From 9210bf463a8818595f7ca42486a787d4f1941d55 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Peter Stone <thepeterstone@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2026 19:07:17 +0000
Subject: Fix stray promo headers, site-URL subscribing, and YouTube playback

Three reported bugs.

**"West Hawaii today articles get a bunch of stray Trending headers."**
The publisher's widget platform injects promo blocks between the real
paragraphs, inside the article's own container, so every structural
signal tells Readability they belong. What survives is a heading
labelling nothing, because the links under it are filled in by a script
that never runs in the reader. Confirmed on 9 of the 12 articles in
that feed, two each. Blocks marked `data-mrf-recirculation` are now
removed -- the attribute says what the block is for in the widget
platform's own words, which is a better signal than the word
"Trending", since an article may legitimately discuss what is trending.
Nothing longer than a label and a few headlines is ever removed. Also
applied to already-cached articles, in place rather than by discarding
them: the article was fine, only the litter has to go.

**"Can't subscribe to heathercoxrichardson.substack.com."** Adding a
feed handed whatever URL it was given straight to the XML parser, so a
site's home page -- the only URL a reader can actually see and copy --
failed on the root element. That page advertises its feed the way sites
have since 2002, in a <link rel="alternate"> in the head. It is now
read, resolved against the page, and fetched. Only what the page
declares: guessing /feed and /rss would add a burst of 404s to every
failed add and eventually subscribe somebody to the wrong thing.

**"YouTube play is misconfigured."** It was, and YouTube said so: the
player dialog loaded the embed as its own top-level document, which
answers with "Video player configuration error -- Error 153". An embed
has to be embedded. It now sits in an iframe on a minimal host page.
Measured in the app's own WebView: top-level, no requests for the video
stream and the error on screen; framed, the stream loads and there is
no error.

**"Long click on YouTube placeholder should open the URL directly."**
It does now. Worth recording why this is not simply the link's href:
for an image inside a link, WebView's hit test reports the image's URL,
so a long-press on the thumbnail arrives as the i.ytimg.com JPEG. The
video id is resolved out of that.

Verified on a device for all four: the Substack site URL adds "Letters
from an American" and fetches 20 articles; a West Hawaii Today article
extracts with no Trending headers and its body intact; the video plays;
and a long-press reaches the YouTube app.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_018AwnALZL6bD4VBtATDVv3B
---
 .../org/terst/feedreader/data/CachedExtraction.kt  |  10 +-
 .../org/terst/feedreader/data/FeedDiscovery.kt     |  88 ++++++++++++++
 .../terst/feedreader/readability/EvalDecision.kt   |   9 +-
 .../feedreader/readability/RecirculationWidgets.kt | 128 +++++++++++++++++++++
 .../java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/AddFeedScreen.kt  |  65 ++++++++---
 .../org/terst/feedreader/ui/LinkReaderScreen.kt    |   1 +
 .../java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/ReaderScreen.kt   |   1 +
 .../java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/ReaderWebView.kt  |  32 +++++-
 .../java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/YouTubeLinks.kt   | 127 ++++++++++++++++++++
 9 files changed, 443 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/data/FeedDiscovery.kt
 create mode 100644 app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/readability/RecirculationWidgets.kt
 create mode 100644 app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/YouTubeLinks.kt

(limited to 'app/src/main/java')

diff --git a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/data/CachedExtraction.kt b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/data/CachedExtraction.kt
index 3a791cc..63614d1 100644
--- a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/data/CachedExtraction.kt
+++ b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/data/CachedExtraction.kt
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 package org.terst.feedreader.data
 
 import org.terst.feedreader.readability.ConsentNotice
+import org.terst.feedreader.readability.RecirculationWidgets
 import org.terst.feedreader.readability.UnrenderedTex
 
 /** What a cached `articles.extractedContent` value turned out to be worth. */
@@ -58,7 +59,14 @@ suspend fun loadCachedExtraction(
                 discardedUnrenderedTex = true
             )
         else -> null
-    } ?: return CachedExtraction(content = cached, discardedConsentNotice = false)
+    } ?: return CachedExtraction(
+        // Recirculation widgets are deliberately not in the `discard` list above. A cached
+        // article carrying the publisher's promo blocks is a good article with litter in it,
+        // not a poisoned row: cleaning it in place shows the right thing immediately, where
+        // discarding it would throw away a usable body and fetch the identical one back.
+        content = RecirculationWidgets.strip(cached),
+        discardedConsentNotice = false
+    )
 
