In another episode of “The official YouTube app has a life of its own and wants to make us suffer”, it's becoming harder to deal with the barrage of pop-ups, unwanted pauses, and updates that break everything on humble devices. However, there are alternatives like NewPipe, which replaces the YouTube app without too much trouble and also enables advanced features that don't exist in the official tool.
NewPipe: How to replace the YouTube app on Android
YouTube is a creature subject to constant changes, but if there's one thing we're sure about, it's that Google's standard experience leaves much to be desired. This is especially true on mobile, with an official app that is very limited and somehow keeps increasing in size.
Naturally, Mountain View's goal is for users to accept YouTube under a subscription model, but the community has developed other options. First there was YouTube Vanced, and now attention falls on NewPipe, an open source project that replaces the YouTube app without depending on Google's proprietary APIs or requesting aggressive permissions. All we have to do to get started is download and install the APK manually, or get a copy through F-Droid.
NewPipe is a lighter and cleaner alternative to the YouTube app, but it has great additional advantages. Not only is it more compact on our devices, but it also consumes less data during streaming, and by extension, less battery. It also includes support for "offline playback" and background playback, two resources that YouTube made premium a while ago.
NewPipe allows us to define quality limits depending on the connection type, activate higher resolutions, and force the audio and video format. Another interesting possibility is to use an external player, and we can even send content to Kodi if we wish. The advanced menu doesn't lag behind, with parameters to set separate audio and video folders, among other things.
One of the main questions new NewPipe users have is importing subscriptions. Since it doesn't rely on a traditional login, the process is completely manual, but the app clearly tells you what you need to do. In essence, the idea is to visit Google Takeout, go to the YouTube section, download the .csv file with subscriptions, and then import it into NewPipe. To add new channels, the subscribe button works without changes.
To conclude, I must add that NewPipe is not perfect, and the user will find an error or two along the way (the "something went wrong" pop-ups are common, although they don't interrupt functionality). Its developers plan to rewrite the app later, but until then, we can enjoy its latest build compatible with Android 4.4 or higher, or Android 4.1 if we download the legacy version.
Official site and download: Click here.
