Ad-free YouTube alternative Odysee will soon let you watch any YouTube video

If you’re tired of unskippable ads on YouTube, there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. Odysee, a decentralized video platform that’s been building itself up as a YouTube alternative, just announced that it’s working on a feature to let users watch any YouTube video directly on Odysee. Yes, any.

“BEING ABLE TO WATCH ANY YOUTUBE VIDEO ON ODYSEE IS COMING,” the platform posted on X, adding that it will be “a game changer for everyone that’s fed up with YT.” One key reassurance they threw in: creators won’t lose any of their YouTube earnings because of this.

The announcement quickly picked up attention and trended on X. The reactions were a mix of excitement and skepticism. One user brought up the obvious question about legal ramifications; Odysee didn’t really address it.

Another called it “literally just YouTube with an extra step,” and someone else mentioned they’d been using NewPipe until now, which already lets people watch YouTube ad-free.

So what sets Odysee apart from those workarounds? It’s not just a front-end viewer. It’s a full video hosting platform built on the LBRY blockchain, launched in 2020, and acquired by Forward Research in June 2024. It already runs a YouTube Sync Program where creators can mirror their channels to Odysee automatically. The new feature would take things further by letting anyone pull up a YouTube video inside Odysee without opening the YouTube app at all.

When asked why they’d bridge to YouTube instead of distancing from it, Odysee said: “YouTube sucks, it’s bloated and it no longer retains the spirit of what made it awesome.” Their bet is that bringing YouTube content into Odysee will get more people to actually try the platform.

It’s hard to argue with the frustration behind it. YouTube has been quietly stripping away features users relied on — we covered how YouTube removed key search filters earlier this year. Meanwhile, Brave browser recently added a toggle to block YouTube Shorts because demand for escaping the bloat was loud enough.

But the main frustration is the ads. I ranted about the terrible experience on our sister site over a year ago, and it has only been getting worse. So much so that some governments have had to step in themselves to end this ad apocalypse.

YouTube, on the other hand, has been heavily cracking down on ad blockers, browser workarounds, and other third-party tools that get rid of the ads. So I wonder how the folks over at Odysee will manage to pull this off, especially if they block ads. And even if they do pull it off, it’s possible that YouTube may act and ruin the viewer experience for folks trying to watch YouTube videos on Odysee.

That said, no release date has been shared yet, and the technical details of how it’ll work remain unclear. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all works once the feature goes live on the platform.

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