A web extension that redirects YouTube, Twitter, Instagram... requests to alternative privacy friendly frontends and backends

Why?

Normally you watch YouTube videos through youtube.com's server. Problem is everything you watch is tied to your Google Account. Even if you didn't use an account, you're IP address is still visible. Even if you used a VPN, you still have JavaScript enabled, a programming language that can get so much information about your browser and your system it's a little creepy. Just go to amiunique.org and see how much information is available to know about you.

So, why not disabling JavaScript? Great idea! Now YouTube is broken as it requires JavaScript to function ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There's a way though to make a script that scraps data off of youtube.com and presents it in a nice simple webpage that doesn't require JavaScript. People have done this already! There's a project called Invidious that doesn't require JavaScript for you to watch YouTube videos, ex: https://invidious.manerakai.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Those (Invidious and others) are called alternative Frontends, where you really are still using YouTube but with a different Interface, in our case a privacy friendly one.

Use an Invidious instance with JavaScript disabled + VPN or Tor, and it's almost impossible to know who watched that video.

The code for Invidious is open source and you can run it on your own home server or personal computer. People did this already and there's a ton of Instances that are basically servers running Invidious in different parts of the world.

Using an instance with multiple people helps to mix your data together as it only exists from one end. It's like using a shared library computer.

Using multiple instances (a random one each time) will also mix your data more as request logs are now stored in multiple servers rather than in a single centralized one if they happened to store logs in the first place.

Using a random instance and changing links each time from ex:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ => https://invidious.manerakai.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
is a difficult process and best to be automated. Well, we did that!

LibRedirect's main functionality is to make the use of those instances easier by automating it. It makes life much more easier and privacy more convenient.

Download and install it.

Type or click on any youtube link you want, ex: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ.
It will automatically redirect you to a random Invidious instance. You can fine tune your redirections in the settings page.

Same with Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Imgur, TikTok, Google Translate and much more!