It can be a bit buggy at times, but when it comes to just playing music with the screen locked, it’s perfect.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-background-play-fix/
Edit: I forgot to also mention that ad blocker extensions make sailing the seas on mobile much more manageable. Extentions, in general, have been a really nice addition.
Just get YouTube Revanced?
This works again?
It’s been working for as long as I have had it. Sometimes if it stops working, you have to create a new patched app with Revanced manager
Newpipe can also be used as a full-on replacement to the YouTube app or YouTube in a browser. It allows for background music, or video and audio downloads for offline enjoyment.
The apk has to be sideloaded, of course.
Came here to say this. Newpipe has been awesome. You don’t have to sign in, no ads, can still sub and make a playlist. It’s basically youtube premium and I have had zero issues with it.
Ugh, no. Another “emulate in browser what could’ve been native” thing.
This IS native in firefox for android. I have no idea why OP is using an extension.
Background playback used to be a thing in the official app, but then they obviously couldn’t get as many people to pay for YouTube Music or YouTube Premium or whatever.
Or just download it and play using VLC.
I mean… your music is gonna sound so funny if your internet stutters.
Look, I usually laugh at audiophiles for being snobs, but getting music from YouTube is gonna make your music sound funny without Internet issues
Get the music elsewhere if you’re gonna play local files
Use fennec or Ironfox
I’m good with ReVanced, thanks.
Playing YouTube on a mobile browser is finicky at best.
Speaking of, where can I get revanced? There seem to be three different revanced managers floating about…
Revanced.app and the GitHub the other person linked to are the only official sources.
An easy way to tell if you’re using the legit version is if you’re using ReVanced Manager to build the APK yourself. (Don’t worry, it’s easy and straightforward.) If you downloaded an APK directly, you have a fake copy.
Here’s their Github, enjoy friend!
And for everyone else who doesn’t want extra garbage on their phone it’s: switch to ‘Desktop Site’ > continue doing whatever else. This applies to both Firefox and Firefox Focus
No need promote/install more unnecessary stuff on your phones 🤦
Edit- that being said, I still include no script/ublock in FF and use FFF for yt videos when I don’t want to clog my Tubular history (newpipe fork with sponsor block) with useless stuff that I’ll never want to rewatch.
RVX also does this. Install revanced.
For those on iOS: there’s an app called “Vinegar” that replaces the YouTube player with a vanilla HTML5 player that supports background/PiP play without YT Premium.
Alternatively on iPhones with “dynamic island”, minimize Safari while a video is playing, quickly tap-and-hold the dynamic island area and resume playback. After that you can lock your device and audio will continue playing.
This functionality is also built into the brave browser on mobile as well (at least on iOS)
Brave settings -> Media -> Enable Background Audio
BE WARNED. These extensions are a prime target for purchase and/or hijacking by malicious threat actors, who then use them to gain persistence on your browsers and steal data. There is no reason to increase your browser attack surface for this feature when better alternatives have been posted in this thread.
There are dozens of these articles dating back the last five years or so.
To top up your comment, you can get the permissions required for each extension in Firefox for Android. Extension Manager --> click the extension --> Permissions
In the case of this specific extension, it requires access to the data of only 3 domains :
Many other extensions are far worst in regards to permissions that this one.
It is a good habit to check what are the permissions required before using any extension or phone apps for that matter.
Thanks for the reminder!
- RiMusic https://github.com/fast4x/RiMusic
- SimpMusic https://github.com/maxrave-dev/SimpMusic
- OuterTune https://github.com/OuterTune/OuterTune
- Metrolist https://github.com/mostafaalagamy/Metrolist
- InnerTune https://github.com/z-huang/InnerTune
Any of these (YouTube Music) players are better choices than using an extension on a browser.
Also better features like lyrics, better interface…PS: extensions can access all of your browser data, you need to trust the extensions hoping that they aren’t sending your data to some 3rd party
I’ve used most of these and quite frankly they are not good. Each of them quit working randomly or wouldn’t play certain tracks and wouldn’t get an update for days or weeks, at which point I’d move on to the next and get exactly the same experience. They’re FOSS apps, and I’m fairly certain Google is to blame for breaking them, but even so if they are unusable for days or weeks at a time I cannot recommend them.
If you just want a YouTube app with no ads and background playback I would recommend PipePipe. It’s what I’ve settled on after trying everything else, and it’s fantastic. Google breaks it all the time, but updates very quickly bring it back online.
If you want something FOSS that’s closer to the YT Music experience, I don’t know what to tell you.
ReVanced is better, it’s a cracked YouTube app
I just watched it when it stopped working after 8 months without issue. This is normal for it
RiMusic is update regularly, no third party player is perfect, even PipiPipe or Newpipe can break suddenly, Google/YouTube don’t like third party apps using their services and are always implementing ways to break apps
I’m pretty sure extensions can request browsing data for some specific URLs rather than every site you visit. If an extension with functionality on one website asks for access to all of them, then yeah it’s a bad sign.
The person you replied to is correct, and your link confirms it:
An extension with broad permissions can access all tabs and browsing data
The extension does not just have this access, it has to request it from the user first.
Of course, an extension can request access to all browsing data, but Firefox will tell you about that before you install it. And better still, the extension this post is about, doesn’t even request this:
You know Firefox for android does this natively. No plugin required.
How? Mine does not as it is setup currently.
I play the video in Firefox then lock the screen, which stops the playback but then FF is in the media bar so I can press play to continue playback.
Didn’t realise that this worked, thanks!
That was my thought… I was thinking “I already do this without an extension”, so I had to verify that I wasn’t using an extension that I forgot about.
YSK: Revanced is a thing that exists.
blud just install newpipe
