[RFC] Friendlier Front Page #217
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Hi! I'm very happy to hear you found it easy to read. For others that would like to see how Invidious selects videos that go on the front page, I'd recommend taking a look here. I think that the algorithm is fairly content-neutral, so I think it's unfortunate that the front page has videos that people might find objectionable, and I can absolutely see that being a turn off. The trending looks good from a cursory glance, and is already the default homepage for NewPipe and FreeTube if I recall correctly. You're right that Invidious crawls other parts of the site, and it actually already pulls the I would also be interested to see if there's a better way to rank the videos that Invidious stores, and I'd absolutely appreciate other folks' thoughts on this as well. |
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The algorithm invidious uses to rank videos itself is pretty good, the problem stems from the videos it (currently) draws from. If invidious can attract a more diverse user base (and thus a more diverse selection of videos), this problem will then solve itself in the future. Until then, feeding the front page with some known-good (for some definition of "known-good") videos is IMO a nice stop-gap. Yes, NewPipe uses the trending page. There is some discussion about refining it here, but it's relatively new. Regarding ranking videos stored by invidious: again, I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with The Algorithm, it just needs more data. Filtering by language (user agent string usually contains one) seems like a good idea in general though. PS: I've just thought about this: /r/videos (or /r/videos/top) might be suited for the front page as well and maybe more interesting than Youtube's Trending for some. PPS: I don't know Crystal in particular, but maybe I can help in other ways (general programming/parsing stuff, HTML/JS/CSS, etc.) |
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I vote for Trending by default and /r/videos as an option for registered users. |
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EDIT: Unfortunately the user I made my reply to deleted his comment. I will respect his decision to keep it private, but to provide context, there was a concern that changing which videos were shown on the homepage would censor or make it more hostile to people with certain political views. That's why this is an RFC, so people can voice their concerns. You shouldn't feel that your words have no effect. I, and I'm sure many others, appreciate your thoughts. I see this is a proposal for adding content that more people would find more interesting, and how best to find that content. If you have any thoughts on how that could be improved, please feel free to share them. There is no need for this to be politically-charged. Again, the goal here is to provide interesting content for users on the site. It might be more productive therefore to rephrase this issue as "More Engaging Front Page". Obviously some content isn't very engaging to some people, such as the videos that @callum1993 mentioned. It would also be nice to have content that better represents what people watch on Invidious. Keep in mind that videos on Invidious are ranked based on stats from YouTube, not on Invidious itself, so improvements could be made there, especially since Invidious itself doesn't have any system for allowing users on the site to choose the content they want to go on the front page, except for their subscriptions. An alternative might be to pull most recent videos from the |
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I created this account specifically to reply here as I worry that politics might be worming its way into places it has no business being. A long while ago I completely abandoned all Google products because I grew tired of their ceaseless efforts to force politics down my throat. I became tired of seeing the blatant political bent across the board when not signed in to a Google account; I became equally tired of having my ego massaged by the echo chamber Google wished to create around me when I was logged in to my account in order to maximise views and view time. I'm a grown-up, I do not need nor do I ever want some ethereal entity curating the material that I ingest. I discovered HookTube and so I moved over to that and was happy to escape the sickly influence of Google's invisible hand. After HookTube was destroyed I moved over to Invidious and, as with HookTube, I appreciate that Inividious does not try to make decisions on my behalf. I like to be left alone. I really do not wish to wander down the path of political discussion on here but I think I must in order to properly explain my views on this matter; I will do my best to not start fires. Callum states that the channel "Jair Bolsanaro" is a channel that is deterring potential users, but what if said potential user is Brazillian? It does not matter if said Brazillian likes, dislikes, or is indifferent to Mr. Bolsanaro they should not be excluded from having media relevant to them included in the home page of a media oriented and international website. I'm not saying that Invidious should purposefully include media relevant to Mr. Bolsanaro on the home page, I'm just saying that Invidious shouldn't purposefully exclude such media from the home page. Callum has the choice to not watch videos about Mr. Bolsanaro but if such media is curated away from the home page then everybody else is robbed of that same choice. To create a more engaging home page necessarily requires some personalisation because what engages you might bore me, vice versa. Therefore if the home page is altered to be more agreeable to one group of people it will mean it becomes disagreeable to another group of people. I vote