Author Topic: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online  (Read 9447 times)

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Offline HalcyonTopic starter

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Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« on: October 18, 2023, 01:52:34 am »
Louis Rossmann released this moments ago and it's certainly a very interesting concept.

 
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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2023, 02:21:23 am »
This violates YT ToS. It will never be approved for the Play Store, so you will be limited to side-loading weird APKs.

This is DOA.

Alex
 

Offline HalcyonTopic starter

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #2 on: October 18, 2023, 05:33:22 am »
I'm not so sure. Side-loading applications (into Android at least) is painless and is not uncommon among "power users". Of course, there needs to be a level of trust associated with it, which making the codebase open source considerably helps with. There are some people who use their phones entirely without Google Play services installed. I think these are the sorts of people that this application would appeal to the most.

Louis Rossmann's target audience has largely been aimed at the technical user, rather than end-user's who would rather just watch TikTok all day.

I believe it has merits and I'm sure Rossmann and others have done their homework in terms of any legal issues which might arise.

As for Google's terms of service, sure it would prevent it from being listed on the Play store, but who cares? End-users aren't likely to care (or even read) those terms, let alone comply with them.

It'll be interesting to see where (if anywhere) this goes.
 

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2023, 05:39:18 am »
Ok, 3.5 geeks may install it. What is the point? There is a lot of talk about the creators, but creators are not going to benefit from this at all. I may be missing something, of course, but I really don't get it.

Also, making code base open is really bad if you are going to encourage side loading. Anyone can build bitcoin miner into it and start distributing a custom APK. And a small spend on google ads will make sure your bad APK is at the top of search results. Obviously it will only matter if this thing becomes popular.
Alex
 

Offline HalcyonTopic starter

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2023, 05:43:02 am »
Yep, maybe. Again, something I'm sure they've thought of. How they mitigate that, I don't know.

I'm merely saying the concept is interesting and Rossmann isn't the type of person to go into something half-cocked.
 

Offline RoGeorge

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #5 on: October 18, 2023, 06:08:25 am »
Also, making code base open is really bad if you are going to encourage side loading. Anyone can build bitcoin miner into it and start distributing a custom APK.

These were addressed in the App license.  The intent of the license is stated in less than a minute, starting at 11:20 in the video:  https://youtu.be/5DePDzfyWkw?t=679 you can redistribute modified builds, but you are not allowed to add your own advertising or other forms of malware.

About the Grayjay app, I like the idea of subscribing to a creator no matter the platform (or to search on all platforms at once), instead of subscribing to a creator@one_platform_only.  :-+
« Last Edit: October 18, 2023, 06:15:10 am by RoGeorge »
 

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #6 on: October 18, 2023, 06:14:45 am »
you are not allowed to add your own advertising or other forms of malware.
Do you think people distributing malware will care about the license?
Alex
 
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Offline RoGeorge

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #7 on: October 18, 2023, 06:21:43 am »
Probably they won't care.  Just like with any other license agreement, it can be disregarded by some (for software/services), or physical product can be faked entirely.

For this app, at least the owners are saying they will actively come after those that infringe the license, while in FOSS, programmers usually don't do that.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2023, 06:23:25 am by RoGeorge »
 

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #8 on: October 18, 2023, 06:26:03 am »
People doing malware and scams are not in the US. They are not going to  go after anyone.

All I'm saying is that side loading is a non-starter for mass adoption. Epic tried with Fortnite, it is still a mess.
Alex
 

Offline RoGeorge

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #9 on: October 18, 2023, 07:10:45 am »
People doing malware and scams are not in the US. They are not going to  go after anyone.

I see your point now, agree with that.

At the same time, something has to be done.  Social media and alike platforms (with non-audited content) preserve unilateral rights to cancel/remove your account.  Usually you can not even ask why.

Offline Infraviolet

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #10 on: October 18, 2023, 08:56:45 pm »
Surely the malware question should be irrelevant, people should surely download this from his gitlab or from some site Rossmann owns?

The only reason any users of this app would need something not in Rossmann's official version (downloadable from places which can be recognised as owned by Rossmann) is if they wanted to watch videos from a site not already on his list, and as his list seems to cover all the major video hosting sites already that can't leave many. Any video someone wants to watch is surely hosted by a site on that list, or is hosted by an independent website which doesn't operate according to conventional streaming methods anyway (like a blog where someone self-hosts the video files).

I really respect the idea he's coming up with, but it sounds like it is only for use on phones? I'd be likely to download it and pay him if there were a version targeted to run on Linux x86 computers.
 

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #11 on: October 18, 2023, 09:03:59 pm »
If it goes past a few geeks, the a typical user will not hunt it down on their site. Their friend or TikTok video will tell them that something called grayjay exists, they will go into google and type "grayjay download". This is the phrase you buy for your malware ad. This is a standard practice.  Some people will be diligent, but majority will not care and install it.

At the same time majority of people really would not bother enabling APK installation (which comes with a security warning from the OS).

And the name is good for this, since currently google shows a bunch of birds, so anything that looks like installable software will be noticeable in the search results.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2023, 09:06:28 pm by ataradov »
Alex
 

Offline artag

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #12 on: October 18, 2023, 09:04:21 pm »

I really respect the idea he's coming up with, but it sounds like it is only for use on phones? I'd be likely to download it and pay him if there were a version targeted to run on Linux x86 computers.

