I'm interested, how that works?

I liked Opt Out a lot, but in recent years it has quite few episodes. It's main topic is privacy and related technologies, in every episode they have a guest related to the current topic.

One more step

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And also to explicitly feed garbage when the useragent is that of the googlebot. And while we are at it, do the same with a few other UAs too. You know which I mean.

Of course, that may not be feasible for everyone, but I do know that my visitors are not coming from google.

Using another frontend shifts the data profile but it still exists and provides value to them.

I wouldn't care if they would only keep aggregate statistics, not stats about individual users, and when watching through a public frontend my usage blends in with that of many other people.

• invidious
• piped
• some TVs have 3rd party specialized versions of the official webapp

The first two have web pages and phone apps. You can find the phone apps on F-droid.

Fun fact: did you know that the youtube app on your TV is just a no-effort web browser with a URL fixed to a web page, which you could even use on your PC?

Which does not solve the webcam's mic, which (to me) is a bigger issue because it does not only record who's in the from of the machine, but also the whole surrounding area.

Ok, I hear you. But here's the secret: I don't want to use a webcam at all. If you want to see me, agree to a physical meetup. Obviously that's not the only reason.

Unfortunately that's not an option. Youtube has not only host "fun" videos, but repair videos, learning materials and even university course learning materials, none of them to be found elsewhere.

Are you from Hungary?

At a lot of places that's not a question of choice.

Aaand if they allow downloading select files, it's most probably not encrypted either.