that the home page be left alone, it is fine as it is. Sometimes there are good things there, sometimes not. You win some, you lose some. If people wish to have a more personalised and engaging home page let them have a personal home page unique to their account and their subscriptions and leave the global home page alone so that those of us without accounts don't have to deal with the drivel that other people enjoy. I don't know how to quote others so please forgive me omarroth, but in your previous reply you said that an alternative might be to pull most recent videos from the x most subscribed channels on Invidious. I take issue with this. I take issue with this because popularity does not necessarily mean enjoyability; I'm sure Pewdiepie irritates as many people as he entertains for example. The current home page gives us a selection of videos from unknown creators who might be overlooked otherwise, it gives us some videos from popular creators too, it gives us videos in other languages which is quite important because not everyone speaks English, and it gives us an opportunity to enjoy unexpected content. Having the home page filled with what is popular does nothing but lock people in to consuming much the same content cyclically. Plus, everyone knows the big channels and can find them with a search very easily. In closing I vote that the global home page be left alone and that any and all curation occurs only on personal home pages and subject to a series of user configurable options. Please don't bring back the invisible hand that I fled before. |
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@zipline808 Bolsonaro is a dictator wannabe, he popularity grew up exactly on this kind of collateral exposition. He begins as a meme, a joke in Brazil, but on a crisis enviroment part of the population thought his retrograde ideas might make sense. Please, don't endorse it. I liked @omarroth's ideia! |
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@hugoabonizio He is not. That is just far-left hysteria, just like people said black people would be hunted on the streets after trump got elected. Please don't bring political ideology into this discussion. Specially when based on wild falsehoods. |
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@StephenLynx I won't discuss theology with you, believe on what you want. This is not the right place, let's keep the focus on the OP's request please. |
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@hugoabonizio very weird to start politicising the debate, and immediately attempt to shut it down when responded to. Maybe you should stick to YouTube. |
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@omarroth I don't want to see "recommended" videos in languages I don't even understand. Sadly, the Invidious' user base is just too small to supply a variety of videos in languages other than English. |
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@hugoabonizio For the sake of argument I will say that Mr. Bolsanaro is a dictator and considering he is a dictator that is dangerous to the Brazillian people it makes sense then that the Brazillian people are not excluded from content regarding Mr. Bolsanaro. How do the Brazillian people know what atrocities to prepare for if they're precluded from fair access to relevant media? Surely then it is in the best interests of the Brazillian people to ensure they have fair access to such media; their lives depend on being in the know. This is nothing more than attempted political censorship. It has no business here. |
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@zipline808 following the same logic, censoring Ku Klux Klan supporting videos would be political censorship too? (by the way Bolsonaro is supported by KKK former leader) I think some kind of curating might add value to the home page. |
So was hillary. Do we ban everything related to her too? You know what the Klan members really like? Air. Do we ban air? Back to the point: are videos supporting the KKK illegal? Because last time I checked it fell under free speech. There is no need for further curation than just following what's popular and legal. If the KKK is not popular and people don't watch their videos, then it won't be promoted by algorithms, problem solved. |
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@hugoabonizio Yes, it would be political censorship and it would also be dangerous because it would prevent the black population of America from being up-to-date with the activities and intentions of the KKK, and without the most up-to-date information about the KKK's activities they would not be able to protect themselves most effectively. The KKK's videos might upset black Americans but having free access to that media ensures that black Americans can always be ready for any potential threats to their wellbeing. And so the same applies to Mr. Bolsanaro and Brazillians; if the man is a threat to their wellbeing it is in their best interests to be able to easily keep up-to-date with his activies and the purposeful censorship of videos regarding Mr. Bolsanaro would negatively impact their ability to employ forethought to the betterment of their wellbeing. |
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What do you think about generating 2 front pages, like Reddit? One with the larger political channels filtered, and one with everything included. I've opposed it back when they proposed the idea, but taking a break from politics is sometimes very much needed, and if the first thing that's visible is politics, some people will be turned away by the site, no matter what type of content they see. Or hell, even having a basic filter for YouTube categories would be sufficient, such as: "Filter Music / Filter Gaming / Filter News" - this could be passed by the URL without any Javascript (eg. I'm not sure what kind of videos I'd like to see on the front page, but politics is one I know for a fact wouldn't make me stay. Also, I like @dimqua's idea of a language filter - you could choose to display videos whose languages are originally English or your local language - but I'm not sure I'd want to have it on by default. |
