Youtube Piracy App Vanced discontinued. Downloads to be taken down

[rcmaehl]

Summary

The Youtube Piracy App Vanced has announced they are discontinuing their app due to legal reasons

 

Media

 

Quotes

Quote

YouTube Premium is how you’re officially supposed to watch videos without ads... [however] an effort has long existed to get around paying for the ad-free subscription, but “YouTube Vanced” is now shutting down. The team behind this project announced on Sunday... “Vanced has been discontinued.” "In the coming days, the download links on the website will be taken down. We know this is not something you wanted to hear but it’s something we need to do." Content creators have always found this app to be ethically questionable. Vanced gave people, primarily on Android, an unsanctioned way to watch YouTube without ads that did not involve paying. Besides ads... sponsor segments that are natively integrated and spoken by creators could also be skipped over. Vanced, which modified the official YouTube app to implement the adblocker, also added other Premium features like background play and free picture-in-picture (PiP). The app also includes an AMOLED black theme, swipe brightness/volume controls, and the ability to restore dislike counts. On the Vanced Telegram channel, the developers say it was “done due to legal reasons,” while a Reddit comment elaborates that they “had to do it.”  A cease and desist from YouTube is highly implied by those comments, and it’s not all too surprising a move from Google.

 

My thoughts

Yikes. I know how popular this app was despite not using it myself. I believe there's open source Vanced generators that modify the base app for you, that I'm sure will be endlessly forked. Regardless, I'm sure creators will see an increase in ad revenue within the coming months as the app becomes incompatible.

 

Sources

9 to 5 Google (quote source)

[rcmaehl]

@williamcll Jinx

[da na]

Hopefully this crackdown doesn't affect the PC software like youtube-dl and its forks like ClipGrab...

[LAwLz]

Well fuck... Guess I'll have to find a fork or just stop watching the WAN show once Youtube Vanced stops working.

Sponsorblock has become so essential to my Youtube viewing that even if I had YouTube Red, I still would not want to stop using Youtube Vanced. It's one of the few reasons I am still using an Android phone over an iPhone.

[duncannah]

I hope they don't target iOS stuff next... them being more obscure might help

[TetraSky]

Noooooooo. It was the only way I could have videos playing in the background with my screen off, without having to pay for such a basic feature. That and sponsorblock to automatically skip intros, outros and what not. Probably saved dozens of HOURS in a few months with that.

I hope someone continues the work.

[Giganthrax]

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

Noooooooo. It was the only way I could have videos playing in the background with my screen off, without having to pay for such a basic feature. That and sponsorblock to automatically skip intros, outros and what not. Probably saved dozens of HOURS in a few months with that.

I hope someone continues the work.

I watch Youtube through brave browser. It has an option to keep playback on even with screen off. It also has an adblock. Not as smooth as watching from a dedicated app, but it does the job. Give it a try.

[panzersharkcat]

Damn it. I literally just installed this like three weeks ago. Sticking with NewPipe when this stops working, I guess.

[JogerJ]

Afaik vanced work by decompiling official YT app, add in modifications and recompiling them. There's an archive of the source code repo of the app and api. The code should remain functional unless YT decides to rewrite their whole app/platform. 

 

Development probably could continue in the shadows. All it takes is a fork and a rebrand and we should be back in business. 

 

I was mistaken, apparently Vanced the YouTube app isn't open source. Only some parts like the Vanced Manager app and Google Play Services (microG) among other libraries are open source.

 

NewPipe is different because it's built from scratch. They shouldn't be affected. For now. 

Edited March 15, 2022 by JogerJ
vanced not open source

[Stahlmann]

8 hours ago, Giganthrax said:

I watch Youtube through brave browser. It has an option to keep playback on even with screen off. It also has an adblock. Not as smooth as watching from a dedicated app, but it does the job. Give it a try.

I'm also using the Brave mobile browser and it works pretty well. There are other features than just adblocking like what you mentioned and even PiP video playback.

[shipbiulder101]

5 hours ago, JogerJ said:

Afaik vanced work by decompiling official YT app, add in modifications and recompiling them. There's an archive of the source code of the app and api. The code should remain functional unless YT decides to rewrite their whole app/platform. 

 

Development probably could continue in the shadows. All it takes is a fork and a rebrand and we should be back in business. 

 

NewPipe is different because it's built from scratch. They shouldn't be affected. For now. 

