YouTube PoToken Generator

Introduction

This program outputs the mysterious pair { visitorData, poToken }, with the help of jsdom.

How does it work

Only one network request is made to get a fresh copy of visitorData.

Then poToken is generated with pre-downloaded scripts from YouTube and some magic provided in lib/inject.js

No real browser is required to install.

How to use it from another language or command line

``bash


Install NodeJS >= 18.0 and issue the folling command to install this tool

npm install -g youtube-po-token-generator

Execute the following command somewhere in your program or directly in a shell

youtube-po-token-generator

=> {"visitorData":"...","poToken":"..."}

A string of JSON format would be printed to stdout, parse and use it as you like

`

Define proxy settings before you run the program If you are in the case that typically a proxy is needed to access YouTube.

`bash
export HTTPS_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:8888


For Windows users

set HTTPS_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:8888

youtube-po-token-generator
`

How to use it in your JavaScript code

`bash


Clone this repo and install dependencies


cd youtube-po-token-generator && yarn


Or issue npm install instead of yarn, alternatively


`

generate is exported as the primary entry to execute the program.

`javascript
const { generate } = require('youtube-po-token-generator')

generate().then(console.log, console.error)
// => { visitorData: '...', poToken: '...' }
`

Require lib/task directly if you have already prepared your visitorData.

`javascript
const { createTask } = require('youtube-po-token-generator/lib/task')

const visitorData = '...'

createTask(visitorData).then(task => task.start()).then(console.log, console.error)
// => { poToken: '...' }
`

Inspect examples and bin/cli.mjs for simple examples.

Related works

This project is inspired by iv-org/youtube-trusted-session-generator.

What is a PoToken and when to use it

Please refer to the excellent explanation here.

More

Debugging the source code from YouTube was a pain.

* Pausing at key parts of the poToken generation may lead to misleading branches.

* Modification on the injected code from botguardData.program` may lead to invalid tokens.

* Improper userAgent would lead to valid or invalid poToken being generated randomly, like a lottery.