Release v2.20250314.0

Wrap-up

This release brings the long awaited feature of supporting multiple audio tracks in a video, some bug fixes and UX improvements, and many other things primarily oriented to self-hosting instances, and developers using the API.

The Community channel tab has been replaced by Posts in light of YouTube changes, but the URL remains the same.

Tamil is now available as an interface language

Automatic instance redirects will no longer have the chance to annoyingly redirect to the same instance you're on.

Due to their requirements for video playback, Invidious will now log warning messages when either inv-sig-helper, po_token or visitor_data is not configured

Invidious is now able to listen through a UNIX socket

User notifications are now batched for each channel

The minimum Crystal version supported by Invidious now 1.12.0

New features & important changes

For users

• Invidious now supports videos with multiple audio tracks allowing you to select which one you want to hear with!
• Channel pages now have a proper previous page button
• RSS feeds for channels will no longer contain the channel's profile picture
• Support for channel courses page has been added
• Community tabs has been replaced with Posts to comply with YouTube changes
• Tamil is now an available interface language.

For instance owners

• Invidious is now able to listen on a UNIX socket
• User notifications are now batched by channels, significantly reducing database load.
• 1.12.0 is now the oldest Crystal version that Invidious supports
• The example config will no longer force an http proxy to be configured
• Invidious will now warn when any top-level config option must be set to a custom value, instead of just HMAC_KEY
• Due to their requirements for video playback, Invidious will log warning messages when either inv-sig-helper, po_token or visitor_data is not configured

For developers

• Invidious is now compliant to Crystal 1.15 formatting rules, which are incompatible with earlier versions.
• /api/v1/transcripts/{id} has been added to the API to allow for fetching the transcripts for a video. The arguments are the same as the captions endpoint.
• author_thumbnail field has been added to videos in the various paged api endpoints
• published field has been added to the API response for a video's related videos.
• Docker builds now uses the Crystal compiler cache, reducing build times on repeated builds significantly.
• Invidious ajax action handlers has undergone a clean up and may face compatibility issues with code that depends on these endpoints.
• The versions of Crystal that we test in CI/CD are now: 1.12.1, 1.13.2, 1.14.0, 1.15.0

Bugs fixed

User-side

• Local video listen mode is now preserved when clicking on a video in the sidebar playlist widget
• Automatic instance redirects will no longer redirect to the same instance the user is on
• Fix some thumbnails responses returning 404
• Videos: Fix missing host parameter on playback URLs when local=true
• Fix HLS being used for non-livestream videos
• Fix timeupdate event errors when required elements are missing
• User: Ensure IO is properly closed when importing NewPipe subscriptions

For instance owners

• Fix http proxy configuration being forced by the standard example config

API

• /api/v1/videos/{id} will no longer return an occasional empty JSON response

Full list of pull requests merged since the last release

• Make Invidious compliant to Crystal 1.15 formatting rules (#5014, by @syeopite)
• Remove formatter check on container workflows (#5153, by @syeopite)
• Videos: Fix missing host parameter on playback URLs when local=true (#4992, by @SamantazFox)
• Remove stdlib override for proxy initialization (#5065, by @syeopite)
• Add support for author thumbnails in search api for videos (#5072, thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)
• Skip route if resp got closed by before handlers (#5073, by @syeopite)
• Fix video thumbnails in mixes (#5116, thanks @iBicha)
• CI: Drop support for versions prior to 1.12 and add 1.15.0 (#5148, by @syeopite)
• [Continuing #5094] Set language info for dash audio streams and sort (#5149, thanks @giuliano-macedo)
• Warn when any top-level config is "CHANGE_ME!!" (#5150, by @syeopite)
• Comment out http_proxy in example config (#5151, by @syeopite)
• API: Add a 'published' video parameter for related videos (#4149, thanks @RadoslavL)
• Ensure IO is properly closed when importing NewPipe subscriptions (#4346, thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)
• Carry over audio-only mode in playlist links (#4784, thanks @krystof1119)
• Routes: Clean ajax actions handlers (#5036, by @SamantazFox)
• Frontend: Add a first page and previous page buttons for channel navigation (#4123, thanks @RadoslavL)
• RSS: Channel + Playlist improvements (#4298, thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)
• Batch user notifications together (#4486, thanks @999eagle)
• JS: Update timeupdate event making it more defensive to prevent errors (#4782, thanks @PMK)
• Add API endpoint for fetching transcripts from YouTube by (#4788, by @syeopite)
• Translations update from Hosted Weblate by (#4989, thanks to our many translators)
• Add the ability to listen on UNIX sockets (#5112, thanks @Caian)
• Pick a different instance upon redirect (#5154, thanks @epicsam123)
• Add Courses to channel page and channel API (#5158, thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)
• fix /api/v1/videos/:id returns 200 with no content (#5162, thanks @Drikanis)
• Use Crystal compiler cache in docker builds (#5163, by @syeopite)
• Channels: Fix community tab by (#5183, thanks @Fijxu)
• Fix typo in src/invidious/routes/images.cr (#5184, by @syeopite)
• Fix an issue with the HLS manifest check for livestream videos (#5189, thanks @alexmaras)
• Warn when po_token, visitor_data and/or inv-sig-helper is not configured (#5202, by @syeopite)