I feel that YT will soon implement a change to kill vanced off permenantly as they probably will get acess to the source code and figure out a way of making the app brick its self or force you to use the normal app.

[Avocado Diaboli]

Eh, it was only a matter of time. Just as it's only a matter of time until someone else finds something to exploit and offers these features and adblocking once again and the whole cycle continues. Same as it ever was.

[Moonzy]

-wears tinfoil hat-

Did Linus promote Vanced just to get it under the limelight enough for Google to take action against them? Just like what happened to that light weight windows project that got shut down when LTT talked about it.

 

I'll keep the tinfoil hat on

[suicidalfranco]

When vanced is so good that I've unistalled/disabled the official YouTube app.

 

Sad to see this happen. Hoping for it to go hydra and have an alternative for when YouTube breaks once again their api

[suicidalfranco]

9 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

-wears tinfoil hat-

Did Linus promote Vanced just to get it under the limelight enough for Google to take action against them? Just like what happened to that light weight windows project that got shut down when LTT talked about it.

 

I'll keep the tinfoil hat on

You might be on to something

[Stahlmann]

14 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

-wears tinfoil hat-

Did Linus promote Vanced just to get it under the limelight enough for Google to take action against them? Just like what happened to that light weight windows project that got shut down when LTT talked about it.

 

I'll keep the tinfoil hat on

I think that's probably what happened. But i don't think it was malicious intend by LTT. It's just what happens when niche things like this blow up all of a sudden and onto the radar of service providers like Google.

 

But there will probably be the tinfoil hatters that claim LTT did this so they can eliminate ad-blocking methods while also looking like the good guy.

[Spindel]

On a side note:

 

Damn I’m thick, tolk me until now it standard for advanced…

 

…-ad 

[jagdtigger]

17 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

But i don't think it was malicious intend by LTT.

Cant really fault ppl presuming that, even now after his theory got totally crushed and busted he still touts that BS.....

[Moonzy]

19 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

You might be on to something

 

17 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

But there will probably be the tinfoil hatters that claim LTT did this so they can eliminate ad-blocking methods while also looking like the good guy.

the timeframe between LTT promoting Vanced and Linus calling adblocking as piracy is not too far apart, just drawing a line here

based on how Linus reacted to people "defending" adblock, i wouldn't put it past him to do so

[Stahlmann]

5 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

 

the timeframe between LTT promoting Vanced and Linus calling adblocking as piracy is not too far apart, just drawing a line here

based on how Linus reacted to people "defending" adblock, i wouldn't put it past him to do so

LTT promoting Vanced was before Linus's piracy controversy afaik and it was promoted because of youtube's dislike removal. These 2 events had nothing do do with each other from what i can tell. I don't think LTT is playing 4D chess here.

[EL02]

ffs youtube premium isnt even available in my country

[Sauron]

Note that the legal issue here is not blocking ads, it's modifying the official app.

 

NewPipe does the same thing but is a separate app built from scratch, so you can use that instead.

[JogerJ]

Allegedly one of the reasons that prompted YouTube to step in was the amount of fake Vanced apps that were out there. These malicious apps were plaguing search results before they introduced the Vanced Manager app, it was a legit concern as fake websites race to optimize their SEO and rank above the legit site.

 

And then with the recent popularity due to RYD and communities promoting it, I guess YouTube has had enough and decided to step in

 

Edited March 14, 2022 by JogerJ
added Vanced telegram message

[Spotty]

Just now, JogerJ said:

Allegedly one of the reasons that prompted YouTube to step in was the amount of fake Vanced apps that were out there. These malicious apps were plaguing search results before they introduced the Vanced Manager app, it was a legit concern as fake websites race to optimize their SEO and rank above the legit site.

Youtube: There are too many fake apps showing in Google search results and on the Google Play Store, maybe our parent company who controls those platforms should be working to remove those malicious entries

Youtube: We're going to shut down the legitimate version

 

... Hmm, wait. Yeah, that does actually sound like what Youtube would do.

[Stahlmann]

12 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Youtube: There are too many fake apps showing in Google search results and on the Google Play Store, maybe our parent company who controls those platforms should be working to remove those malicious entries

Youtube: We're going to shut down the legitimate version

 

... Hmm, wait. Yeah, that does actually sound like what Youtube would do.

Tbf it'll probably help. When people are no longer searching for the original they won't find the fakes. So they tackled the problem with the solution that makes the least sense. Just like their dislike removal to combat dislike bombing. In the end they'll just say "it worked" again.