hamilton writes:

...

Another option for viewing YouTube with Free Software is Minitube which provides a GUI frontend for YouTube without the need for a browser.

I think I come into this discussion late. What is the problem with watching YouTube with a open source browser such as FireFox?

The website won't operate properly without non-free code running in the browser. If you don't trust YouTube to run programs on your computer, that's a bad option. Using VLC to view the video from its URL, or downloading the video with ‘youtube-dl’, avoid executing any of the non-free code. -- \ “Oh, I realize it's a penny here and a penny there, but look at | `\ me: I've worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme | _o__) poverty.” —Groucho Marx | Ben Finney

Brian May writes:

Ben Finney writes:

...

The website won't operate properly without non-free code running in the browser. If you don't trust YouTube to run programs on your computer, that's a bad option.

What non-free code is this?

Non-free programs downloaded by your browser, from the website and other third-party websites as specified by the page. URL:https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html Enabling HTML5 video on YouTube means you avoid non-free Flash programs. It still requires you run non-free JavaScript programs. URL:https://documentfreedom.org/rmflash/html5-how.en.html The LibreJS effort is the beginning of a way out of this; we're not out yet. URL:https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/ -- \ “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is | `\ required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long | _o__) run.” —Henry David Thoreau | Ben Finney