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NewPipe-represents-the-best-of-FOSS.md (2614B)

    

  1. ---
  2. date: 2019-04-02
  3. layout: post
  4. title: NewPipe represents the best of FOSS
  5. tags: ["philosophy", "free software"]
  6. ---
  8. [NewPipe](https://newpipe.schabi.org/) is a free and open-source Android
  9. application for browsing & watching YouTube. In my opinion, NewPipe is a perfect
  10. case-study in why free & open source software is great and how our values differ
  11. from proprietary software in important ways. There's one simple reason: it's
  12. better than the proprietary YouTube app, in every conceivable way, for free.
  14. NewPipe is better because it's user-centric software. It exists to make its
  15. users lives better, not to enrich its overseers. Because of this, NewPipe has
  16. many features which are deliberately omitted from the proprietary app, such as:
  18. - No advertisements[^1]
  19. - Playing any video in the background
  20. - Downloading videos (or their audio tracks alone) to play offline
  21. - Playing videos in a pop-up player
  22. - Subscribing to channels without a YouTube account
  23. - Importing and exporting subscriptions
  24. - Showing subscriptions in chronological order
  25. - It supports streaming services other than YouTube![^2]
  27. [^1]: Support your content creators with tools like Liberapay and Patreon!
  28. [^2]: At least in theory... basic SoundCloud support is working and more services are coming soon.
  30. YouTube supports some of these... for $12/month. Isn't that a bit excessive?
  31. Other features it doesn't support at all. On top of that, YouTube is constantly
  32. gathering data about you and making decisions which put their interests ahead of
  33. yours, whereas NewPipe never phones home and consistently adds new features that
  34. put users first. The proprietary app is *exploitative* of users, and NewPipe is
  35. *empowering* users.
  37. There are a lot of political and philosophical reasons to use & support free and
  38. open source software. Sometimes it's hard to get people on board with FOSS by
  39. pitching them these first. NewPipe is a great model because it's straight up
  40. *better*, and better for reasons that make these philosophical points obvious
  41. and poignant. The NewPipe project was started by [Christian
  42. Schabesberger][christian], is co-maintained by a [team of 6][maintainers], and
  43. has been contributed to by over [300 people][contributors]. You can donate
  44. [here][donate].  NewPipe represents the best of our community. Thanks!
  45. <img src="/img/heart.png" style="display: inline; width: 1.2rem; top: 0.2rem; position: relative" />
  47. [christian]: https://schabi.org/
  48. [maintainers]: https://github.com/orgs/TeamNewPipe/people
  49. [contributors]: https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/graphs/contributors
  50. [donate]: https://newpipe.schabi.org/donate/