• November 16: Front page a lot faster. Theater mode button.
• September 10: Automatic force update on videos with prematurely invalidated stream urls. Fixes 90% of the problem videos of this type. Javascript based so doesn't exist in the embed. VEVO videos are still going to be dodgy, that's another issue altogether.
• September 9: 1) Added support for url parameters end (same as youtube - seconds or XmYs), loop (1 for on, doesn't play well with end on embed), and speed (valid range: 0.01 to 4, doesn't work on embed). Example: https://hooktube.com/watch?v=ZZ5LpwO-An4&start=43&end=47&loop=1&speed=2.
  2) You can now click the button under the video to set looping mode and playback rate options, and optionally make them apply to all videos.
• September 8: Basic implementation of comments.
• September 2-6: Toggle button for looping mode (html5 video only, not YT embed). Player remembers your preferred video volume with a cookie (html5 video only, not YT embed). You can now look up channels with the old YT username format (ex: https://hooktube.com/user/JamesNintendoNerd). 720p is the new default over old 360p when user hasn't specified a preference. Channel names linked to channel in search, etc. Categories (front page).
• September 1: Complete rebuild. Tested on FireFox, IE11, and Brave. Please let me know if you run into any issues.
• August 26: Added a Google API proxy so clients don't transmit data to Google when using search, etc.
• August 21: Basic channel pages and search added.
• August 11: Video pages now show related videos unless you have disabled javascript or blocked JSON queries to www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/search (see aug26).
• June 4: All detected audio and video formats/streams are now exposed, including esoteric stuff like 3d video if present. Keep in mind they're not guaranteed to work on all videos, YouTube can be weird.
• May 31: HookTube video links are now automatically embedded on Twitter.
• May 29: url parameters t and start are now obeyed just like default YouTube.

Why can I no longer use HookTube without javascript enabled?

Maintaining both inline and javascript versions of the same app is a lot of work and I'd rather just focus on one until things are a bit more definite. Right now I'm constantly changing, adding, removing things.

You can still hooktube videos with only pure html by using the embed url: https://hooktube.com/embed/S6bOkFLrsAc It just doesn't have any extra features.

Why no 1080p+?

All available resolutions are available in the Download button, but the ones above 720p are without audio (comes separatively as AAC audio streams). I would have to build a custom player that combines and accurately syncs multiple streams in order to play them for you and that's not a priority right now.

Why did you make HT?

Dozens of reasons (see front page for main ones) but on a personal level, I can't use YouTube normally the way I've set up my browsers. I also have many friends in EU countries whose governments have blocked off large swathes of political and news YT content.

Won't Google shut this down?

There are hundreds of sites and software programs that work with YouTube files and apis in funky ways -- some quite similar -- and Google has never bothered them. Additionally HookTube doesn't make a profit. If I were still forced to shut the site down I'd release the code somewhere public and then link the clones from my social media accounts.