Idiotbox: Youtube interface

Idiotbox is a less resource-heavy Youtube interface. For viewing videos it is recommended to use it with mpv or mplayer with youtube-dl or yt-dlp.

For more (up-to-date) information see the README file.

Why

In my opinion the standard Youtube web interface is:

• Non-intuitive, too much visual crap.
• Too resource-hungry, both in CPU and bandwidth.
• Doesn't work well on simpler (text-based) browsers such as netsurf and links.

Features

• Doesn't use JavaScript.
• Doesn't use (tracking) cookies.
• CSS is optional.
• Multiple interfaces available: HTTP CGI, command-line, Gopher CGI (gph), this is a work-in-progress.
• Doesn't use or require the Google API.
• CGI interface works nice in most browsers, including text-based ones.
• On OpenBSD it runs "sandboxed" and it can be compiled as a static-linked binary with pledge(2), unveil(2) in a chroot.

Cons

• Order by upload date is incorrect (same as on Youtube).
• Some Youtube features are not supported.
• Uses scraping so might break at any point.

Clone

git clone git://git.codemadness.org/frontends

Browse

You can browse the source-code at:

• https://git.codemadness.org/frontends/
• gopher://codemadness.org/1/git/frontends

Download releases

Releases are available at:

• https://codemadness.org/releases/frontends/
• gopher://codemadness.org/1/releases/frontends

View

You can view it here: https://codemadness.org/idiotbox/

For example you can search using the query string parameter "q": https://codemadness.org/idiotbox/?q=gunther+tralala

The gopher version is here: gopher://codemadness.org/7/idiotbox.cgi