Release v2.20241110.0

Wrap-up

This release is most importantly here to fix to the annoying "Youtube API returned error 400"
error that prevented all channel pages from loading.

If you're updating from the previous release, it provides no improvements on the ability to play
videos. If updating from a commit in-between release, it removes the "Please sign in" error caused
by a previous attempt at restoring video playback on large instances.

In the preferences, a new option allows for control of video preload. When enabled, this option
tells the browser to load the video as soon as the page is loaded (this used to be the default).
When disabled, the video starts loading only when the "play" button is pressed.

New interface languages available: Bulgarian, Welsh and Lombard

New dependency required: tzdata.

An HTTP proxy can be configured directly in Invidious, if needed.
NOTE: In that case, it is recommended to comment out force_resolve.

New features & important changes

For users

• Channels: Fix "Youtube API returned error 400" error preventing channel pages from loading
• Channels: Shorts can now be sorted by "newest", "oldest" and "popular"
• Preferences: Addition of the new "preload" option
• New interface languages available: Bulgarian, Welsh and Lombard
• Added "Filipino (auto-generated)" to the list of caption languages available
• Lots of new translations from Weblate

For instance owners

• Allow the configuration of an HTTP proxy to talk to Youtube
• Invidious tries to reconnect to inv_sig_helper if the socket is closed
• The instance list is downloaded in the background to improve redirection speed
• New colorize_logs option makes each log level a different color

For developpers

• /api/v1/channels/{id}/shorts now supports the sort-by parameter with the following values:
  newest, oldest and popular
• Older /api/v1/channels/xyz/{id} (tab name before UCID) were removed
• API/Search: New video metadata available: isNew, is4k, is8k, isVr180, isVr360,
  is3d and hasCaptions

Bugs fixed

User-side

• Channels: The second page of shorts now loads as expected
• Channels: Fixed intermittent empty "playlists" tab
• Search: Fixed youtu.be URLs not being properly redirected to the watch page
• Fixed DB::MappingException error on the subscriptions feed (due to missing tzdata in docker)
• Switching to another instance is much faster
• Fixed an "invalid byte sequence" error when subscribing to a playlist
• Videos: Playback URLs were sometimes broken when cached and inv_sig_helper was used

For instance owners

• Fix force_resolve being ignored in some cases

API

• API/Videos: Fixed live_now and premiere_timestamp sometimes not having the right values

Full list of pull requests merged since the last release (newest first)