Indeed - the youtube site is dross that does everything you want wrong, presumably because they want to push advertising, not videos. I would welcome a way to find youtube videos that avoided google's choice. But I'm not going to start watching them on a tiny weeny phone screen.

update :

I see there are downloads for Android on x86,x64, arm and arm64. So I guess that covers Android TVs ? A dedicated Pi ? An Android emulator running on x64 ? Also https://gitlab.futo.org/videostreaming/fcast
« Last Edit: October 18, 2023, 09:32:39 pm by artag »
 

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #13 on: October 18, 2023, 09:34:27 pm »
There is an app with this name and logo on the official Android store from "FUTO". Yet this app is not officially advertised by them in any way. Am I to assume this is malware? Or what?

This is the same exact issue Fortnite had, as soon as they announced that you have to download APKs, the store got flooded with third-party malware pretending to be Fortnite. Thankfully this was a high profile thing, so Google stepped in and quickly cleaned it all up.
Alex
 

Offline artag

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #14 on: October 18, 2023, 09:42:33 pm »
you are not allowed to add your own advertising or other forms of malware.
Do you think people distributing malware will care about the license?

How will they distribute a malware version if google won't offer it and nobody installs APKs ?
 

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #15 on: October 18, 2023, 09:54:25 pm »
The app does not need to be the same, you can place any app in the appstore and call it anything you want. Just like with the example above. The app with this name is in the appstore. There is no way to tell if this is a legit app.

But if they establish that APK is the only way to install and the app becomes super popular, then people will be installing APKs, and it will be a disaster.

Also, google won't allow it in a long run when it is actually popular. Right now google would not care. The app does not need to be in the store for long. If it is popular, you will get a lot of downloads before it gets taken down. Then you repeat the process.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2023, 09:57:12 pm by ataradov »
Alex
 

Offline Veteran68

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #16 on: October 19, 2023, 01:25:49 am »
There is an app with this name and logo on the official Android store from "FUTO". Yet this app is not officially advertised by them in any way. Am I to assume this is malware? Or what?

Futo is the company putting this out. Rossman works for Futo.
 

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #17 on: October 19, 2023, 01:28:45 am »
Futo is the company putting this out. Rossman works for Futo.
Anyone can claim to  be anyone on the appstore.

This is why it is confusing. Why do they offer to side load APK instead of going to the app store then?
Alex
 

Offline JPortici

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #18 on: October 19, 2023, 03:39:19 am »
This violates YT ToS. It will never be approved for the Play Store, so you will be limited to side-loading weird APKs.

This is DOA.

like vanced? ;) or that old APK of spotify that doesn't play ads? all you need is a member of the group chat to introduce the others and to keep the APK coming
« Last Edit: October 19, 2023, 03:40:50 am by JPortici »
 
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Online ataradov

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #19 on: October 19, 2023, 03:46:32 am »
Vanced is dead. ReVanced still exists, but it is just a set of patches and random APKs, which you constantly have to update to unbreak newly broken things.  No normal person will do that.

While Futo would be fine with a few geeks giving them $10, the whole concept of this approach was to help creators, which is not possible without wide adoption. And stripping and skipping ads hurts those creators in the mean time.
Alex
 

Offline JPortici

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #20 on: October 19, 2023, 05:43:08 am »
Vanced is dead. ReVanced still exists, but it is just a set of patches and random APKs, which you constantly have to update to unbreak newly broken things.  No normal person will do that.

it actually works like this: one person that knows how to make the APK makes the apk and passes it along to their friends, everybody's happy unless they have an iphone.
 

Offline AVGresponding

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #21 on: October 19, 2023, 05:57:35 am »
Vanced is dead. ReVanced still exists, but it is just a set of patches and random APKs, which you constantly have to update to unbreak newly broken things.  No normal person will do that.

it actually works like this: one person that knows how to make the APK makes the apk and passes it along to their friends, everybody's happy unless they have an iphone.

Or they work for Alphabet-Google-YouTube...   ^-^
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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #22 on: October 19, 2023, 06:04:28 am »
If something like this gets traction YT will just send cease and desist letter, just like they did for Vanced. And you can sit in a chair and talk how you are going to fight them all you want, but when this actually happens, they will stop the development.

And if YT wants to go thermonuclear, they can start closing accounts of the app users for violating TOS.
Alex
 

Offline AVGresponding

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #23 on: October 19, 2023, 09:16:36 am »
That sounds like the sort of solution that Musk would come up with. At that point I'd just stop watching YT completely,  though I accept that probably I'd be in the minority there.
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Online Psi

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Re: Grayjay - A better way to view videos online
« Reply #24 on: October 19, 2023, 09:39:38 am »
I think having the features of downloading and ad blocking pretty much means as soon as it becomes popular (if it becomes popular) YouTube will block it.
It will be extremely hard to stay ahead of googles efforts to block it once they decide to do so.

Keeping the linux downloader app youtube-dl working it hard enough for the devs and this is infinitely more complex.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2023, 09:41:51 am by Psi »
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