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Another thought that would make the front page a bit friendlier is a welcome message. <logo> A welcome message, and some usability tips, such as: Maybe some people stumble upon the site, and don't quite know what it is yet - this would give a general overview as well as help retain new users and give them some tips and tricks. |
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@Discookie It seems more work than is necessary when one can simply choose what to watch and not watch. If a political video on the home page is not to someone's taste then they can move on. I understand that taking a break from political stuff is important but the responsiblity to care for one's own mental wellbeing is on them, not on the people who work freely to provide them media. If someone is so lacking in self control that they cannot help but click on videos they know will annoy them then who's fault is that? And if someone is so easily displeased that simply seeing the thumbnail and title to a video they might not like makes them angry then no amount of prostration will ever sooth their ills. Right now on the home page I see some videos about politics, gaming, biking, music, history, science and vlogging. That seems a remarkably varied selection of videos to put up on the home page; something for most people. If you pay attention to the words of those who are arguing most energetically in favour of curation you'll see that their issue is not that there is too much political stuff on the home page, rather it is that the political stuff on the home page is of a political sort they disagree with. This is all masked nicely in the idea of creating a more "friendly" home page but the reality is just an attempt at political censorship and it ought not be entertained. A personal home page that is curated according to a user's account and settings is of no issue, but these people are arguing for changes to the global home page because they're not adult enough to move on past things they don't like. As for the suggestion of a welcome message and tips, I agree. Though I would suggest putting usage tips on a help page navigated to by a help button placed next to the login button. Having usage tips right on the home page might become a nuisance after a while - HookTube had similar and I got annoyed at its presence on the home page quite quickly because it pushed the grid of suggested videos down and hid many beyond the bottom of the screen and that's a great nuisance on a laptop. |
Yeah, but if they're going to watch some political news, they'll be disappointed. :-D
You can have both! :-) |
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I'm not familiar with |
I don't think this is necessarily true. The reasoning behind my proposal was to provide a sampling of content so there might be at least one thing that someone would find interesting. I understand your fear of having an invisible hand deciding what you should watch, and that is why we are discussing this here.
Currently videos on the front page are already ranked in large part by popularity, so if there are relatively unknown videos on the front page that would be by accident, rather than by design. If there is a way of finding such videos, then I would appreciate hearing it. Otherwise, I don't see my proposal as much different in that regard, except that it would better reflect popularity on Invidious, rather than on YouTube. What I propose here appears to have received quite a bit of support, including from the user who had similar concerns to @zipline808. I would like to move forward with implementing it, but obviously I would still like to hear thoughts about how the front page could be improved. |
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The youtube trending page is a sea of unfunny dime-a-dozen garbage made by people with no passion for media, they just care about making money. Interesting how callum1993 only made his account to raise this issue. Really makes you think. Anyway go back to youtube, no one wants to see spiderman and elsa crypto-pedophilia or low effort 'influencer' content in the place of sometimes irrelevant political content. |
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This proposal seems fine, reflecting the interests of Invidious users is sensible. There has been two parties in this conversation advocating for changes to the home page: one which just wants more relevant videos, such as in the aforementioned proposal, and the other which wants explicit political censorship. I felt that the aggressive calls for censorship were steering the discussion on what changes to implement and so my equally aggressive and political responses were an effort to highlight the absurdity of the calls for censorship and to force a non-political justification for changes. I do not know what sort of person you are @omarroth but I have seen many projects go down the drain because those in charge were people pleasers who chose to please people who took a mile when given an inch. I wanted the anti-censorship side of the fight to have the loudest voice. I no longer feel worried about censorship on Invidious. |
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@hugoabonizio Please go see a doctor. |
