Video Tools

youtube-viewer – lightweight application that searches and streams videos from YouTube

Last Updated on September 1, 2020

Summary

youtube-viewer is a useful utility for anyone who prefers accessing YouTube material without firing up a (bloated) web browser. There’s lots to admire in this application, but it doesn’t get my recommendation.

That’s really a reflection of the very strong competition in this field rather than any specific flaw in the project although it’s unfortunate there’s no support for gapless playback for playlists. There’s also no plans to support other sites besides YouTube.

Instead, I prefer youtube-dl and You-Get, as the best open source command-line tools to bypass the web barrier. They also offer a lot more functionality than access to YouTube material.

youtube-viewer and its graphical counterpart are written in Perl. If you’re looking to learn Perl, check out our recommended free Perl books, and free Perl tutorials.

Website: github.com/trizen/youtube-viewer
Support:
Developer: Daniel Șuteu
License: Artistic License 2.0

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation
Page 3 – Summary

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Interocitor
Interocitor
4 years ago

This is the stupidest and most convoluted thing ever. You can already stream yt vids in linux with youtube-dl without any of this braindamged setup process by simply doing `youtube-dl ${url} -o – | mpv -` or similar (Adjust for your media player of choice.

Trent Calder
Trent Calder
4 years ago
Reply to  Interocitor

If you read the review, you’d have noticed that the reviewer says the program doesn’t come near to youtube-dl or You-Get.

Derek Bryan
Derek Bryan
4 years ago
Reply to  Interocitor

Why is youtube-viewer stupid or convoluted? Because there’s other software out there that performs a similar function? On that basis, just about all software is stupid and convoluted.

Jesse
Jesse
4 years ago

I have become wary of such tools. Not because of the tools themselves. But, because of the content source.

Downloaders and scrapers have been against Youtube’s EULA for the past few months now. While they may not be acting on it just yet; I feel that once Youtube has stabilized on original content creation as an owner, they will begin cracking down on all “misuse” cases en masse. They specifically do not want even paying subscribers to be able to accelerate viewing consumption in any form which may cost them ad revenue.