Been using FreeTube for nearly a decade, ever since the very first release. I, too, like it.
It had issues connecting for a year or two, around the time the old maintainer stepped down. Since the new team took over some 3 or 4 years back, it's gone from strength to strength.
Most replies you'll get will insist that an out-of-date OS is the root cause of
every problem. That
is mostly true, but for YT especially the browser itself will play a big part; is your browser also out-of-date?
If both are "behind the times", the issue is self-explanatory. Google - who own & operate YouTube - are taking a more hardline stance toward out-of-date browsers, and have for a while been supporting ONLY the very newest versions of all browsers. They can easily do this by cross-checking the user-agent string against that for the newest, current stable release of each browser. If they match, you're "good to go"; if not.....you can soon expect to have problems.
It's good practice, anyway. T'internet is, and always has been, by far & away the biggest "infection vector" there is for malware, etc. Keeping it up to date keeps both your system
and your data safe.
Mike.
