I like watching videos, but I want to minimize youtube interaction with my browser. This for various reasons, you know them already.

I want to share with you my recipe for this:

1. Install youtube-dl, ffmpeg and mplayer

2. Combine them with scripts or shell functions like this:

  function ytmusic    { youtube-dl -o - $1 | ffmpeg -i pipe:0 -vn $2 }
  function ytview     { youtube-dl -o - $1 | mplayer - }
  function ytlisten   { youtube-dl -o - $1 | mplayer -vo null - }

Also, the last version of http://duckduckgo.com allows you to fetch youtube urls without entering youtube. Once you've got the url, youtube-dl can do that for you.