/FreeTube

An Open Source YouTube app for privacy

Primary LanguageJavaScriptGNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

FreeTube is an open source desktop YouTube player built with privacy in mind. Use YouTube without advertisements and prevent Google from tracking you with their cookies and JavaScript. Available for Windows, Mac & Linux thanks to Electron.

Please note that FreeTube is currently in Beta. While it should work well for most users, there are still bugs and missing features that need to be addressed.

Download FreeTube

Browser Extension

Download our browser extension so that you can click on videos in your browser and have them automatically open up in FreeTube.

Download for Firefox

Instructions for Google Chrome

How does it work?

FreeTube uses the Invidious API to grab and serve videos. Invidious scrapes the YouTube site which prevents the need for any official YouTube API. While YouTube can still see your video requests, it can no longer track you using cookies or JavaScript. Your subscriptions, history, and saved videos are stored locally on your computer and never sent out. Using a VPN or Tor is recommended to hide your IP while using FreeTube.

Screenshots

Features

  • Watch videos without ads
  • Use YouTube without Google tracking you using cookies and JavaScript
  • Tor / Proxy Support
  • Subscribe to channels without an account
  • Local subscriptions, history, and saved videos
  • Export & import subscriptions
  • Open videos from your browser directly into FreeTube (with extension)
  • Mini Player
  • Light / dark theme

Download Links

Official Downloads

GitHub Releases

FreeTube Website

Unofficial Downloads

These builds are maintained by the community. While they should be safe, download at your own risk. There may be issues with using these versus the official builds. Any issues specific with these builds should be sent to their respective maintainer.

Flatpak on Flathub: Download Source

Arch User Repository (AUR): Download

Chocolatey: Download

Windows Portable: Download Source

Contributing

If you have an idea or if you found a bug, please submit a GitHub issue so that we can track it. Please search the existing issues before submitting to prevent duplicates.

If you like to get your hands dirty and want to contribute, we would love to have your help. Send a pull request and someone will review your code. Please follow the Contribution Guidelines before sending your pull request.

Thank you very much to the People and Projects that make FreeTube possible!

Contact

If you ever have any questions, feel free to make an issue here on GitHub. Alternatively, you can email me at FreeTubeApp@protonmail.com or you can join our Matrix Community. Don't forget to check out the rules before joining.

You can also stay up to date by reading the FreeTube Blog. View the welcome blog.

Donate

FreeTube on Liberapay

Bitcoin Address: 1Lih7Ho5gnxb1CwPD4o59ss78pwo2T91eS

If you enjoy using FreeTube, you're welcome to leave a donation using the following methods. While your donations are much appreciated, only donate if you really want to. Donations are used for keeping the website up and running and eventual code signing costs.

License

GNU GPLv3 Image

FreeTube is Free Software: You can use, study share and improve it at your will. Specifically you can redistribute and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.