YOUTUBE Tab (NthTube)

A YouTube client powered by NewPipe Extractor. No YouTube account. No API key. No tracking.

Requirements

Java 17 or later must be installed:

java -version
# openjdk version "17.x.x" ...

If Java is not found, the status bar shows: java not found — install JDK 11+

How to Use

1. Type a search query and press Enter or click SEARCH
2. Results appear in the left panel — single click to preview, double-click to load
3. Stream info is fetched (available streams appear in the quality dropdown)
4. Choose a stream and click ▶ STREAM or ↓ DOWNLOAD

Stream Types

Label	Description
[VIDEO+AUDIO]	Muxed stream — plays directly
[VIDEO ONLY]	Video without audio track
[AUDIO]	Audio only — for music

Loop Mode

Click ⟳ LOOP to enable loop mode. The video player restarts automatically when it ends.

Downloading

Click ↓ DOWNLOAD, choose a save location, and the download begins with a live progress bar. The file is saved in the format of the selected stream (mp4, webm, m4a, etc.).

Architecture

NthTube uses a Java JAR bridge (newpipe-bridge.jar) that wraps the NewPipe Extractor library. The bridge communicates with the Qt frontend over subprocess stdio, outputting JSON line by line.

The bridge JAR is looked for in:

1. Same folder as the nothing-browser binary
2. ./newpipe-bridge/build/libs/newpipe-bridge-1.0.0.jar
3. ./newpipe-bridge.jar