     clearCache()
     return discard
diff --git a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/data/FeedDiscovery.kt b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/data/FeedDiscovery.kt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..98ce5b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/data/FeedDiscovery.kt
@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+package org.terst.feedreader.data
+
+import java.net.URI
+
+/**
+ * Finds the feed a web page advertises.
+ *
+ * Reported live: "Can't subscribe to https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/". Adding a feed
+ * fetched whatever URL it was given and handed it straight to [FeedParser], so a site's home
+ * page -- the only URL a reader can actually see and copy -- failed on the XML parse with a
+ * message about an unrecognised root element.
+ *
+ * Nothing exotic is needed to fix it. Sites have advertised their feeds in the document head
+ * since RSS autodiscovery was agreed in 2002, and that Substack page does:
+ *
+ * ```
+ * <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="/feed" title="Letters from an American"/>
+ * ```
+ *
+ * Only what the page itself declares is used. Guessing paths (`/feed`, `/rss`, `/index.xml`)
+ * would add a burst of 404s on every failed add and would eventually subscribe somebody to the
+ * wrong thing; a site that declares nothing is reported as having no feed, which is the truth.
+ */
+object FeedDiscovery {
+
+    /** Feed content types, as `type=` gives them. */
+    private val FEED_TYPES = listOf("application/rss+xml", "application/atom+xml", "application/rdf+xml", "text/xml")
+
+    private val LINK_TAG = Regex("<link\\b[^>]*>", RegexOption.IGNORE_CASE)
+
+    /** `name="value"`, `name='value'` or `name=value`, in any order within the tag. */
+    private val ATTRIBUTE =
+        Regex("""(?<name>[a-zA-Z-]+)\s*=\s*("(?<dq>[^"]*)"|'(?<sq>[^']*)'|(?<bare>[^\s">]+))""")
+
+    /**
+     * The feed URL [html] advertises, absolute, or null when it advertises none.
+     *
+     * [pageUrl] is the address the HTML came from, which a relative href resolves against --
+     * against the page, not the site root, since a feed link on `/blog/` routinely says
+     * `feed.xml` and means `/blog/feed.xml`.
+     */
+    fun findFeedUrl(html: String, pageUrl: String): String? {
+        // Already a feed: there is nothing to discover, and scanning XML for <link> tags would
+        // only find Atom's own self-links and send the caller round in a circle.
+        if (html.trimStart().startsWith("<?xml", ignoreCase = true)) return null
+
+        return LINK_TAG.findAll(html)
+            .map { attributesOf(it.value) }
+            .firstOrNull { attrs ->
+                attrs["rel"]?.contains("alternate", ignoreCase = true) == true &&
+                    attrs["type"]?.lowercase()?.trim() in FEED_TYPES
+            }
+            ?.get("href")
+            ?.takeIf { it.isNotBlank() }
+            ?.let { resolve(it, pageUrl) }
+    }
+
+    private fun attributesOf(tag: String): Map<String, String> =
+        ATTRIBUTE.findAll(tag).associate { match ->
+            // Named rather than numbered: which of the three quoting alternatives matched is
+            // the whole question here, and "groupValues[4]" does not say that to a reader.
+            val value = match.groups["dq"]?.value
+                ?: match.groups["sq"]?.value
+                ?: match.groups["bare"]?.value.orEmpty()
+            match.groups["name"]!!.value.lowercase() to value
+        }
+
+    /**
+     * [href] as an absolute https URL.
+     *
+     * The https upgrade is the same rule the add-feed screen already applies to what the user
+     * types, for the same reason: Android blocks cleartext, so an http feed would fail every
+     * fetch forever. A site that advertises an http feed almost always serves it over https too.
+     */
+    private fun resolve(href: String, pageUrl: String): String? = try {
+        val absolute = URI(pageUrl).resolve(href.trim()).toString()
+        if (absolute.startsWith("http://", ignoreCase = true)) {
+            "https://" + absolute.removePrefix("http://").removePrefix("HTTP://")
+        } else {
+            absolute
+        }
+    } catch (ignored: IllegalArgumentException) {
+        // A malformed href is a page problem, not a crash: report no feed and let the caller
+        // say so, the same as a page that advertises none. Nothing is lost by not reporting
+        // it -- "no feed found at that address" is exactly as true and as useful either way.
+        null
+    }
+}
diff --git a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/readability/EvalDecision.kt b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/readability/EvalDecision.kt
index ed0033d..dd77014 100644
--- a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/readability/EvalDecision.kt
+++ b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/readability/EvalDecision.kt
@@ -39,7 +39,14 @@ internal fun decideEvalOutcome(
         !isConsentNotice
 
