Bandwidth // Audio only

[AbdallahElYaddak]

⚬ PROBLEM:
Unneeded bandwidth usage when I am only interested in listening to the audio, I can set the video quality to the minimum for sure, but that can be better if a feature of "Audio Only" can be added.
There are some chrome extensions that do that, but they overwrite the playback speed settings set by "Improved Youtube":
1 - Audio Only Youtube (Its GitHub Repo)
2 - Audio Only For Youtube

⚬ SOLUTION:
Add a feature of "Audio Only" that keeps the playback speed settings.

⚬ ALTERNATIVES:
Prevent other extensions from overwriting playback speed settings.

⚬ RELEVANCE / SCOPE:
The other extensions that provide "Audio Only" show 82k + users on Chrome Store.

⚬ "SIDE EFFECTS":
Since it should be an on/off setting, no one should hate it.

SHORT Table	(Summary)
Problem	Audio Only extensions overwrite playback speed settings set by "Improved YouTube"
Solution	Include this feature within "Improved YouTube" that keeps the playback speed settings active.
Alternatives	Prevent other extensions from overwriting playback speed settings.
Scope	82k + users on Chrome Store.
Side effects	None

[ImprovedTube]

hi :) @AbdallahElYaddak
Yes,144p videos consumes maybe (only) twice as much as audio. (improvedtube allows it fixed or by hotkey - and a player button to come? Switching video off, still might help with expensive data traffic in Kenia for example or with free simcards or so. (and i would be nice to reduce audio quality too or reduce video quality further, however that would need a proxy server)
Optimally, this should also come with:

• the option to show and save single frames in full resolution
• a key to hold down, to increase quality temporarily (like "push to talk" - "push to see/hear better" )

---

And finally, here is something big to say, that could save so much bandwidth in the world (, electricity, co2):
100% of all online data, should be buffered/cached until storage is full.
(only automatically removing the stuff not accessed for the longest with the highest resolutions and http expired for the longest)

[ImprovedTube]

@AbdallahElYaddak thanks to write down the details btw

Audio Only source code: https://github.com/Ashish-Bansal/audio-only-youtube

[ghost]

Requires webRequest permission.

[codekoriko]

+1 👍

[raszpl]

Looking at https://github.com/Ashish-Bansal/audio-only-youtube/blob/master/src/js/content-script.ts they overwrite video element with audio only source. Extracting Audio sources from YT page is no problem, but they need encrypted signature and thats where problems start yt-dlp/yt-dlp#6400 so we cant just use all listed sources easily. audio-only-youtube uses current active playing audio track and overwrites video element .src with that.
Instead of low quality video one could do a slideshow using seek thumbnails, but I have suspicion low quality video would use less BW.

[ImprovedTube]

• the option to show and save single frames in full resolution
• a key to hold down, to increase quality temporarily (like "push to talk" - "push to see/hear better" )

seek thumbnails

thanks for adding this term. Compare: #2113

[ImprovedTube]

greetings to @Ashish-Bansal! #1881

[Ashish-Bansal]

@ImprovedTube Let me know what help you need from me in regards to this.

[ImprovedTube]

just greeting you @Ashish-Bansal 👋

[ImprovedTube]

just greeting you @Ashish-Bansal 👋

i saw (acknowledged) your extension many times, thus chances are you might you like the idea to make it all more useful?
(and @animeshkundu's firefox version is a fork?)

---

For ImprovedTube thinking of teamwork & cooperation should be Nr.1 on the To-Do List, because we have 100+ features, many of which might require maintenance. (Sadly similar project's developers might want to work on their own code only, even if they can't keep up and have to frustrate users (like 3.5 stars instead of 4.9) #1881 (reply in thread) )

• (I know luckily your project might not have a maintenance-burden for years). - Yet the cooperation-potential applies. Maybe we can/should simply demonstrate the power of cooperating. (next to open-source & volunteering which we do already)

We should implement an audio-only feature already. (At least that will make many of our users save a lot of bandwidth soon. And can increase the overall effect of this feature by many percent, without reducing your users since our user counts are small fractions of Youtube's and intersection might be minimal)

• Obviously without watching your code much this will take some more work, while we might miss some bugs for long.
  • So we could potentially rather use the same code and same icon. And place a link to your standalone extension and Repo
    • So then things will be efficient & sweet in this regard: No users will even have to remember two icons.
  • In case of making such use of your work, we will need your permission, since ImprovedTube is not under a viral (GNU) license, as noted here making two points: 1.) Excluding usage of our code for random commerce, adware or spam. 2.) Distributing votes/responsibility fairly and thus (potentially) paying royalties to contributors.) Both of which other Licenses don't consider. So we might register a charity and put much of our code under a MIT or a GNU license, just optimally not all.

[ImprovedTube]

we implemented #300

[Ashish-Bansal]

Sorry for the late reply!

just greeting you @Ashish-Bansal 👋

i saw (acknowledged) your extension many times, thus chances are you might you like the idea to make it all more useful? (and @animeshkundu's firefox version is a fork?)

Yes, I believe that firefox version is a fork.

For ImprovedTube thinking of teamwork & cooperation should be Nr.1 on the To-Do List, because we have 100+ features, many of which might require maintenance. (Sadly similar project's developers might want to work on their own code only, even if they can't keep up and have to frustrate users (like 3.5 stars instead of 4.9) #1881 (reply in thread) )

• (I know luckily your project might not have a maintenance-burden for years). - Yet the cooperation-potential applies. Maybe we can/should simply demonstrate the power of cooperating. (next to open-source & volunteering which we do already)

We should implement an audio-only feature already. (At least that will make many of our users save a lot of bandwidth soon. And can increase the overall effect of this feature by many percent, without reducing your users since our user counts are small fractions of Youtube's and intersection might be minimal)

• Obviously without watching your code much this will take some more work, while we might miss some bugs for long.

  • So we could potentially rather use the same code and same icon. And place a link to your standalone extension and Repo

    • So then things will be efficient & sweet in this regard: No users will even have to remember two icons.

  • In case of making such use of your work, we will need your permission, since ImprovedTube is not under a viral (GNU) license, as noted here making two points: 1.) Excluding usage of our code for random commerce, adware or spam. 2.) Distributing votes/responsibility fairly and thus (potentially) paying royalties to contributors.) Both of which other Licenses don't consider. So we might register a charity and put much of our code under a MIT or a GNU license, just optimally not all.

Yep, that's totally alright with me!