OT: YouTube subscribed sites

You are likely stuck with it, given that a "smart tv" controls you, rather than the other way around.

Consider downloading the items you want to watch from youtube

There are also alternative apps like 'SmartTube' for Android TV, although it depends on your TV/box as to whether it'll let you install them. They also block ads and sponsored segments.

Theo

Thanks for that - never knew it was a thing. Just 'rooted' my 2018 LG TV and it seems to have worked - at least, the ad-free Youtube app works. I used:

Pro tip! If you want to liberate yourself from your smart-TV, go and get yourself a Radxa Zero and run Kodi on it.

That way you can turn off all the smarts on the TV, and just view the stuff you want to view through the Radxa single board computer.

...until you want to watch Netflix, iPlayer, ITVX, Disney+ or whatever. Then you'll find there's either no streaming app or the streaming app won't run because you aren't running their DRM on 'certified' hardware.

Although there are approved Android TV boxes, and they're an option if you need more control / less spying than your smart TV.

Theo

Don't know if they've b0rked it in new and innovative ways, but I did have Kodi (or maybe it was still XBMC at the time) running with the widevine plugin extracted from the Chrome installer, running on a Pi3 ... obviously it did require a Netflix account, which I stopped paying for after a year.

This is not so interesting. All the content of the above exists on torrent sites, for free.

This is also a possibility.

Actually... I think I installed a youtube plugin and it worked. But that was for the wife, but she never used it in the end.

What I usually do, is to download documentaries off youtube with yt-dlp and ship them to the NAS, there they are picked up by the kodi automatically if they are well known.

Works lile a charm and all commercials are removed as well.

They are messing with it, "to see what folks like"

I'd guess, the randomness either gives you the opportunity to catch up with a channel that you previously missed - or it gives channels with names further down the alphabet a subscriber lookin'.

You can sort the list order on a phone, and view the selected channel on a linked TV.

Or if your TV does voice commands, ask it for the channel name.

If you've got a good memory of those.

I've got 331 ;-)

I hate YouTube adverts, so I run SmartTube. It works like a charm and synchronises subscriptions and playlists from your Google/YouTube account, as well as correctly marking which videos you have watched.

I wouldn't be without it.

However the app isn't available from the usual tv app library and has to be side-loaded, which is slightly fiddly but not a big deal. For step by step instructions see:

"How to Install SmartTube on Firestick (Ad-Free YouTube)"