• API: Add "sort_by" parameter to channels/shorts endpoint (#5071, thanks @iBicha)
• Docker: Install tzdata in Dockerfile (#5070, by @SamantazFox)
• Videos: Stop using TVHTML5_SIMPLY_EMBEDDED_PLAYER (#5063, thanks @unixfox)
• Routing: Deprecate old channel API routes (#5045, by @SamantazFox)
• Videos: use WEB client instead of WEB CREATOR (#4984, thanks @unixfox)
• Parsers: Fix parsing live_now and premiere_timestamp (#4934, thanks @absidue)
• Stale bot updates (#5060, thanks @syeopite)
• Channels: Fix "Youtube API returned error 400" (#5059, by @SamantazFox)
• Channels: Fix for live videos (#5027, thanks @iBicha)
• Locales: Add Bulgarian, Welsh and Lombard to the list (#5046, by @SamantazFox)
• Shards: Update database dependencies (#5034, by @SamantazFox)
• Logger: Add color support for different log levels (#4931, thanks @Fijxu)
• Fix named arg syntax when passing force_resolve (#4754, thanks @syeopite)
• Use make_client instead of calling HTTP::Client (#4709, thanks @syeopite)
• Add "Filipino (auto-generated)" to the list of caption languages (#4995, by @SamantazFox)
• Makefile: Add MT option to enable the 'preview_mt' flag (#4993, by @SamantazFox)
• SigHelper: Reconnect to signature helper (#4991, thanks @Fijxu)
• Fix player menus hiding onHover ready (#4750, thanks @giacomocerquone)
• Use connection pools when requesting images from YouTube (#4326, thanks @syeopite)
• Add support for using Invidious through a HTTP Proxy (#4270, thanks @syeopite)
• Search: Fix 'youtu.be' URLs in sanitizer (#4894, by @SamantazFox)
• Ameba: Disable Style/RedundantNext rule (#4888, thanks @syeopite)
• Playlists: Fix 'invalid byte sequence' error when subscribing (#4887, thanks @DmitrySandalov)
• Parse more metadata badges for SearchVideos (#4863, thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)
• Translations update from Hosted Weblate (#4862, thanks to our many translators)
• Videos: Convert URL before putting result into cache (#4850, by @SamantazFox)
• HTML: Add error message to "search issues on GitHub" link (#4652, thanks @tracedgod)
• Preferences: Add option to control preloading of video data (#4122, thanks @Nerdmind)
• Performance: Improve speed of automatic instance redirection (#4193, thanks @syeopite)
• Remove myself from CODEOWNERS on the config file (#4942, by @TheFrenchGhosty)
• Update latest version WEB_CREATOR + fix comment web embed (#4930, thanks @unixfox)
• use WEB_CREATOR when po_token with WEB_EMBED as a fallback (#4928, thanks @unixfox)
• Revert "use web screen embed for fixing potoken functionality"
• use web screen embed for fixing potoken functionality (#4923, thanks @unixfox)

Release v2.20240825.2

This releases fixes the container tags pushed on quay.io.
Previously, the ARM64 build was released under the latest tag, instead of latest-arm64.

Full list of pull requests merged since the last release (newest first)

CI: Fix docker container tags ([#4883], by @SamantazFox)

Release v2.20240825.1

Add patch component to be semver compliant and make github actions happy.

Full list of pull requests merged since the last release (newest first)

Allow manual trigger of release-container build (#4877, thanks @syeopite)

Release v2.20240825.0

New features & important changes

For users

• The search bar now has a button that you can click!
• Youtube URLs can be pasted directly in the search bar. Prepend search query with a
  backslash (\) to disable that feature (useful if you need to search for a video whose
  title contains some youtube URL).
• On the channel page the "streams" tab can be sorted by either: "newest", "oldest" or "popular"
• Lots of translations have been updated (thanks to our contributors on Weblate!)
• Videos embedded in local HTML files (e.g: a webpage saved from a blog) can now be played

For instance owners

• Invidious now has the ability to provide a po_token and visitordata to Youtube in order to
  circumvent current Youtube restrictions.
• Invidious can use an (optional) external signature server like inv_sig_helper. Please note that
  some videos can't be played without that signature server.
• The Helm charts were moved to a separate repo: https://github.com/iv-org/invidious-helm-chart
• We have changed how containers are released: the latest tag now tracks tagged releases, whereas
  the master tag tracks the most recent commits of the master branch ("nightly" builds).

For developpers

• The versions of Crystal that we test in CI/CD are now: 1.9.2, 1.10.1, 1.11.2, 1.12.1.
  Please note that due to a bug in the libxml bindings (See #4256), versions prior to 1.10.0
  are not recommended to use.
• Thanks to @syeopite, the code is now ameba compliant.
• Ameba is part of our CI/CD pipeline, and its rules will be enforced in future PRs.
• The transcript code has been rewritten to permit transcripts as a feature rather than being
  only a workaround for captions. Trancripts feature is coming soon!
• Various fixes regarding the logic interacting with Youtube
• The sort_by parameter can be used on the /api/v1/channels/{id}/streams endpoint. Accepted
  values are: "newest", "oldest" and "popular"

Bugs fixed

User-side

• Channels: fixed broken "subscribers" and "views" counters
• Watch page: playback position is reset at the end of a video, so that the next time this video
  is watched, it will start from the beginning rather than 15 seconds before the end
• Watch page: the items in the "add to playlist" drop down are now sorted alphabetically
• Videos: the "genre" URL is now always pointing to a valid webpage
• Playlists: Fixed Could not parse N episodes error on podcast playlists
• All external links should now have the rel attibute set to noreferrer noopener for
  increased privacy.
• Preferences: Fixed the admin-only "modified source code" input being ignored
• Watch/channel pages: use the full image URL in og:image and twitter:image meta tags

API

• fixed the local parameter not applying to formatStreams on /api/v1/videos/{id}
• fixed an Index out of bounds error hapenning when a playlist had no videos
• fixed duplicated query parameters in proxied video URLs
• Return actual video height/width/fps rather than hard coded values
• Fixed the /api/v1/popular endpoint not returning a proper error code/message when the
  popular page/endpoint are disabled.