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@zipline808 I'm kind of disappointed that my suggestion of filtering by Youtube categories flew under the radar. It provides a reliable way to filter out a specific type of content, without any special treatment, using publicly available information. It doesn't even have to be politics necessarily - it can be any category you don't like. You mentioned Gaming in your earlier comment - good thing there's a Gaming tag you could filter out to hide all such content! And in the end, it comes down to the ability to make a choice. If you do end up changing how the front page is displayed by default, there should always be an option to revert that, one that is accessible without login. However, your concerns are valid, and I'd understand if the front page was left as it is. I still think that you should have the ability to hide such content, be it via filters, or a predefined list of 'best' channels. After all, if people want a friendlier front page, we should let them choose to have it, even if it's behind a click or two - but not behind a login-wall. @omarroth's suggestion is one I wouldn't mind having, but I also don't think it's the best option available. Showing only the top channels ignores many essential parts of a good front page - @zipline808 already highlighted that popularity doesn't mean enjoyability, and I reckon it would kill 'viral' or 'rising' videos altogether, cutting off a huge chunk of popular content. |
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This conversation is a mess. No one is being forced to view the home page. Indeed, if someone is really triggered that much, I'd suggest bookmarking any random page, the search bar is still usable ( So, there are two choices here - either invidious can completely remove the suggestions feature, and cater to this issue and play no hands, or it can do nothing and let things continue as they are, and people in disagreement can type two extra characters after the url to quench their disagreements. If anything is not clear, I'd suggest you to read my text over again at least twice, and then post a proper reply. Snide remarks and intentionally misleading conversations are to no one's benefit. |
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Have you read the third paragraph of my last reply? I am fine with making the front page stay as it is! I'm just all up for giving users a way to get away from some types of videos, even when they are not logged in. And for it to be reversible. That's the only change I am suggesting. But honestly, you are right. We can host our own code, we can make our own changes, we can go so far as to create an account on the original site. But when you just found a new 'youtube-clone', the first thing you do isn't gonna be creating a new Docker instance, and fiddling with the code just so you can avoid content that drove you away from the site in the first place. And that's what we are discussing here, that's what this RFC is about. I have nothing more to add to this conversation. I stand by changing the front page somewhat, be it filters* or omar's suggestion. Perhaps there was a language barrier when I used the term political censorship. I now realize it implies removing everything I don't like under the blanket label of 'Politics'. I never meant it that way. I'm sorry about that. * By that, I meant adding the option to filter it. You have highlighted the implications of filtering by default well. (Sorry for the many edits, I'm not gonna lie, you did make me lose my temper. But that was kind of the goal wasn't it.) |
I don't understand it honestly, but I agree with your suggestion in general. It's not enough to simple have most "relevant" videos (according to some non-ideal algorithm) listed on the front page, since different people have different preferences. The one may like gaming or sports videos, for example, but the other one doesn't (no matter how many likes and views these videos have). |
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There's now a preview of this proposal available at https://dev.invidio.us. Currently, it pulls videos from the top 40 most subscribed channels on Invidious, sorted by date. I expect to make a couple changes before pushing it to the main site, and expect for future comments on this issue to directly respond to or raise concerns related to this proposal.
Sorry about that. I think language filters, content filters (news, gaming, etc) and the idea of having a seperate or alternate front page would do well as a new issue. @callum1993 mentioned discussion in TeamNewPipe/NewPipe#1805 about support for the various trending pages, which I think already implement quite a few of the ideas proposed by @dimqua and @Discookie, as there are different trending pages in various countries. I can see it being mostly straightforward to add support for users that wanted to view trending videos in a different language. The concern about killing off 'viral' or 'rising' videos is completely understandable, and very similar I think to what @zipline808 mentions here. I think that's the goal that YouTube attempts to solve with their Trending pages (whether successful or not), and would at least partially solve the issues mentioned above. I would very much like to have a new issue to discuss this.
I think having this discussion is another way for users to make their own changes (or at least petition), although it relies on someone who can implement them. There's still quite a bit left to respond to. For anything directly related to bugs or proposed features I would recommend opening a new issue so it can be properly addressed. For everything else, feel free to contact me at omarroth@protonmail.com or on the FreeTube Matrix Server. |
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@Discookie You're misinterpreting me (intentionally or otherwise). Doing it under the guise of altruism does not make it any better. I suggest you read my reply again. And no, I didn't write that long post for you or for anyone else, I wrote it to resolve the issue.
