Six years ago, Google announced YouTube Go as the official simple version of YouTube, designed for both slow connections and simple mobiles, with Android Go. Now the company has announced that YouTube Go will disappear in August of that same year.
After Google indirectly terminated YouTube Vanced, another alternative that’s on its way out is YouTube Go, in this case official. Instead, Google suggests users upgrade to the official version of YouTube or connect from the web.
YouTube Go is going away
With the release of Android Go, Google began creating minimalist versions of their applications under the family name Go. One of them was YouTube Go, which promised to be more convenient in places where the Internet connection is more unstable. To do this, it allowed to download videos on the mobile to watch them later.
Not only that, but the application is also much lighter, thus being more suitable for mobiles with little storage space. Once installed, YouTube Go uses about 40 MB of storagewhile the official application exceeds 150 MB, not including data and cache.
Now Google has announced that the YouTube Go app will be closed from August. The app hasn’t been updated very often – its last update was in October last year – but it has already started showing a banner that urges you to switch to the normal version of YouTube. For now, you can ignore the suggestion and continue using YouTube Go.
Between the reasons given by Google to justify the closure of YouTube Go is that the official YouTube application has improved its performance both for slow networks and for weak mobile phones, in addition to having more functions that were not present in the Go version, such as comments, content creation or dark mode.
Google suggests current YouTube Go users consider use the standard YouTube app or, failing that, the YouTube site. An additional alternative that they don’t mention, and which looks a bit like YouTube Go, is NewPipe, which is still standing for now.
Through | 9to5Google