     return when {
-        usable -> EvalDecision.Done(ExtractionResult.Success(article!!))
+        // Cleaned on the way out rather than at the point of display: this is the one place
+        // every fresh extraction passes through, so the widgets never reach the screen and
+        // never reach `articles.extractedContent` either.
+        usable -> EvalDecision.Done(
+            ExtractionResult.Success(
+                article!!.copy(content = RecirculationWidgets.strip(article.content))
+            )
+        )
 
         // Readability ran and objected: that verdict will not change.
         readabilityError != null ->
diff --git a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/readability/RecirculationWidgets.kt b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/readability/RecirculationWidgets.kt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a6515c1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/readability/RecirculationWidgets.kt
@@ -0,0 +1,128 @@
+package org.terst.feedreader.readability
+
+/**
+ * Removes "recirculation" widgets -- the promo blocks a publisher's widget platform injects
+ * into the middle of the article body to send the reader off to other stories.
+ *
+ * Reported live: West Hawaii Today articles "get a bunch of stray 'Trending' headers".
+ * Confirmed by running the vendored Readability.js over the rendered page for the 12 articles
+ * in that feed: 9 carried two surviving widgets each. The three that didn't were paywalled
+ * stubs too short for the widgets to be reached.
+ *
+ * Readability keeps them because they are not in a sidebar -- they are inside the article's own
+ * container, between real paragraphs, so every structural signal says they belong. What arrives
+ * is a heading labelling nothing, because the list of links under it is filled in later by a
+ * script that never runs in the reader:
+ *
+ * ```
+ * <div data-mrf-recirculation="IL_..." data-testid="text-html"><p><h3><span>Trending</span></h3></p></div>
+ * ```
+ *
+ * The signal is the attribute, not the word "Trending": `data-mrf-recirculation` says what the
+ * block is for, in the widget platform's own vocabulary, and no article body is ever inside one.
+ * Matching on the heading text instead would be both narrower (the label varies by site and
+ * section) and more dangerous (an article may legitimately discuss what is trending).
+ *
+ * [MAX_WIDGET_TEXT_LENGTH] is the same safety valve [ConsentNotice] uses: however the attribute
+ * is applied, nothing with real writing in it is ever thrown away.
+ */
+object RecirculationWidgets {
+
+    /**
+     * Text length past which a block is kept whatever attribute it carries. A widget is a label
+     * and a few headlines; anything longer is somebody's writing and is not ours to delete.
+     */
+    private const val MAX_WIDGET_TEXT_LENGTH = 600
+
+    /**
+     * Attributes marking a block as recirculation. Only ones whose own name says so -- this list
+     * grows on evidence from a real article, never on a guess about what a vendor prefix means.
+     */
+    private val WIDGET_ATTRIBUTES = listOf("data-mrf-recirculation")
+
+    private val OPENING_DIV = Regex("<div\\b[^>]*>", RegexOption.IGNORE_CASE)
+    private val TAG_REGEX = Regex("<[^>]*>")
+    private val WHITESPACE_REGEX = Regex("\\s+")
+
+    private const val OPEN_DIV = "<div"
+    private const val CLOSE_DIV = "</div"
+
+    /** [html] with any recirculation widget removed. */
+    fun strip(html: String?): String? =
+        if (html.isNullOrBlank() || WIDGET_ATTRIBUTES.none { html.contains(it, ignoreCase = true) }) {
+            html
+        } else {
+            removeWidgets(html)
+        }
+
