Sorry for the terrible photo, I can only upload 1 so I had to mash all these screenshots together somehow.

If you’re not familiar with GrayJay, it’s a cross-platform video app. You can watch and search videos from YouTube (YMMV if you use a VPN), Odyssey, Bitchute, Nebula, Kick, Twitch, pretty much anything you can imagine, and aggregates all your subscriptions and searches into 1 cross-platform feed. And if it’s not on there you can create your own plugin. There’s a repository here.

PeerTube has been supported since day 1 but previously you could only view videos from the instance you added, so you had to add them all individually. It was updated recently and seems to not be tied to any instances at all. You can view comments but it doesn’t seem to support login right now so you won’t be able to “like” or leave comments. I’ve asked them to add this functionality.

For PeerTube you’ll probably have to go into the sources and enable it. You’ll probably also want to enable SepiaSearch at the bottom (this searches across instances, for those who have opted into search).

I don’t really know how to explain the monetization model. There’s a $10 lifetime license fee. They’re adamant that it’s not free (as in beer) but if you don’t pay for the license, nothing happens 🤷‍♂️ I paid for it because it’s awesome.

You can download from F-Droid (using FUTO repository) or direct from grayjay.app (the app updates itself).

There’s also a desktop version, and your license works for both. Although the desktop version is really nice, it’s not yet as polished as the mobile one. It also supports syncing your data over your local network.

Source code here

Enjoy!

  • EpheraEnglish
    1•7 hours ago

    Well, any software needs to include a license of some form, if you want it to be usable by others. But if it’s not an open-source or libre license, then it’s a proprietary license. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. At that point, it depends on what’s actually written into the license. But it’s also not a good thing, as you miss out on various open-source benefits due to there being no proven legal compatibility with open-source licenses. Well, and if I remember correctly, FUTO’s license actively prohibits reuse of the code anyways.

    • hendrikEnglish
      4•6 hours ago

      I share your opinion. They seem to have clarified a few things, though. Their license states what kind of reuse is allowed. You need to read it thoroughly. For example you can study the code or adapt it for personal hobby projects, if it’s non-commercial and you add the required statements… But I think it’s completely unappealing to use GrayJay or contribute to the project. It’s not Free Software, so you don’t get much in return. They tell you you should send pull requests, but as far as I can see there is no way of logging in to their GitLab. So you somehow need to hunt down their GitHub mirror, and file something there, in the hopes someone is going to read it amongst the hundreds and hundreds of open bugreports… And their phrasing and use of the term “open source” is just annoying and bound to confuse people. I’m not sure what Louis Rossman is doing these days, but when they launched it, he was making videos with lots of outright false claims about the licensing. A lot of that hasn’t been ideal. I’ve sent them some comments back in 2023. But they never replied directly. I believe they took notice of the discussion and promised to step up their game concerning their community. But I don’t think they’re doing a particularly good job. And I suspect they lack a deeper understanding of what Free Software is, what it’s about and good at, how to foster a community that’s not just alike what you get on Youtube as a creator.

      But I’m not mad at them. As long as they keep Louis’ promise of not prosecuting any individual for getting confused by their mixed signals. They seem to be mildly successful with whoever their target audience is. Guess I’m just not a part of that. But I have NewPipe/Tubular, my browser with the proper Ad-blocking in place, so I can live a comfortable life without GrayJay.