I was happily using this for a year or so now. Feels fairer than using an ad blocker. But now they apparently want more money out of people. Feels like some sort of internet video apocalypse is happening, where the services become extremely fragmented and expensive, like YouTube, netflix, hbo, Hulu, Disney+ and whatnot. Each wants some 10-20€ out of your pocket.
I guess that means back to ad blockers and piracy…
The second link you gave is probably malware!
Vanced died after they got a cease and desist from YouTube. You might want to recommend https://revanced.app/ instead, which patches the YouTube APK directly on your phone instead of distributing an APK with modified bytecode (which is the given “reason” YouTube killed Vanced)
ReVanced also has patches to remove ads/crack features for other apps as well, which is an added bonus. They’re also open-source