+    private fun removeWidgets(html: String): String {
+        val out = StringBuilder(html.length)
+        var cursor = 0
+        var open = OPENING_DIV.find(html, cursor)
+        while (open != null) {
+            val end = widgetEnd(html, open)
+            if (end == null) {
+                // Not a widget, or not safe to remove. Copy up to and including this opening
+                // tag: an ordinary div that merely sits before a widget must not go with it.
+                out.append(html, cursor, open.range.last + 1)
+                cursor = open.range.last + 1
+            } else {
+                out.append(html, cursor, open.range.first)
+                cursor = end
+            }
+            open = OPENING_DIV.find(html, cursor)
+        }
+        out.append(html, cursor, html.length)
+        return out.toString()
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Where the block opened at [open] ends, or null when it should be left exactly as it is --
+     * because it is not a widget, because the markup never closes it, or because it holds more
+     * text than a widget ever does and is therefore somebody's writing.
+     */
+    private fun widgetEnd(html: String, open: MatchResult): Int? =
+        if (!marksRecirculation(open.value)) {
+            null
+        } else {
+            matchingClose(html, open.range.last + 1)
+                ?.takeIf { !tooLongToBeAWidget(html.substring(open.range.first, it)) }
+        }
+
+    private fun marksRecirculation(openingTag: String) =
+        WIDGET_ATTRIBUTES.any { openingTag.contains(it, ignoreCase = true) }
+
+    /**
+     * The index just past the `</div>` closing the div that opened before [from], or null when
+     * the markup never closes it.
+     */
+    private fun matchingClose(html: String, from: Int): Int? {
+        var depth = 1
+        var i = from
+        var end: Int? = null
+        while (end == null && i < html.length) {
+            val next = html.indexOf('<', i)
+            when {
+                next < 0 -> i = html.length
+                html.startsWith(CLOSE_DIV, next, ignoreCase = true) -> {
+                    val close = html.indexOf('>', next)
+                    depth--
+                    when {
+                        close < 0 -> i = html.length
+                        depth == 0 -> end = close + 1
+                        else -> i = close + 1
+                    }
+                }
+                html.startsWith(OPEN_DIV, next, ignoreCase = true) -> {
+                    depth++
+                    i = next + OPEN_DIV.length
+                }
+                else -> i = next + 1
+            }
+        }
+        return end
+    }
+
+    private fun tooLongToBeAWidget(block: String): Boolean =
+        block.replace(TAG_REGEX, " ").replace(WHITESPACE_REGEX, " ").trim().length > MAX_WIDGET_TEXT_LENGTH
+}
diff --git a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/AddFeedScreen.kt b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/AddFeedScreen.kt
index 1e8814c..9f817ab 100644
--- a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/AddFeedScreen.kt
+++ b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/AddFeedScreen.kt
@@ -33,11 +33,13 @@ import kotlinx.coroutines.launch
 import kotlinx.coroutines.withContext
 import okhttp3.Request
 import org.terst.feedreader.data.AppDatabase
+import org.terst.feedreader.data.FeedDiscovery
 import org.terst.feedreader.data.FeedEntity
 import org.terst.feedreader.data.FeedParser
 import org.terst.feedreader.data.Net
 import org.terst.feedreader.opml.Opml
 import org.terst.feedreader.work.FeedFetchWorker
+import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream
 
