YouTube Vanced will be shutting down, after legal threat. The popular app is being discontinued after years of being available on the Android platform. Released first in 2018, YouTube Vanced is a sideloadable Android app that allows users to block ads, skip sponsored content, use a dark theme layout, and other useful tweaks, including bringing back the recently removed dislike button, bypassing the need for YouTube Premium. That combined with its popularity is likely why Google went after the project, serving them with a cease and desist. The Vanced team announced that due to "legal reasons", they'll be removing links to download the app from their website, and work on the project will be discontinued.

Existing installs of YouTube Vanced should still work for the foreseeable future, until Google makes significant changes to YouTube that would render the app useless.

Vanced has been discontinued. In the coming days, the download links on the website will be taken down. We know this is not something you wanted to hear but it's something we need to do. Thank you all for supporting us over the years.

— Vanced Official (@YTVanced) March 13, 2022

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[godreborn]

One of these days you'll all learn that RSS feeds exist and YouTube has them (for now) and you can use them with literally any 3rd party client, especially FOSS ones that Google can't take down but only play cat and mouse with.

pretty sure temp has RSS feeds. that's what I was using with usenet to download everything that fit the criteria I wanted without me having to do anything.

 

[LightBeam]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

[Bubsy Bobcat]

pretty sure temp has RSS feeds. that's what I was using with usenet to download everything that fit the criteria I wanted without me having to do anything.

RSS/Atom feeds are an absolute godsend, I can have all my content I care about in one place with signing up to 50,000,000 things or downloading "apps" for all of them. Social media sites really don't want you to know they exist.

 

[godreborn]

yeah, I had rss feeds as part of usenet. however, now, I just use sonarr, which is pretty much the same thing downloading all of my shows to streaming services I don't have. it checks every 15 minutes by default.

 

[Lazyt]

Hate ads and not able to use yt on background..but never heard of this thing

 

[ZeroFX]

Fuck Google, now we need alternatives, the current version won't hold forever.

 

[godreborn]

RSS/Atom feeds are an absolute godsend, I can have all my content I care about in one place with signing up to 50,000,000 things or downloading "apps" for all of them. Social media sites really don't want you to know they exist.

something you might funny is that I'm sort of a pervert, so I went on a usenet site for porn and made an rss for anal, and it ended up downloading a bunch of gay porn.

 

[Lehnah]

never heard of this app until now. I just downloaded the vpk from a trustworthy site. will it still be active tomorrow though?

Any chance you could share that? (Feel free to PM me)

 

[x65943]

Everyone is mad but this app is built to take away YouTube revenue - if everyone used this app, YouTube could not exist at all

I am more surprised it took this long to take it down

 

[DinohScene]

I never bother with android phones to begin with.
Youtube is a shit platform at that hahaha.

 

[godreborn]

this might release the tension, I think @StrayGuitarist iirc would approve:

 

[Takokeshi]

I never liked how the Vanced folks treat their users like they're idiots who need their hands held and can't do anything on their own.

Vanced manager? Please... just offer direct downloads... "But our users don't know what to do with that!" Right...

 

[Vila_]

amazing, youtube takes a wonderful decision once again! Can't wait for rhem to go after newpipe and yt-dl next.

Very sad:

 

[Deleted member 194275]

With correct add-ons Firefox for Android can play YouTube on background and block ads. For IOS I never found an easy solution

 

[VinsCool]

Sad indeed but from what I learned the Vanced team shot themselves in the foot by going to make money with NFT or some shit like that, meaning profit off the app, and most likely gave Google a good enough reason to take down.

No one should make money off Youtube's circumvention apps apparently.

Note that current version of Vanced still works fine, and probably will work for a good while still, so I am not too bothered about this really.

 

[raxadian]

Ublock Origin on Firefox does remove like 90% of the ads and it works on Mobile too.

 

[HtheB]

Here is a way to make a backup and install it later on when the files are gone.

Open up the Vanced Manager app.
Select the desired options of YouTube Vanced (like theme and language and you probably want the latest version)
Let it download. You can cancel the installation if you've already have it installed on your phone.

Do the same with YouTube Music and MicroG.

Now, go to a file browser on your phone to : Android\data\com.vanced.manager\files
make a backup of the 'files' directory

To install these files later on, install "Split APKs Installer (SAI)" from the Play Store.
Open SAI and select any directory inside the backuped 'files' directory to install the app.

Enjoy as long as it forces us to upgrade I guess..


Act fast before the files are gone from their servers!

 

[YuseiFD]

The project has been founded in 2018, it's only after 4 years (take away a few days) that google started noticing loss on youtube red, shows how much money can a company make and that piracy barely affects sales.

 

[AlexMCS]

For IOS I never found an easy solution

Hey if you use IOS, you should know what you're getting into.
Jailbreak and be free.

Ublock Origin on Firefox does remove like 90% of the ads and it works on Mobile too.

It removes 100% of the ads here.

Fun fact: Considering I've used Adblockers ever since I found out about them, shortly after their release, for a loooong time (years) I didn't even know Youtube had ads.

Sad about Vanced, but it was already a PITA to setup on my Xiaomi device, so I haven't updated it (in over 15 months) and it still works.

Let's see how long until/if it breaks.

 

[Freyjadour]

Shame, I've been using this since years ago. Hard to go back to those annoying and distracting ads