@not_benis google tends to prefer to run only free software on their servers, as that serves them - they even attempted to get rid of the proprietary ME software, but failed - of course those computers are googles and not yours.

If you use a free software client that downloads from youtube, you can watch videos in freedom.

There are also some videos on youtube under a freedom-respecting license - but of course you can't exercise that freedom unless you can actually download the video, which free software clients like yt-dlp allow.

google sometimes breaks the free software clients maliciously, but someone releases a fix within a few hours.

running google's proprietary malware JavaScript is never a good idea.