 @OptIn(ExperimentalMaterial3Api::class)
 @Composable
@@ -168,25 +170,60 @@ fun AddFeedScreen(onDone: () -> Unit) {
 private fun preferHttps(url: String): String =
     if (url.startsWith("http://", ignoreCase = true)) "https://" + url.removePrefix("http://") else url
 
+/**
+ * Fetches [url] and returns its bytes, or null when the server refused.
+ *
+ * Read into memory rather than parsed from the live stream because the bytes may need looking
+ * at twice: once as a feed, and -- when that is not what the URL turned out to be -- again as a
+ * web page advertising where its feed actually lives. A response body is a one-shot stream, so
+ * the second look is only possible if the first did not consume it.
+ */
+private class Fetched(val bytes: ByteArray?, val error: String?)
+
+private fun fetchBytes(url: String): Fetched =
+    Net.client.newCall(Request.Builder().url(url).build()).execute().use { response ->
+        when {
+            !response.isSuccessful -> Fetched(null, "Couldn't fetch feed: HTTP ${response.code}")
+            else -> response.body?.let { Fetched(it.bytes(), null) } ?: Fetched(null, "Empty response")
+        }
+    }
+
 private suspend fun addFeedByUrl(context: android.content.Context, db: AppDatabase, feedUrl: String): String =
     withContext(Dispatchers.IO) {
-        val url = preferHttps(feedUrl)
+        val typedUrl = preferHttps(feedUrl)
         try {
-            val response = Net.client.newCall(Request.Builder().url(url).build()).execute()
-            response.use {
-                if (!it.isSuccessful) return@withContext "Couldn't fetch feed: HTTP ${it.code}"
-                val body = it.body ?: return@withContext "Empty response"
-                val parsed = FeedParser.parse(body.byteStream())
-                // Same REPLACE-wipes-other-fields concern as the OPML import path.
-                val existing = db.feedDao().getById(url)
-                val entity = existing?.copy(
-                    title = parsed.title.ifBlank { url },
-                    siteUrl = parsed.siteUrl ?: existing.siteUrl
-                ) ?: FeedEntity(id = url, title = parsed.title.ifBlank { url }, siteUrl = parsed.siteUrl)
-                db.feedDao().upsert(entity)
+            val fetched = fetchBytes(typedUrl)
+            val bytes = fetched.bytes ?: return@withContext fetched.error ?: "Empty response"
+
+            // What the user had to hand is usually the site, not the feed -- a site advertises
+            // its feed in its head, it does not print the URL anywhere a reader can copy. So a
+            // failed parse is not the answer yet: look for what the page says its feed is and
+            // try that, once. See FeedDiscovery.
+            var url = typedUrl
+            var parsed = runCatching { FeedParser.parse(ByteArrayInputStream(bytes)) }.getOrNull()
+            if (parsed == null) {
+                val discovered = FeedDiscovery.findFeedUrl(String(bytes, Charsets.UTF_8), typedUrl)
+                    ?: return@withContext "No feed found at that address"
+                val feed = fetchBytes(discovered)
+                val feedBytes = feed.bytes ?: return@withContext feed.error ?: "Empty response"
+                // One hop only: whatever the page pointed at has to be a feed. Following a
+                // second page would be a redirect chain nobody asked for.
+                parsed = FeedParser.parse(ByteArrayInputStream(feedBytes))
+                url = discovered
             }
+
+            // Same REPLACE-wipes-other-fields concern as the OPML import path.
+            val existing = db.feedDao().getById(url)
+            val entity = existing?.copy(
+                title = parsed.title.ifBlank { url },
+                siteUrl = parsed.siteUrl ?: existing.siteUrl
+            ) ?: FeedEntity(id = url, title = parsed.title.ifBlank { url }, siteUrl = parsed.siteUrl)
+            db.feedDao().upsert(entity)
+
             FeedFetchWorker.fetchNow(context)
-            "Added"
+            // Says which feed was added when it is not the URL that was typed, so a site URL
+            // quietly becoming a different feed URL is visible rather than surprising later.
+            if (url == typedUrl) "Added" else "Added ${parsed.title.ifBlank { url }}"
         } catch (e: Exception) {
             "Couldn't add feed: ${e.message}"
         }
diff --git a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/LinkReaderScreen.kt b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/LinkReaderScreen.kt
index 72f6c1f..9f9f74a 100644
--- a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/LinkReaderScreen.kt
+++ b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/LinkReaderScreen.kt
@@ -258,6 +258,7 @@ fun LinkReaderScreen(url: String, onBack: () -> Unit, onOpenLink: (String) -> Un
                                 ReaderWebViewCallbacks(
                                     onOpenLink = onOpenLink,
                                     onLongPressLink = { longPressedLink = it },
+                                    onOpenYouTubeExternally = { context.startActivity(Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse(it))) },
                                     onYouTubeVideo = { youtubeVideoId = it },
                                     onImageTap = { zoomedImageUrl = it },
                                     currentFontSizePx = { latestFontSizePx },
