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Update FAQ (FreeTubeAndroid, macOS ARM) (#163)
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* Mention FreeTubeAndroid in porting section

* Remove paragraph with download stats

* Add section about macOS arm
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absidue authored Feb 15, 2025
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Expand Up @@ -14,9 +14,9 @@ There are currently no plans to support services outside of YouTube. We are comm

## Do you plan on porting FreeTube to other platforms? (Android, iOS, etc.)

We have zero plans to port FreeTube to platforms that are not already supported. "Porting" would be more of an entire rewrite with a separate code base where we have to develop each feature multiple times for each platform. For iOS, any effort towards an app would just get it removed from the App Store anyways, which would make it a waste of time. Android is also a waste of time because you should be using NewPipe if you'd like a similar experience. We don't see a reason to make an Android app when NewPipe is a very nice equivalent to what we would make anyways.
We have zero plans to port FreeTube to platforms that are not already supported. "Porting" would be more of an entire rewrite with a separate code base where we have to develop each feature multiple times for each platform. For iOS, any effort towards an app would just get it removed from the App Store anyways, which would make it a waste of time.

We _can_ consider support for the Pinephone however, since it is also a Linux device. This will be later in the future however.
There is no official port of FreeTube to Android and there are no plans to provide an official port. There is however an _unofficial_ fork that ports FreeTube to Android: [FreeTubeAndroid](https://github.com/MarmadileManteater/FreeTubeAndroid).

## Can I import my YouTube subscriptions over to FreeTube?

Expand All @@ -42,12 +42,20 @@ We understand the frustration that some of you have. Electron has become overuse

We believe that privacy should be accessible to as many people as possible, regardless of where they are at in the privacy spectrum. In order to accomplish this with FreeTube, this means that it needs to be cross platform. We work on FreeTube in our free time, and we are mostly the only people that work on this. For this project, Electron is the only realistic solution in order for a team existing of a few developers to cater to as many people as possible.

Looking at the amount of people that download FreeTube, this proves to us that we've made the right choice. Windows users account for roughly 50% of all FreeTube downloads. We can easily say that a native solution would end up being Linux only and we would end up dropping support for half of our users.

Despite this, it's still something we want to look into someday. If FreeTube gets to a point where we only have to do small amounts of maintenance and if we're looking for new projects then we can consider looking into this. Something like this would be extremely time consuming and is not being planned anytime soon.

## My Virus protection gave a warning when I tried to run FreeTube. Is FreeTube a malicious application?

No it is not. Windows and Mac requires that an application is signed by a verified publisher for most applications. This gives the user a piece of mind that they downloaded the correct program and didn't install anything malicious. Any good virus protection software will notice if an application isn't signed and will immediately warn the user of such a file. FreeTube will most likely be scanned during first installation but your virus protection shouldn't find anything. FreeTube is not currently signed because the licenses to sign applications for Windows are expensive and we'd like to avoid putting a lot of money into the project. This may change in the future as progress is made but do not be alarmed by any notices from your virus protection.

Those that are concerned with this are welcome to view the source code and build their own packages for installation.

## MacOS "FreeTube" is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Trash.

No it is not. As mentioned in the previous section, FreeTube is not codesigned (please read that section for more details) and on ARM Macs Apple has chosen a lot more aggressive, inaccurate messaging.

You can easily fix this by running the following command in the Terminal app. You will need to run the command again each time you update or reinstall FreeTube.

```
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/FreeTube.app
```

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