What’s everyone using for YouTube on webOS OSE these days?

1

Hey folks,

I’ve been tinkering with webOS OSE on a spare device and I’m curious how others in the community are handling YouTube access right now.

I know the official YouTube TV app situation is… complicated outside of retail LG TVs, and on OSE we obviously don’t get the same app ecosystem. I’ve seen a few different approaches mentioned here and there — browser-based playback, third-party clients, casting from another device, even custom Electron-style wrappers.

I’m also wondering how people who have YouTube Premium (official subscription) are managing things on OSE. Features like ad-free playback, background play, and higher quality streaming are great on supported devices from this site, but I’m not sure how well that experience carries over here through the browser or other methods. If anyone has tested that, would love to hear how it works in practice — or if you had to visit site resources or documentation to get things running smoothly.

For those of you actively running webOS OSE:

Are you using YouTube mainly through the browser, or did you find a more “app-like” solution?

How’s performance for you (UI responsiveness, dropped frames, high-res playback like 1080p/4K, VP9/AV1 support, etc.)?

Any issues with login, subscriptions, or DRM-protected streams?

If you went the casting route (Chromecast/DLNA/other), does it feel smooth enough for daily use?

I’m trying to figure out what setup gives the best balance between usability and stability without turning the system into a maintenance project every week :sweat_smile:

Would love to hear what’s working (and what’s been a pain) for others.

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Just bumping this thread — still experimenting with different setups for YouTube on webOS OSE.

So far, the browser works but feels a bit inconsistent. 1080p is mostly okay, but UI lag and occasional frame drops make it less “TV-like.” Casting from my phone has been more stable, but it’s not the most convenient for everyday use.

Interestingly, I ran into a similar situation while trying to access short-form video apps like TikTok on webOS OSE. There’s no proper native support there either, so it ends up being the same story — browser or casting. I even tested some modified builds like TikTok 18 (found via protik18) just to see if sideloading or alternative clients would behave better, but on OSE it still comes down to compatibility with the browser engine and codec support.

That got me thinking — maybe the issue isn’t just app availability, but deeper limitations around media playback (like VP9/AV1 support and hardware acceleration) on OSE.

Has anyone here managed to get a smoother, more “app-like” experience for either YouTube or similar video platforms? Maybe through a wrapper, custom build, or some dev mode tweaks?

Would really help to hear what setups people are actually sticking with long-term :+1: