YouTube’s Crackdown on Third-Party Apps is in Full Swing

YouTube has recently taken steps to block popular third-party apps that allow users to watch videos without ads. Some of these include SmartTube, NewPipe, YouTube on Kodi, and any other third-party client that is not explicitly approved by Google.

Starting this morning, many users of several third-party YouTube apps began experiencing issues accessing content. Apps like SmartTube, NewPipe, and YouTube on Kodi were returning 403 “Access Denied” errors. This appears to be an intentional move by YouTube to restrict access to apps that haven’t properly registered with their platform.

This move has left many users frustrated and searching for alternatives. Fortunately, YouTube Revanced, which is actually a YouTube client with added features, has not been affected yet. However, you need to update to the latest YouTube Revanced version in order to watch YouTube ad free, as older version have stopped working quite recently.

Reddit user SimilarSupermarket got this message while accessing the YouTube via third-party client. It says, the developer needs to complete Google verification. The user also adds that YouTube has simultaneously been pushing YouTube Premium for regular users.

The good news is, developers of app like SmartTube have already released a patch to circumvent the restrictions. It’s likely to be an ongoing cat-and-mouse game.

The not so good news is that developers will need to go through the verification process again and Google may not approve for all.