Better than NewPipe?
I have been using NewPipe for more than 3 years, but I remembered that there used to be another application on F-Droid called SkyTube, that provided similar functionality as NewPipe. Fast forwarded to present, I wanted to check out how the project has evolved over time since nobody is talking about it and to check if it’s better than NewPipe in any way.
If you search on F-Droid right now you would find two versions of SkyTube, one with non-OSS libraries and other without it. On SkyTube’s website there is a comparison table on what difference both versions have to offer.
SkyTube Homescreen
I been using the normal version of SkyTube for a while now, and so far my favourite feature has been the channel blocker.
Channel Block Feature
This feature makes my YouTube watching experience a lot better since I would not encounter those channels that I hate to view in my search feed since most of them have click baiting titles and thumbnails.
Till now, the experience is quite good. I faced only one crash during subscription importing process. SkyTube offers same set of features as NewPipe and even uses the NewPipe extractor.
SkyTube Player
Compared to NewPipe, SkyTube lacks newer features like YouTube chapters, watching PeerTube videos, picture in picture mode & viewing subtitles.
I will continue to use SkyTube for a bit longer. The only feature that I need in SkyTube to make it the best YouTube client is sponsor block support, once that’s done I can completely switch to it replacing NewPipe.