[Enhancement] Automatic Redirect in `redirect.invidious.io`

[thecashewtrader]

Is your enhancement request related to a problem? Please describe. Invidious works great for people who know about it and have Privacy Redirect or similar installed. However, when sharing links with others, it isn't possible to share a single link that works for all.

For example,

• if you were to share a link with youtube.com as the base URI, users with Privacy Redirect get Invidious working fine, but users without it get vanilla YouTube, which is not ideal.
• If you were to share a link with my-instance-uri.com as the base URI, the person sharing the link gets Invidious working fine, but this doesn't take into account the fact that different instances will work for different people due to location and such. Moreover, it doesn't respect Privacy Redirect's instance preference.
• If you were to share a link with redirect.invidious.io as the base URI, people without Privacy Redirect or similar (generally potential new invidious users) get Invidious working fine (as they don't have an instance preference as of yet), but people with Privacy Redirect have to do atleast one extra click for every link, and this doesn't respect Privacy Redirect's instance preference.

Describe the solution you'd like https://redirect.invidious.io should either:

• have an instance preference and auto redirect users who have set the preference(this could be in a cookie or localStorage etc.)
• have an option to auto redirect to YouTube and let Privacy Redirect handle the rest.

Describe alternatives you've considered Due to how the question was framed, alternatives are included in the question.

Additional context None

[Perflyst]

If you were to share a link with my-instance-uri.com as the base URI, the person sharing the link gets Invidious working fine, but this doesn't take into account the fact that different instances will work for different people due to location and such. Moreover, it doesn't respect Privacy Redirect's instance preference.

What if it would? You share my-instance-uri.com and Privacy Redirect, if installed, would always redirect to the configured instance. There is an open feature request: https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect/issues/50

Sounds like the best solution to me because this will handle even more cases and also all other "privacy frontends" can benefit from this chosen instance redirect feature.

[thecashewtrader]

@Perflyst I see, but this only works for users who already have Privacy Redirect, and not for users who do not have Privacy Redirect. A small issue that exists in this is, (potential) new users do not get to choose their instance and will often be using a suboptimal instance, potentially mistaking the slow speed due to said instance with invidious as a program.

[tutacat]

or create this issue on Privacy Redirect? Or just face the extra click?

[thecashewtrader]

@tutacat I was not sure where such an issue would fit best, so I thought of creating one here to atleast get a conversation going. I'm fine with an extra click, but it'd still be nice to have automatic redirects.

[Clozent]

I personally use a custom redirector, so not having some sort of option to specify that I want to automatically redirect is kind of annoying, since it means there is no way for me to skip the instance list in redirect.invidious.io. In my opinion, there should be something optional in the URL that would trigger an automatic redirect. Something like this: redirect.invidious.io/auto-redirect/watch?v=aV1de0ID could work. Perhaps it could be something else, like a query parameter, such as what's been suggested in #11, but just having that option in the URL is what matters (to me, at least).

[thecashewtrader]

@Clozent as per this, I think your issue would be fixed:

have an option to auto redirect to YouTube and let Privacy Redirect handle the rest.

redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=aV1de0ID -> youtube.com/watch?v=aV1de0ID (Now Redirector kicks in) -> instance.com/watch?v=aV1de0ID

[Clozent]

This would work if I had a preferred instance, but, for me, the entire point of using redirect.invidious.io is to select a (somewhat) random but healthy instance.