Comment by rany_

3 years ago

They need to run a JavaScript function to download YouTube videos at normal speeds.

Edit: it's also required to download music, otherwise it will just fail

Source:

- https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/29326#issuecom...

- https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/d619dd712f63aab1...

- https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/cf001636600430...

3 comments

rany_

Reply
ajkjk  3 years ago

Wow:

   Overview of the control flow (already known):
   The Youtube API provides you with n - your video access token
   If their new changes apply to your client (they do for "web") then it is expected your client will modify n based on internal logic. This logic is inside player...base.js
   n is modified by a cryptic function
   Modified n is sent back to server as proof that we're an official client. If you send n unmodified, the server will eventually throttle you.

So they can always change the function to keep you on your toes, hence you need to be able to run semi-arbitrary JS in order to keep using the API.

Waste of human brainpower but I guess that energy is better spent imagining a world where Google isn't in charge instead of kvetching about what they're doing with their influence.

  • isatty  3 years ago

    There is a reason Google is able to serve the amount of video bandwidth, and also a reason why there are no worthwhile youtube clones. Some amount of scrape protection is absolutely essential.

    • Aperocky  3 years ago

      Seems like they ultimately failed, youtube-dl is available freely as a pip package, anyone with scraping intent would have been able to use it.