Basically Most videos don’t load on first try for me on Freetube. so I have to go back and forth to reload the video hoping this time it will load? they have removed the reload button, and the team are just closing issues on GitHub that demand reinstating the reload button. Plus comments have stopping loading as well.
Invidious doesn’t work half of the times. and piped is dead.
What do you recommend using on desktop. or is paying for youtube Red the only option left?
“Open URL” in smplayer works consistently. AFAIK it exposes your IP to YouTube, so (I might add) smplayer behind a VPN.
At least in the mobile the SABR problems others mention can be solved by a setting: Choose legacy instead of DASH formats in Player.