Invidious

Invidious
Original author(s)Omar Roth
Developer(s)Samantaz Fox, unixfox, Matthew McGarvey[1]
Initial releaseAugust 13, 2018; 6 years ago (2018-08-13)
Stable release
2024.08.26-4782a67 / August 26, 2024; 2 months ago (2024-08-26)
RepositoryMirror from GitHub: gitea.invidious.io/iv-org/invidious, GitHub: github.com/iv-org/invidious
Written inCrystal, HTML, JavaScript
TypeFrontend
LicenseAGPLv3
Websiteinvidious.io

Invidious is a free and open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.[2][3] It is available as a Docker container,[4] or from the GitHub master branch.[5] It is intended to be used as a lightweight and "privacy-respecting" alternative to the official YouTube website.[2] Many privacy preserving redirecting software as well as YouTube clients use Invidious instances.[6][7][8][9]

Invidious does not use the official YouTube API but scrapes the website for video and metadata such as likes and views.[10] This is done intentionally to decrease the amount of data shared with Google, but YouTube can still see a user's IP address.[11] The web-scraping tool is called the Invidious Developer API.[10] It is also partially used in the free and open-source app, Yattee.[12]

  1. ^ "Team". Invidious.io. Retrieved 2024-01-21.
  2. ^ a b "5 Apps to Protect Your Privacy on YouTube and Stop Google From Tracking You". MUO. 2021-08-28. Retrieved 2021-11-10.
  3. ^ Betts, Andy (November 14, 2019). "How to Watch Flagged YouTube Videos Without Logging In". MUO.
  4. ^ "Installation - Invidious Documentation". docs.invidious.io. Retrieved 2022-08-24.
  5. ^ "Installation - Invidious Documentation". docs.invidious.io. Retrieved 2022-08-24.
  6. ^ "Improve Your Safari Browsing Experience With These Automatic Redirects". Lifehacker. 2022-11-22. Retrieved 2023-06-03.
  7. ^ "The 8 Best Media Players for the Steam Deck". MUO. 2023-05-07. Retrieved 2023-06-03.
  8. ^ "How to Watch YouTube Videos in the Linux Terminal With ytfzf". MUO. 2022-11-23. Retrieved 2023-06-03.
  9. ^ Kocher, Laveesh (2022-12-01). "FreeTube, An Open Source Private YouTube Client". Retrieved 2023-06-03.
  10. ^ a b "Release Week 1: Invidious API and Geo-Bypass · iv-org/invidious". GitHub. Retrieved 2022-08-24.
  11. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions". docs.invidious.io. Retrieved 2024-09-26.
  12. ^ Yattee, Yattee, 2022-08-24, retrieved 2022-08-24