It is an open-source application hosted on Github, which means that its codebase has been verified by thousands of developers across the globe, who actively work on updating and maintaining the app. After all, malicious apps that steal user data do exist, often masquerading as useful tools.īut NewPipe suffers from no such issues. Many people have doubts about using a little-known third-party application that isn’t even available in the Google Playstore. And as the app does not rely on Google Play services, you can download and install it on any Android device, even custom ROMS without Google Play Store. You still get all of the features normally associated with YouTube – playlists, bookmarks, comments, etc. NewPipe works by parsing this content and presenting it with its own polished frontend, giving you an ad-free experience of watching YouTube. But that isn’t possible for proprietary platforms like YouTube, as the API is heavily restricted.Įven so, YouTube videos – along with their metadata and captions – are publicly accessible. When playing videos from a service like PeerTube, NewPipe just leverages the official PeerTube API to source the content.

Powering it all is a user-friendly interface that is smooth and responsive, and thankfully free of intrusive ads. While it started as a YouTube video client, it has since become capable of playing SoundCloud, PeerTube, and Bandcamp content as well. This left the market wide open for a competitor, and NewPipe has been quickly gathering steam.

YouTube Vanced was the most popular of these ad-free clients, at least until it was abruptly shut down by Google earlier this year. Community developers have long tried to make apps that interface with the YouTube API to play videos without having to show ads. The concept of an alternative YouTube client is nothing new. But is NewPipe safe to use? How does it work? Is it even worth using? Here is a review.

Get kodi on mac redit