Full list of pull requests merged since the last release (newest first)

• HTML: Sort playlists alphabetically in watch page drop down ([#4853], by @SamantazFox)
• Videos: Fix XSS vulnerability in description/comments ([#4852], thanks anonymous)
• YtAPI: Bump client versions ([#4849], by @SamantazFox)
• SigHelper: Fix inverted time comparison in 'check_update' ([#4845], by @SamantazFox)
• Storyboards: Various fixes and code cleaning ([#4153], by SamantazFox)
• Fix lint errors introduced in #4146 and #4295 ([#4876], thanks @syeopite)
• Search: Add support for Youtube URLs ([#4146], by @SamantazFox)
• Channel: Render age restricted channels ([#4295], thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)
• Ameba: Miscellaneous fixes ([#4807], thanks @syeopite)
• API: Proxy formatStreams URLs too ([#4859], thanks @colinleroy)
• UI: Add search button to search bar ([#4706], thanks @thansk)
• Add ability to set po_token and visitordata ID ([#4789], thanks @unixfox)
• Add support for an external signature server ([#4772], by @SamantazFox)
• Ameba: Fix Naming/VariableNames ([#4790], thanks @syeopite)
• Translations update from Hosted Weblate ([#4659])
• Ameba: Fix Lint/UselessAssign ([#4795], thanks @syeopite)
• HTML: Add rel="noreferrer noopener" to external links ([#4667], thanks @ulmemxpoc)
• Remove unused methods in Invidious::LogHandler ([#4812], thanks @syeopite)
• Ameba: Fix Lint/NotNilAfterNoBang ([#4796], thanks @syeopite)
• Ameba: Fix unused argument Lint warnings ([#4805], thanks @syeopite)
• Ameba: i18next.cr fixes ([#4806], thanks @syeopite)
• Ameba: Disable rules ([#4792], thanks @syeopite)
• Channel: parse subscriber count and channel banner ([#4785], thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)
• Player: Fix playback position of already watched videos ([#4731], thanks @Fijxu)
• Videos: Fix genre url being unusable ([#4717], thanks @meatball133)
• API: Fix out of bound error on empty playlists ([#4696], thanks @Fijxu)
• Handle playlists cataloged as Podcast ([#4695], thanks @Fijxu)
• API: Fix duplicated query parameters in proxied video URLs ([#4587], thanks @absidue)
• API: Return actual stream height, width and fps ([#4586], thanks @absidue)
• Preferences: Fix handling of modified source code URL ([#4437], thanks @nooptek)
• API: Fix URL for vtt subtitles ([#4221], thanks @karelrooted)
• Channels: Add sort options to streams ([#4224], thanks @src-tinkerer)
• API: Fix error code for disabled popular endpoint ([#4296], thanks @iBicha)
• Allow embedding videos in local HTML files ([#4450], thanks @tomasz1986)
• CI: Bump Crystal version matrix ([#4654], by @SamantazFox)
• YtAPI: Remove API keys like official clients ([#4655], by @SamantazFox)
• HTML: Use full URL in the og:image property ([#4675], thanks @Fijxu)
• Rewrite transcript logic to be more generic ([#4747], thanks @syeopite)
• CI: Run Ameba ([#4753], thanks @syeopite)
• CI: Add release based containers ([#4763], thanks @syeopite)
• move helm chart to a dedicated github repository ([#4711], thanks @unixfox)

Release v2.20240427

Major bug fixes:

• Videos: Use android test suite client (#4650, thanks @SamantazFox)
• Trending: Un-nest category if this is the only one (#4600, thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)
• Comments: Add support for new format (#4576, thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)

Minor bug fixes:

