Try out yt-dlp: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

Downloads, without ads, the videos. The only ads that remain are those that the creators insert themselves when creating the video.

Youtube's been acting weird on my end of late. I don't sign in, but allow cookies for YT to recommend me vids. Couple days ago I accidentally opened a YT vid while VPN on browser was on. Ever since then YT stopped recommending vids other than the most popular default ones that I believe YT shows everyone until their recommendation engine catches up with one's interests.

Everyone I know that uses adblock has been affected. America, Europe, Australia, it doesn't matter.

We'll see what happens with it.

I haven't seen it, but I use https://invidious.io when at home and on my phone I use https://newpipe.net