The standard way nowadays, to share a video online, is to post an embed link to youtube.
This then displays that video in what’s called an iframe — an embedded website within the website you are on.
What this allows youtube and parent company alphabet (read: google) to do, is to track you whilst on that website.
I want my website to be a bastion of the once-person-centric web. When people would share things on their own websites because they enjoyed it and wanted to share it with other humans.
Self-hosting videos myself
So to ensure that I don’t subject my visitors to any tracking, I choose to download any videos I wish to share and then manually upload them to my own site.
When you watch a video on my website, it actually is from my own website.
A novel idea I know.
It’s how it used to be, and it’s how it should be.
Mind your bandwidth
I am also putting a note beneath each video to show what size the video is in megabytes (mb).
My site shouldn’t preload the video — it will only start downloading it once you press the play button.
I recommend just waiting till you’re on a wifi connection. Nothing I’m sharing can’t wait till later.
Enjoy the fresh air whilst you’re out.
Disclaimer
I may still have some very old posts in my archive that have historic youtube links in them. Yes, I did it once too.
But I am endeavouring to get rid of those and replace them with self-hosted versions where possible.
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