• API: Add bitrate to formatStreams too (#4590, thanks @absidue)
• API: Add 'authorVerified' field on recommended videos (#4562, thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)
• Videos: Add support for new likes format (#4462, thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)
• Proxy: Handle non-200 HTTP codes on DASH manifests (#4429, thanks @absidue)

Other improvements:

• Remove legacy proxy code (#4570, thanks @syeopite)
• API: convey info "is post live" from Youtube response (#4569, thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)
• API: Parse channel's tags (#4294, thanks @ChunkyProgrammer)
• Translations update from Hosted Weblate (#4164, thanks to our many translators)

---

Tagged releases are also back!
The format is as simple as <MAJOR><dot><YYYY><MM><DD>

Major releases break compatibility with a previous major release. Because the releases
tagging system was not used for a long time, we're starting back at 2 as the major version.
Zero being the previous tagged releases, and One being the "rolling release era".

Hotfix 0.20.1

! IMPORTANT !

Releases are deprecated, build directly from master

---

This adds support for QUIC as a workaround to #811.

It is recommended to update to this version immediately.

Version 0.20.0: Custom Playlists

It's been quite a while since the last release! There've been 198 commits from 27 contributors.

A couple smaller features have since been added. Channel pages and playlists in particular have received a bit of a face-lift, with both now displaying their descriptions as expected, and playlists providing video count and published information. Channels will also now provide video descriptions in their RSS feed.

Turkish (tr), Chinese (zh-TW, in addition to zh-CN), and Japanese (jp) are all now supported languages. Thank you as always to the hard work done by translators that makes this possible.

The feed menu and default home page are both now configurable for registered and unregistered users, and is quite a bit of an improvement for users looking to reduce distractions for their daily use.

For Administrators

feed_menu and default_home are now configurable by the user, and have therefore been moved into default_user_preferences:

feed_menu: ["Popular", "Top"]
default_home: Top

# becomes:

default_user_preferences:
  feed_menu: ["Popular", "Top"]
  default_home: Top

Several new options have also been added, including the ability to set a support email for the instance using admin_email: EMAIL, and forcing the use of a specific connection in the case of rate-limiting using force_resolve (see below).

For Developers

Authenticated endpoints are now properly documented, as well how to generate and use API tokens. My hope is that this makes some of the more interesting endpoints more accessible for developers to use in their own applications.

API endpoints for interacting with custom playlists have also been added with documentation available here.

Custom playlists

This is probably the feature that has been the longest in the pipe and that I'm quite pleased is now implemented. It is now possible to create custom playlists, which can be played and edited through Invidious. API endpoints have also been added (documentation here).

Overall I'm quite pleased with how smoothly it has been rolled out and with the experience so far, and I'm exctited for how it can be extended and improved in future.

instances.invidio.us

It is now possible to view a list of public instances (as provided in the wiki) through an API or a pretty new interface here. It combines uptime information, statistics from each instance and basic information already provided in the wiki. I expect it should be much more user-friendly than compiling the information yourself, and is already used by Invidition to provide a list of instances for users to choose from.

The site itself is licensed under the AGPLv3 and the source is available here.

Video unavailable #811

Many users have likely noticed this error message if using Invidious directly or through another service, such as FreeTube. This issue is caused by rate-limiting by Google, and is not a new issuee for projects like Invidious (notably youtube-dl) and appears to be affecting smaller, private instances as well.

There is not a permanent fix for administrators currently, however there is some information available here that may provide a temporary solution. Unfortanately, in most cases the best option is to wait for the instance to be unbanned or to move the instance to a different IP. A more informative error message is also now provided, which should help an administrator more quickly diagnose the problem.

For those interested, I would recommend following #811 for any future progress on the issue.

BAT verified publisher

I'm quite late to this announcement, however I'm pleased to mention that Invidious is now a BAT verified publisher! I would recommend looking here or here for learning more about what it is and how it works. Overall I think it makes an interesting substitute for services like Liberapay, and a (hopefully) much less-intrusive alternative to direct advertising.

BAT is combined under other cryptocurrencies below. Currently there's a fairly significant delay in payout, which is the reason for the large fluctuation in crypto donations between September and October (and also the reason for the late announcement).

Release schedule

Currently I'm quite pleased with the current state of the project. There's plenty of things I'd still like to add, however at this point I expect the rate of most new additions will slow down a bit, with more focus on stabililty and any long-standing bugs.

Because of this, I'm planning on releasing a new version quarterly, with any necessary hotfixes being pushed as a new patch release as necessary. As always it will be possible to run Invidious directly from master if you'd still like to have the lastest version.

