Alternative: https://flathub.org/apps/rocks.shy.VacuumTube
The UI is regular YouTube for TV but bundles plugins such as SposorBlock.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
110 points (95.1% liked)
Technology
81534 readers
4349 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Started using this a couple weeks ago in my Google TV w/ Chromecast replacement (Using a Beelink mini-PC with Debian) and it's so much better than using the desktop site
Thanks for the tip, it reminds me of youtube app in nintendo switch
Cool beans, unfortunately GrayJay doesn't fucking work at all, no matter what I try and on which device.
So I gave up. I use the YouTube website via IronFox on mobile, and LibreWolf on computers ; with lots of extensions to de-bloat it.
Works for me no problem 🤷♂️
The more I hear about Louis Rossman and Futo the less I trust either of them. I used to like Louis for his right to repair conversations, but Futo is a very shady organization. They act like they promote open source but refuse to adopt actual FOSS licensing and try to be overly corporate while also trying to play the pro-consumer side. I don't like it. There are YouTube frontends made by actual FOSS developers with proper FOSS licenses, so I'm not sure why anyone should support or use Grayjay.
I don't give a shit about drama. You dig into anybody's life deep enough and you're going to find sonething you don't like.
The software works well and the code is viewable. That's what's important to me.
Rossman doesn't work for FUTO anymore. FUTO has done some weird shit and Rossman has made some missteps in the past, but at least for him his heart seems to be in the right place. I don't think it's in his nature to want to screw you over so to speak.
My understanding is the issue on calling it open source was a sincere difference of word usage (can see the source code) and going forward they would use a different term for their licence intention (can see the code but must pay the copyright holder if you make money off forking/using it).
FUTO license proposes to actually generate income for "source available" developers. It's worked out very well for open source Immich.
Except immich actually uses the AGPLv3
Yes I did say open source.
The term open source has lost its original meaning for some time now.
Which is why using it should be considered harmful and everyone should say "Free Software" instead.
lol, this is kinda confusing.
So what does this do for me exactly?
Why though?
Ease of use for steam big picture mode on TVs. It is one of the problems I've been meaning to find a solution for when I build my media center TV to make things easier for my not nearly as tech savvy wife and kids.
Check out VacuumTube!
Probably for additional exposure to the public and to monetize via paid DLC as a 'supporter tier' style offering (with limited or no added features).
Grayjay is donationware - "FOSS", but with a strong encouragement to donate if you use it regularly and have the means to support.
I put FOSS in quotes because Grayjay is not really OSS. It has a custom license that does not allow commercial reuse of its code.
This has caused significant discussion of concerns and ire from some.
https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/grayjay-frontend/14616
https://github.com/futo-org/grayjay-android/issues/18
https://hiphish.github.io/blog/2023/10/18/grayjay-is-not-open-source/
P. S. Grayjay is great software, I use it a lot and have reported several bugs which the dev team have been super responsive to and resolved all. I have supported them with a donation purely on the aforementioned, but their license is a bummer. I'd like to see other projects be able to reuse their code widely as true OSS. I also personally have concerns with the example screenshots they show on site having a bunch of RW content creators / grifters, and their support of the Rumble service as an official plugin, but I understand they are free-speech aligned and trying to be apolitical in their approach. I personally think they could do that without giving RW figures free advertising in their screenshots, and allowing a third-party to create the Rumble plugin rather than dedicating dev work to support it officially, but it's just a red flag to me more than a dealbreaker.
(Edit - see comments below, Futo is worse than I was aware).
And Futo's ties to Curtis Yarvin, red flag or dealbreaker?
I wasn't t aware of the Curtis Yarvin link at all. I've just read that blog article and it's not possible to remain cautiously optimistic or give them benefit of the doubt.. the FUTO founder (Eron Wolf) seems very clearly ideologically-aligned with fascists.
Well, now I'm really hoping they change their license to true open source, so a group less ideologically disastrous can fork it and take the helm for interested contributors and supporters to join.
Fuck all that shit, wtf
FUTO does not accept donations, only license purchases.
I'm sure I donated back in version 0.1 or 0.2, maybe a year ago, but looking now it doesn't seem to show me as being a registered user, so perhaps I was wrong.
I'm pretty sure it still falls under the definition of 'donationware', though?
Donationware is a licensing model that supplies fully operational unrestricted software to the user and requests an optional donation be paid to the programmer or a third-party beneficiary (usually a non-profit).[1] The amount of the donation may also be stipulated by the author, or it may be left to the discretion of the user, based on individual perceptions of the software's value. Since donationware comes fully operational (i.e. not crippleware/freemium) when payment is optional, it is a type of freeware.
Never seen something on steam that says "coming soon" and also "no longer available on steam" before.
Schrödinger’s front end
Killed by Google?
Orrrrrr.......maybe it was Lee Harvey Oswald. Notice how Steam goes back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Baaaaaack.....and to the left.
Frankly I think Oswald was framed. I'm of the opinion JFK's head just...did that.
Grayjay is awesome. I use it to watch youtube while I play elite in vr.
I use Desktop+ to watch youtube in vr. It works really well.
How is the quality? I have just been using FireFox through the headset's built in overlay because other tools that would out 2D screens in the 3D environment are blurry as fuck.
It's a quest 3, I could crank up the graphics but it makes the game laggy. For VR, latency is much more important. You would probably get better res with the browser as you're doing, but if you want good res, why game at the same time? I make it a small window and put it on the dashboard of my spaceship so I can watch TV while I'm flying long journeys. Don't need a high res there