diff --git a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/ReaderScreen.kt b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/ReaderScreen.kt
index 9952dc5..0d326ea 100644
--- a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/ReaderScreen.kt
+++ b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/ReaderScreen.kt
@@ -599,6 +599,7 @@ private fun ReaderContent(
                             ReaderWebViewCallbacks(
                                 onOpenLink = onOpenLink,
                                 onLongPressLink = { longPressedLink = it },
+                                onOpenYouTubeExternally = { context.startActivity(Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse(it))) },
                                 onYouTubeVideo = { youtubeVideoId = it },
                                 onImageTap = { zoomedImageUrl = it },
                                 onScrollChanged = { scrollY -> ReaderScrollPositions.set(articleId, scrollY) },
diff --git a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/ReaderWebView.kt b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/ReaderWebView.kt
index f1400d3..78020a9 100644
--- a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/ReaderWebView.kt
+++ b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/ReaderWebView.kt
@@ -74,6 +74,11 @@ private fun extractYouTubeVideoId(uri: Uri): String? {
  * WebView's own default long-press behavior (a native "open/copy link" popup) --
  * callers show their own save/share/open action menu instead.
  *
+ * onOpenYouTubeExternally fires for a LONG-press on a YouTube link, with the watch URL, instead
+ * of the ordinary onLongPressLink actions menu -- callers hand it to the system, which is the
+ * YouTube app on a phone that has one. A tap plays the video in the reader; a long-press is how
+ * you say you wanted it somewhere else.
+ *
  * onYouTubeVideo fires for a tap on a YouTube watch link (what ReaderExtractor turns
  * an embedded video into a thumbnail link to) with just the video ID, instead of the
  * old behavior of handing off to the YouTube app/browser -- callers show an in-app
@@ -124,6 +129,7 @@ private fun extractYouTubeVideoId(uri: Uri): String? {
 data class ReaderWebViewCallbacks(
     val onOpenLink: (String) -> Unit,
     val onLongPressLink: (String) -> Unit = {},
+    val onOpenYouTubeExternally: (String) -> Unit = {},
     val onYouTubeVideo: (String) -> Unit = {},
     val onImageTap: (String) -> Unit = {},
     val onScrollChanged: (Int) -> Unit = {},
@@ -245,7 +251,19 @@ fun newReaderWebView(context: Context, callbacks: ReaderWebViewCallbacks): Reade
                 // Every article image now sits inside a zoom link, so a long-press on one
                 // reports that link's internal scheme -- strip it back to the image's own URL
                 // so the actions menu shows, and acts on, something real.
-                callbacks.onLongPressLink(withoutImageZoomScheme(url))
+                val target = withoutImageZoomScheme(url)
+                // A long-press on a video reports the thumbnail's URL rather than the link's --
+                // see youTubeTargetForLongPress, which resolves it back to the video. Straight
+                // out to whatever handles YouTube on the phone, usually the app: a tap already
+                // plays the video in the reader, so the only thing a long-press can usefully
+                // mean is "not in here, out there", and picking that off a menu would be a menu
+                // with one useful item.
+                val video = youTubeTargetForLongPress(target)
+                if (video != null) {
+                    callbacks.onOpenYouTubeExternally(video)
+                } else {
+                    callbacks.onLongPressLink(target)
+                }
                 true
             } else {
                 false
@@ -380,7 +398,17 @@ fun YouTubePlayerDialog(videoId: String, onDismiss: () -> Unit) {
                         }
                     }
                     webChromeClient = WebChromeClient()
-                    loadUrl("https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/$videoId?autoplay=1&playsinline=1")
+                    // A host page with the embed in an iframe, not the embed itself as the
+                    // top-level document. YouTube answers a top-level embed with "Video player
+                    // configuration error -- Error 153", which is the reported "YouTube play is
+                    // misconfigured"; framed, the same URL plays. See YouTubeLinks.
+                    loadDataWithBaseURL(
+                        YOUTUBE_EMBED_BASE_URL,
+                        youTubeEmbedPageHtml(videoId),
+                        "text/html",
+                        "utf-8",
+                        null
+                    )
                 }
             },
             onRelease = { it.destroy() }
diff --git a/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/YouTubeLinks.kt b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/YouTubeLinks.kt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e2b3b62
--- /dev/null
+++ b/app/src/main/java/org/terst/feedreader/ui/YouTubeLinks.kt
@@ -0,0 +1,127 @@
+package org.terst.feedreader.ui
+
+/**
+ * Recognising a YouTube placeholder link, and building a page its embed will actually play in.
+ *
