NewPipe, the open-source YouTube client for Android, received a major update early last month. The update included the unified video player UI that we saw in a previous test release and several other improvements. Shortly after the rollout, the app received another update that patched a bug with the YouTube search. The developers behind NewPipe are now rolling out another update that brings improvements for YouTube video loading speed and a new swipe gesture.

According to a recent post on the NewPipe blog, the latest update (v. 0.20.3) introduces a new two-finger swipe down gesture that makes closing the embedded player much easier. Closing the embedded player was a two-step process on previous versions of the app. You first had to swipe down on the embedded player to switch to the mini player and then swipe down again to close it. Now, you can close the embedded player in one go with the new two-finger swipe down gesture.

The second significant improvement in the latest update is that NewPipe now loads YouTube videos much faster. As the blog post explains, "YouTube has removed obfuscation for most of its URLs, so now we can directly access them, speeding up video loading by a lot! The deobfuscation code is still cached in case it is needed." Other noteworthy changes include:

  • All the different enqueuing options have now been replaced with a unified one
  • The app now has a new setting that allows users to clear the reCAPTCHA cookies
  • Added a new option to turn off the colorized notification that popped up when playing streams on Android 8.0 and above. Once enabled, the notification has a static color.
  • Added support for YouTube Short URLs
  • Added support for shortened channel links which look like: "youtube.com/username"
  • Added support for discarding the extra cruft on redirect URLs to help users open links from Google in NewPipe.

If you already have NewPipe installed on your device, the app should prompt you to update to the latest release when you open it up. In case you don't have an older build, you can grab the latest release from NewPipe's GitHub. To see all the other improvements/fixes in the latest release, check the changelog section below.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/