I have friends that send me tiktok links via whatsapp and then they ask questions about it like “what do you think, scam or not”. I used to open them with cookies rejected in ddg browser but now it pretends to freeze after 4 seconds of play, then it says that i must open it in the app and replaces the “play” button with a fake button that leads to google play.

I assume that there’s no way to watch it anymore without an account and without the app, right?

  • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
    663·
    7 months ago

    You can just reply “scam” and save yourself the time and agony of watching tick tocks without sacrificing the accuracy of your response.

    • RezEnglish
      17·
      7 months ago

      Yeah, we have this unwritten rule in my friend group to never send links to any videos no matter where they’re from. You download the video and send the file

  • Miss Brainfarts@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    13·
    7 months ago

    There exists a frontend called Proxitok, but I can’t comment on how well it works or what it can do. The LibRedirect addon for Firefox can redirect you to the instance of your choosing.

    Great addon in general, do check it out if you don’t know it already.

  • Tyoda@lemm.ee
    7·
    7 months ago

    If I absolutely had to watch a tiktok video, I would try giving the link to yt-dlp. That can probably download it.

    • Moonrise2473@feddit.itOP
      5·
      7 months ago

      i tried and it didn’t work - but maybe it’s because it was the “vm.tiktok…” shortened link that tracks the user that shared it (when i open that link i can see a banner with a photo of my friend and “join tiktok with [friend name]”

      next time i should try to open the link, get the real url, then use that

      • Tyoda@lemm.ee
        2·
        7 months ago

        Ah! I would have guessed it could handle that too, with the platform being so popular.

  • INeedMana@lemmy.world
    3·
    7 months ago

    When I don’t have the time to enable sheltered apps, I use Firefox with uBlock and AutoCookieDelete to watch the links
    Last time I did this was a few hours ago

  • HumanPersonEnglish
    1·
    7 months ago

    Respond with “I think it is a scam. The website seems pretty sketchy.”

    Also proxitok