Status: Uncertain

It was broken for a while due to Twitch's integrity check, rolled out then reverted May 31st/June 1st 2023.

Luminous TTV

A Rust server to retrieve and relay a playlist for Twitch livestreams/VODs.

By running this server, and using a browser extension to relay certain requests to it, Twitch will not display any ads.

How it works

1. Server connects to the Hola network and gets a Russian proxy
2. Extension redirects video playlist requests to server
3. Server requests a playlist access token, and then the playlist, using the Russian proxy.

Twitch does not currently serve any livestream ads to users in Russia, so this results in an ad-free viewing experience. (Use uBlock Origin, too.)

• This server doesn't use your actual Twitch ID, it generates its own.
• You will not be acting as a peer of the Hola network.

Setup

1. Download a pre-built release.
2. Unzip it anywhere and run luminous-ttv

You'll also need to add the browser extension to your browser so that requests get routed.

Building

1. Install Rust.
2. Run cargo install --locked --git https://github.com/AlyoshaVasilieva/luminous-ttv.git to install, or clone the repository and run cargo build --release

Issues

• Loading streams takes longer, up to around 10 seconds. (This doesn't affect the latency.)
• In Firefox, and browsers built using its code, the extension's error fallback code can't be used. If this program isn't running you won't be able to view any streams on Twitch. (In Chrome-like browsers, the extension will fall back to the ad-filled stream when anything goes wrong.)

Possible issues

1. Hola might ban you, which will make this stop working unless you have your own proxy to use.
2. Hola might stop running servers in Russia; same effect as above.
3. Twitch might start serving ads to users in Russia (or everywhere).
4. This will cause you to load the video from Europe (Sweden for me) which may cause buffering issues if your internet isn't that good and that's far away. It doesn't cause an issue for me beyond maybe 1 second of additional latency due to repeatedly crossing an ocean.

Alternate proxies

This program also supports using custom proxies using the --proxy option. Proxies must be located in a country where Twitch does not serve ads.

Countries where Twitch does not serve ads, according to brief testing (Sep 2021):

• Afghanistan
• Bangladesh
• Cambodia
• China (GFW blocks Twitch and this program does not attempt to evade it)
• Iran
• Iraq
• Israel
• Palestine
• Russia
• Saudi Arabia
• Syria
• Thailand
• Turkey
• Ukraine
• United Arab Emirates

This list likely varies over time.

License

GNU GPLv3 as a whole. The file hello.rs is available under the MIT license, as it is a partial port of an MIT-licensed project.