Nice, love to see more alternatives in this space. I'm currently using GlazeWM, which provides an i3-like experience on Windows. To the ones saying 'just switch to Linux', I used Linux full-time for many years but switched back to use Windows-only software, and a tiling WM and a package manager like Scoop goes a long way in making it more bearable.

To elaborate, while the errors in the middle of videos were because of general anti-bot measures, the errors at the beginning of videos were caused by a change that specifically targets third-party clients like NewPipe and youtube-dl. This is definitely part of an arms race.

Changelog

New

• [SoundCloud] Add support for on.soundcloud.com URLs

Improved

• [Bandcamp] Show additional info in radio kiosk

Fixed

• [YouTube] Fix occasional HTTP 403 errors at the beginning or in the middle of videos
• [YouTube] Extract avatar and banner from more channel header types
• [Bandcamp] Fix various bugs and always use HTTPS

I see. I don't believe there's currently any way to filter kiosk content by type like that. You could open a feature request for it on GitHub if you'd like (assuming one doesn't already exist).

Hide the 'Shorts' channel tab:
Settings > Content > Channel tabs > Uncheck 'Shorts'

Hide shorts in feed/subscriptions:
Settings > Content > Fetch channel tabs > Uncheck 'Shorts'

Your question has been mostly answered, though if you're wondering why v0.26.0 is missing as well, it's because of some issues with reproducible builds that should hopefully have been resolved now.

I thought the app was being rewritten and that this version was only gonna receive fixes until the rewrite is over.

That's correct. The "New" and "Improved" changes are mostly from pull requests that were opened before the rewrite announcement, or are important quality of life improvements.

Changelog

New

• Add comment replies
• Allow reordering playlists
• Show playlist description and duration
• Allow resetting settings

Improved

• [Android 13+] Restore custom notification actions
• Request consent for update check
• Allow notification play/pause while buffering
• Reorder some settings

Fixed

• [YouTube] Fix comments not loading, plus other fixes and improvements
• Solve vulnerability in settings import and switch to JSON
• Various download fixes
• Trim search text

Changelog

New

• Add comment replies
• Allow reordering playlists
• Show playlist description and duration
• Allow resetting settings

Improved

• [Android 13+] Restore custom notification actions
• Request consent for update check
• Allow notification play/pause while buffering
• Reorder some settings

Fixed

• [YouTube] Fix comments not loading, plus other fixes and improvements
• Solve vulnerability in settings import and switch to JSON
• Various download fixes
• Trim search text

Changelog

New

• Add comment replies
• Allow reordering playlists
• Show playlist description and duration
• Allow resetting settings

Improved

• [Android 13+] Restore custom notification actions
• Request consent for update check
• Allow notification play/pause while buffering
• Reorder some settings

Fixed

• [YouTube] Fix comments not loading, plus other fixes and improvements
• Solve vulnerability in settings import and switch to JSON
• Various download fixes
• Trim search text

Sorry, I didn't see that you were on Mastodon, that explains it.

Yes, you've already commented that and it's a good suggestion. Why did you need to write it twice?

Version 0.26.1 (and 0.26.0) hasn't been published on F-Droid yet because it couldn't be reproduced (meaning that the app as built by F-Droid wasn't completely identical to the one published by the NewPipe team). The problem is tracked here:
https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/issues/10746

It's in the current build cycle, so give it 1-2 days.

Where do you find images that you could get a link to? I don't understand that feature

The app now shows links to images that NewPipe fetches like thumbnails, avatars and banners. You can find them in the video descriptions and in the 'About' channel tab.

The ability to download playlists is not introduced in this release. There is an open feature request for it that is tracked here: NewPipe#5482
In the meantime, you can use NewPipe in conjunction with Seal to download playlists.

Changelog

New:

• Support channel tabs
• Select image quality
• Get URLs to all images

Improved:

• Accessibility of player interfaces
• Better audio selection for video-only downloads
• Option to include playlist and video names to shared playlist content

Fixed:

• [YouTube] Fix getting like count
• Fix player not responding popups and crashes
• Selection of wrong languages in language picker
• Player audio focus was not respecting mute
• Playlist item addition occasionally not working

Changelog

New:

• Support channel tabs
• Select image quality
• Get URLs to all images

Improved:

• Accessibility of player interfaces
• Better audio selection for video-only downloads
• Option to include playlist and video names to shared playlist content

Fixed:

• [YouTube] Fix getting like count
• Fix player not responding popups and crashes
• Selection of wrong languages in language picker
• Player audio focus was not respecting mute
• Playlist item addition occasionally not working

Changelog

New:

• Support channel tabs
• Select image quality
• Get URLs to all images

Improved:

• Accessibility of player interfaces
• Better audio selection for video-only downloads
• Option to include playlist and video names to shared playlist content

Fixed:

• [YouTube] Fix getting like count
• Fix player not responding popups and crashes
• Selection of wrong languages in language picker
• Player audio focus was not respecting mute
• Playlist item addition occasionally not working

sonder be like