My Apple TV is collecting dust these days, I have a NAS with the *arr apps and a Linux PC with Jellyfin, a Navidrome client, a bunch of browser extensions, and a Pihole. As much as the browser version of YouTube sucks, the Apple TV version is worse.

Your privacy on the internet is only as strong as the weakest part of your setup, the AppleTV would be better privacy focused but do remember you are running Google’s native Youtube app, and there is no way of installing third party things because of their privacy focus.

Before I started my de-apple journey I used my iphone with unwatched and airplayed it to the AppleTV. DO NOT, let me repeat that, do not get an AppleTV if you want to enjoy your media outside of Apple’s walled garden. My current setup has a pi5 attached to my TV using Librewolf and ublock, on top of that I have it on my homelab vLAN which is the most protected vLAN on my LAN! For even further for privacy I have pihole with unbound for my whole LAN. I could go down the rabit hole of my even further privacy, just know I have layers. When I get my hand me down Mac mini I will be installing Debian on it and using it as a better home theatre PC. Just know that if you have a pi5 you can do more than what an AppleTV can do with more privacy, if you have a proper or better than a pi5 dedicated HTPC (running Linux, not Mac OS, or Windows) you can do so much more with privacy being your focus, like stripping your google account away and adding sponserblock.

There’s nothing that works as a simple YouTube client available. It’s my biggest sore spot with AppleTV. Apple locks down their app ecosystem and controls what makes it to the App Store.

Your best bet is to pick up an Android based streaming stick and side loading SmartTube onto it. Or pay for YouTube premium and use the official app on your AppleTV… (Shitty part of premium is you don’t see YouTube ads but there’s still no Sponsorblock so you still hit all that sponsored content.

I don’t know if this helps you but I use yt-dlp to download from my favorite channels. Then I stream them from jellyfin to my appletv.

No ads and yt-dlp can use sponsor block to get rid of that part of the video automatically.

I run MeTube on my NAS, which downloads to a folder that is hosted by my media server. Then I watch those downloaded videos through Infuse, along with my other media.

AFAIK there’s no way, and the VPNs you can get don’t block YouTube ads, even if you pay them.

I also have a MacBook, so I just AirPlay to the TV (could also connect HDMI to Thunderbolt) and then do it in the browser. Of course the go-to is usually Firefox+uBlock Origin, but I use Safari+Wipr2 (not free; I paid $5 because it also works on iOS… sadly not tvOS).

Apple’s been rumoured to drop a new ATV box for a couple years now. According to MacRumors, it’s been coming out next week for at least the past year. I suppose, one of these days, they’ll be right.

If I didn’t already have one, I’d look into the lowest-powered Linux box I could connect to HDMI with 4K output for the TV, run Firefox+uBlock Origin on it, and get a wireless keyboard/mouse combo unit, and that would be that. Some paid streamers wouldn’t work well on it, but it would run Plex or Jellyfin just fine.

If you wanna stay with Apple, I think your best bet would be to at least have a separate non-Apple (unless desktop) device to download videos in advance, for the TV to access that than YouTube.

I use unwatched on my atv, it never load ads, but sometimes YouTube try to break the video with black screen that says video unplayable or something, then you just play it natively from the app.

I am trying to avoid YouTube completely, so i don’t use unwatched alot.

I’m running pinchflat https://github.com/kieraneglin/pinchflat

I used to use Yattee on my AppleTV awhile back, but it stopped working when all the invidious instances started to have to implement blockers for all the scrappers. I think if you really want to watch YouTube on your TV without ads that Linux will probably be your best bet. Alternatively, you can connect your laptop and use FreeTube via HDMI, I do that occasionally. i don’t know about those other apps.

If you’re really bent on getting an AppleTV and you live near an Apple store, you can buy one, try it out for a fee data and return it if it’s not to your liking. I believe that Apple has a 14 day return window, but double check just to make sure.