I just use yt-dlp (YTDLnis on Android, which has a great UI that makes it quite YouTube-like). Downloading instead of streaming (read: downloading then automatically deleting) is so much better.
1. It's all offline play, so I can use my favorite players like VLC. Also, no buffering (after the initial download, of course).
2. I can do anything I want to the video: make edits, splice ads out, extract audio, generate subtitles or dubs, etc.
3. It saves Google server costs! Well, comparing to streaming the same video from them multiple times with adblock on, at least.
I do this so I can watch powerpoint style math videos with the colors inverted, so it's white text on black background instead of black text on white background.
Download the video and then open with `mpv --vf=negate --hwdec=no`.
1. It's all offline play, so I can use my favorite players like VLC. Also, no buffering (after the initial download, of course).
2. I can do anything I want to the video: make edits, splice ads out, extract audio, generate subtitles or dubs, etc.
3. It saves Google server costs! Well, comparing to streaming the same video from them multiple times with adblock on, at least.