That is not how it works. Stop skirting around the issue. |
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As it stands, the issue is that your comments are off-topic. You are not resolving anything by making accusations targeted at me or a productive contributor. I suggest you re-read my proposal or previous comment, or look at the proposed changes here. If you have any thoughts on how it could be improved, feel free to share them. |
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As it stands, one person likes politics and another person doesn't. I can appreciate both of these perfectly valid and reasonable views. My suggestion is to set a browser cookie depending on the user's personal preference of what to do with the front page, (could look like Suggested algorithmsTrending. This is curated by YouTube itself — while the content might not be particularly interesting, and while censorship issues definitely come into play, I think a curated front page would be the most appealing way to welcome new users to Invidious. I suggest that this be the default view, but I'm not particularly bothered, since the whole point is that it's customisable. Videos from popular channels as suggested earlier in this thread. I personally really like this idea, but I can understand not wanting to lose the current method, which is why we finally have: Popular videos from the whole site, as per the current algorithm. A blank page. The user's subscription feed, if they're signed in. Switching algorithmsAs per Discookie's suggestion earlier in this thread, you could add a banner reminiscent of HookTube's on the top of the front page. This could additionally detail the sorting algorithm to use, from "Trending", "Popular channels", and "Popular videos". Clicking a link would set that cookie and reload the page to display the new algorithm. Of course, this could also be changed from the settings menu. While this would introduce more work for our good friend omarroth, I don't expect it would be much more involved than simply rolling with his popular channels suggestion further up. The code for YouTube's "trending" is mostly already there, the existing algorithm is obviously completely already there, which just leaves the code for popular channels which would have to be implemented anyway. While the details of which algorithm should be the default have yet to be considered, I think that giving users the choice of algorithm is totally in-line with Invidious's maxims and is opinion-agnostic, featureful, and the best option available |
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Thanks for the clear and concise write-up! I think alongside cookies, it's better to have separate pages for separate algorithms. That way, they could be bookmarked if an user likes to browse 2 types of feeds. I think the best way to go about this would be having a 'tabs' bar under the search bar, with links to each page. (Only visible on the homepage, of course.) And in each method's tab, there should be a (Sidenote: We need a better word than |
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hooktube had(and probably still has) the same problem. i dont know how hooktube works but i assume it has something to do with the fact that alternative platforms attract an overly proportional amount of those people because their content in banned or unwanted on mainstream platforms. alternative platforms are often more open and rightly so. unfortunately that means that they get drowned in that content and then lose the appeal for everyone else. invidious is not hosting content so this doesnt directly apply but the overall tendency and awareness in that group probably still makes them more likely to favor alternative solutions, especially if they see the hosting company(google) as a political enemy. another factor is that there are groups forces that want this content to be pushed und who know how to work the algorithms. i would suggest to use as many feeds as possible and as diverse as possible and then let the user decide which feeds he prefers and/or automatically show those more often that the user chooses. |
i think this is important. even if most users dont understand it, the fact that it made it to the front page means that it is quite important for someone speaking that language. i also dont think users should be presented a different startpage depending on his geolocation or browser language. i think it doesnt really harm to see a video that you can quickly identify as foreign language because you either scroll over quickly or its your language. what i could imagine is if there are different language variants like with wikipedia that you can go to deliberately. |
no. political videos are against the rules. probably because of the drama and off topicness. i think it is an ok source but doesnt quite catch all the variety of content. |
Geolocation? Sure. But what is wrong with browser language? |
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most content and also most good content is in english. there is good content in other languages as well but it might not be enough to be viable as the sole content for the average visitor. the smaller the country/native speakers the more pronounced this gets. however i would enjoy having a link to a language version based on location guessing or a section on the frontpage that you can collapse. this could also not only contain videos in your language but also videos that are about your region or are from youtubers of that region even if they make english videos. but all that should be optional and you should be able to change it so if you are a person living in a foreign country you probably want to be able to choose between your home country, your current country and international. |
Yes, but like I said earlier, you can have both types of content (in English and in your "preferred" language) at the same time. Your preferred language can be chosen automaticly based on your IP and User Agent of your browser. However, with |
i am not really fixed on this. i am fine as long as things dont get shoved onto you just because of your ip or os settings. as long as the user is in control and the defaults give reasonable results i am ok with it
you could also crawl local subreddits and look for youtube links. in fact you could combine a whole lot of subs into a combined "reddit" tab. there are many videos posted outside of /r/videos and some are focused on very specific topics which can be a good supplement for youtube categories |
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I think the option to either enable or disable any potential region-specific features would be an excellent idea. |
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but if it is on the user should be able to choose the region(s) |
Please do not use IP address. For users behind a proxy or VPN, accessing through Tor, or simply visiting a foreign country this will give undesirable results.
Agree! I actually enjoy seeing the videos in other languages. It has exposed me to a lot of content I would not have seen otherwise. |
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Cheers. |
Hi, I'm a big fan of invidio.us, and I hope this RFC can help in getting it more popular.
The front page (top videos) is full of videos by extreme right channels, among others "Paul Joseph Watson", "Jair Bolsonaro", "Styxhexenhammer666" [1]. I believe that this deterring potential users. A short look in the code (very readable, big cudos!) it looks like you are displaying videos from a database of videos already watched on invidio.us.
One solution to friendlier recommendations would be to pull in recommendations from YouTube's "Home" and/or "Trending" pages. I've noticed some functions in
src/invidious/jobs.crsuggesting you are already crawling some parts of YouTube, but I haven't fully analyzed them.I'd love to hear your feedback on this, and maybe we can come up with more ideas together. If you prefer to discuss this in private, please feel free to send me an email at callum.1993 (a) outlook.com
[1]: I've noticed that today they are penetrating the front page less, but it has been a problem with the above and other channels ever since I started using invidio.us.
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