Project VORAPIS non-functional

[UCyborg]

I'd post in the old thread, but they're all locked...

Anyway, am I missing anything? Wrong browser, new required workarounds etc.? Or is this it? Stuck with crappy bloated slow YouTube UI because Google...it's been weeks.

[moonbat]

Probably Youtube changed something and Vorapis need to catch up. Damn. I usually watch with Smarttube on my Android TV because I can't live without Sponsorblock and there's no equivalent for PM.

[Mæstro]

I can't live without Sponsorblock and there's no equivalent for PM.

In fact, there is one! The Simple Sponsor Skipper, a user script, targets Pale Moon, including on Invidious instances.

[UCyborg]

Yes, they're always changing something on YouTube, usually for the worse. I just suspect the worst since the VORAPIS hasn't recovered in a while.

[moonbat]

In fact, there is one! The Simple Sponsor Skipper, a user script, targets Pale Moon, including on Invidious instances.

Trouble is I really like Vorapis over the regular bloatfest, and if I have that running it may not play well with other userscripts.So it's either butt ugly bloated interface or live with irritating sponsors
I'm not a fan of watching videos in general, I missed the golden age of Youtube as a result - so the rare time that I watch I do it on my Android TV with Smarttube.

Btw, do you get the Vorapis introduction popup every time you open Youtube (when Vorapis was working)? I keep getting it as though it's initializing for the first time. I've whitelisted the vorapis domain in eMatrix and uBO and am using the extension version rather than the userscript.

[Mæstro]

Btw, do you get the Vorapis introduction popup every time you open Youtube (when Vorapis was working)?

Sorry, I could not tell you. Since 2019, I have never accessed YouTube’s site directly; I only use Invidious. I have always found it strange that no Invidious instances would style themselves more like early YouTube.

I'm not a fan of watching videos in general, I missed the golden age of Youtube as a result - so the rare time that I watch I do it on my Android TV with Smarttube.

I was there for it, but my parents kept a slow internet connexion for years after most sites came to assume a fast one was available, deterring me from ever making YouTube a habit. Once I was in uni, I could also discover easier ways to access substantial, academic literature about subjects I found interesting, so popular overviews on YouTube struck me as shallow. I gave up on television proper by the mid-tens, although since 2023, I have joined family to watch it, and I sometimes tune into NHK broadcasts online on my own.

[UCyborg]

I tend to browse with history and caching disabled, so the question is whether storage used by VORAPIS is supposed to persist or not if closing its tab and later re-opening it in the same window.

Invidious was always weird to me:

• DASH always forces AV1 codec...
• ...too slow in-browser, Pale Moon presumably still uses old AV1 library...or I don't know why else it's so slow compared to Firefox, resolutions are limited without DASH. I know for certain VP9 codec on YouTube is lower quality on resolutions up-to 1080p, AV1 could be the same since it's all about saving their bandwidth.
• If the video is not too long, YouTube keeps it in memory while it's always being re-buffered with Invidious (eg. if you want it to loop in the background).

VORAPIS seemed to be the first alternative that I found reasonable, also for the UI. I considered FreeTube at some point, but...I despise Electron (being Chromium spamming my process list and having ugly eye piercing font rendering)!

[jobbautista9]

too slow in-browser, Pale Moon presumably still uses old AV1 library.

We use the reference libaom library for AV1 which isn't always optimal. I've tried to make the platform support dav1d, and I almost got all of it done at the time (even got nasm supported too). It's just the platform decoder I have no idea how to write for...

Anyway VORAPIS does still work for me logged-in (but not logged-out), and I'm using the jetpack xpi extension instead of the userscript. I often disable DASH so I can play the video (which would often just be music videos) with my VLC Web Plugin. Annoyingly the only available encoding is 360p H.264/AAC, so the few situations I reenable DASH and play it natively in-browser is when I watch gameplay for example. And even then I force-disable AV1 (which can be done within VORAPIS itself) and VP9 (via browser preferences) to force H.264.

[UCyborg]

Oh, that sounds familiar, working logged in, but not logged out. Well I prefer being logged out, though I realize Google already knows everything anyway...but why make it even easier for them?

[UCyborg]

They updated the script and now it works again when not logged-in.