I'll plan on providing finances each release, with a similar monthly breakdown as below.

Finances for September 2019

Donations

• Patreon : $64.37
• Liberapay : $76.04
• Crypto : ~$99.89 (converted from BAT, BCH, BTC)
• Total : $240.30

Expenses

• invidious-lb1 (nyc1) : $10.00 (load balancer)
• invidious-update1 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (updates feeds)
• invidious-node1 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node2 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node3 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node4 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node5 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node6 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node7 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node8 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node9 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node10 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node11 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node12 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node13 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node14 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node15 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node16 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-db1 (s-4vcpu-8gb) : $40.00 (database)
• Total : $135.00

Finances for October 2019

• Liberapay : $134.40
• Crypto : ~$8.29 (converted from BAT, BCH, BTC)
• Total : $142.69

Expenses

• invidious-lb1 (nyc1) : $5.00 (load balancer)
• invidious-lb2 (nyc1) : $5.00 (load balancer)
• invidious-lb3 (nyc1) : $5.00 (load balancer)
• invidious-lb4 (nyc1) : $5.00 (load balancer)
• invidious-update1 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (updates feeds)
• invidious-node1 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node2 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node3 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node4 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node5 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node6 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node7 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node8 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node9 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node10 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node11 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node12 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node13 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node14 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node15 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node16 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node17 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node18 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-db1 (s-4vcpu-8gb) : $40.00 (database)
• Total : $155.00

Hotfix 0.19.1

Minor fix to video extractor after changes by YouTube.

It is recommended to update to this version immediately.

Version 0.19.0: Communities

Hello again everyone! Focus this month has mainly been on improving playback performance, along with a couple new features I'd like to announce. There have been 109 commits this past month from 10 contributors.

This past month has seen the addition of Chinese (zh-CN) and Icelandic (is) translations. I would like to give a huge thanks to their respective translators, and again an enormous thanks to everyone who helps translate the site.

I'm delighted to mention that FreeTube 0.6.0 now supports 1080p thanks to the Invidious API. I would very much recommend reading the relevant post for some more information on how it works, along with several other major improvements. Folks that are interested in adding similar functionality for their own projects should feel free to get in touch.

This past month there has been quite a bit of work on improving memory usage and improving download and playback speeds. As mentioned in the previous release, some extra hardware has been allocated which should also help with this. I'm still looking for ways to improve performance and feedback is always appreciated.

Along with performance, a couple quality of life improvements have been added, including author thumbnails and banners, clickable titles for embedded videos, and better styling for captions, among some other enhancements.

Communities

Support for YouTube's communities tab has been added. It's a very interesting but surprisingly unknown feature. Essentially, providing comments for a channel, rather than a video, where an author can post updates for their subscribers.

It's commonly used to promote interesting links and foster discussion. I hope this feature helps people find more interesting content that otherwise would have been overlooked.

For Developers

For accessing channel communities, an /api/v1/channels/comments/:ucid endpoint has been added, with similar behavior and schema to /api/v1/comments/:id, with an extra attachment field for top-level comments. More info on usage and available data can be found in the wiki.

An /api/v1/auth/feeds endpoint has been added for programmatically accessing a user's subscription feed, with options for displaying notifications and filtering an existing feed.

An /api/v1/search/suggestions endpoint has been added for retrieving suggestions for a given query.

For Administrators

It is now possible to disable more resource intensive features, such as downloads and DASH functionality by adding disable_proxy to your config. See #453 and the Wiki for more information and example usage. I expect this to be a big help for folks with limited bandwidth when hosting their own instances.

Finances

Donations

• Patreon : $38.39
• Liberapay : $84.85
• Crypto : ~$0.00 (converted from BCH, BTC)
• Total : $123.24

Expenses

• invidious-load1 (nyc1) : $10.00 (load balancer)
• invidious-update1 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (updates feeds)
• invidious-node1 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node2 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node3 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node4 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node5 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node6 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node7 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node8 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node9 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-node10 (s-1vcpu-1gb) : $5.00 (web server)
• invidious-db1 (s-4vcpu-8gb) : $40.00 (database)
• Total : $105.00

The goal on Patreon has been updated to reflect the above expenses. As mentioned above, the main reason for more hardware is to improve playback and download speeds, although I'm still looking into improving performance without allocating more hardware.

As always I'm grateful for everyone's support and feedback. I'll see you all next month.