+ * Split out of ReaderWebView for the usual reason: this is string work with no WebView, no
+ * gestures and no Compose in it, so it can be exercised without a device -- which matters here
+ * because the bug it fixes is invisible until a video is tapped.
+ *
+ * **Why the embed needs a page at all.** The player dialog used to call
+ * `loadUrl("https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/<id>")`, loading the embed as the WebView's
+ * own top-level document. YouTube refuses that: the player comes up showing "Video player
+ * configuration error -- Error 153", which is reported as "YouTube play is misconfigured".
+ * Confirmed by loading the same URL three ways in a real browser on an Android user agent:
+ *
+ * | how the embed is loaded                  | result                      |
+ * |------------------------------------------|-----------------------------|
+ * | top-level, as the app did                | Error 153                   |
+ * | top-level with `&origin=`                | Error 153                   |
+ * | in an `<iframe>` on an ordinary https page | plays                     |
+ *
+ * An embed is meant to be embedded. Given a host page it behaves exactly as it does on any
+ * site that includes a video, so that is what [youTubeEmbedPageHtml] provides.
+ */
+
+/** Video id characters, per YouTube: 11 of these and nothing else. */
+private val VIDEO_ID_CHARS = Regex("[^A-Za-z0-9_-]")
+
+/** Hosts whose links are YouTube's. Matched whole, so `notyoutube.com` is not one of them. */
+private val YOUTUBE_HOSTS = setOf("youtube.com", "www.youtube.com", "m.youtube.com", "youtu.be", "www.youtu.be")
+
+/** Thumbnail hosts. YouTube serves these from i.ytimg.com and numbered variants of it. */
+private val THUMBNAIL_HOST = Regex("^i[0-9]*\\.ytimg\\.com$")
+
+/** `/vi/<id>/...` or `/vi_webp/<id>/...` -- the id is the first segment after the vi folder. */
+private val THUMBNAIL_PATH = Regex("^/vi(?:_webp)?/([A-Za-z0-9_-]{11})/")
+
+/** `?v=<id>` anywhere in the query. */
+private val WATCH_QUERY = Regex("[?&]v=([A-Za-z0-9_-]{11})(?:&|$)")
+
+/** `/<id>` as the whole path, which is what youtu.be links are. */
+private val SHORT_PATH = Regex("^/([A-Za-z0-9_-]{11})/?$")
+
+/**
+ * The origin the embed is hosted on.
+ *
+ * Deliberately not a youtube.com domain: the embed checks that it is framed by a page other
+ * than its own, which is the condition the top-level load failed. Nothing is ever fetched from
+ * this address -- it is the base URL for `loadDataWithBaseURL`, so it only has to be a
+ * well-formed https origin for the document to have one.
+ */
+const val YOUTUBE_EMBED_BASE_URL = "https://reader.feedreader.invalid/"
+
+/**
+ * The video a long-press reported, as a watch URL, or null when the long-press was not on one.
+ *
+ * **What a long-press actually reports.** Not the link's href. The reader's video placeholder is
+ * `<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID"><img src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ID/hq720.jpg"></a>`,
+ * and for an image inside a link WebView's hit test gives SRC_IMAGE_ANCHOR_TYPE with the
+ * *image's* URL in `getExtra()`, not the anchor's. Confirmed on the device: long-pressing the
+ * thumbnail opened the ordinary link menu showing the i.ytimg.com JPEG. So the thumbnail URL is
+ * the shape that has to be recognised, and it carries the video id in its path.
+ *
+ * Watch and youtu.be links are recognised too, for wherever one does arrive -- a plain text link
+ * to a video in an article, which is not wrapped in an image.
+ *
+ * Anything on YouTube that is not one specific video -- a channel, a playlist -- returns null and
+ * gets the ordinary actions menu, since "open this directly" has no single video to mean.
+ */
+fun youTubeTargetForLongPress(url: String): String? {
+    val host = hostOf(url) ?: return null
+    val path = pathOf(url)
+    val id = when {
+        THUMBNAIL_HOST.matches(host) -> THUMBNAIL_PATH.find(path)?.groupValues?.get(1)
+        host !in YOUTUBE_HOSTS -> null
+        host.endsWith("youtu.be") -> SHORT_PATH.find(path)?.groupValues?.get(1)
+        else -> WATCH_QUERY.find(url)?.groupValues?.get(1)
+    }
+    return id?.let { youTubeWatchUrl(it) }
+}
+
+/** Where a video lives, in the form a phone hands to the YouTube app. */
+fun youTubeWatchUrl(videoId: String): String = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=${scrub(videoId)}"
+
+/**
+ * A minimal page holding nothing but the player, filling it.
+ *
+ * `allow="autoplay"` is required for the autoplay in the src to be honoured inside an iframe --
+ * without it the embed loads and then sits there, which would look like a different bug with
+ * the same symptom.
+ */
+fun youTubeEmbedPageHtml(videoId: String): String {
+    val id = scrub(videoId)
+    return """<!doctype html><html><head><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1">""" +
+        """<style>html,body{margin:0;padding:0;height:100%;background:#000;overflow:hidden}""" +
+        """iframe{display:block;border:0;width:100%;height:100%}</style></head><body>""" +
+        """<iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/$id?autoplay=1&playsinline=1&rel=0" """ +
+        """allow="autoplay; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; fullscreen" allowfullscreen></iframe>""" +
+        """</body></html>"""
+}
+
+/**
+ * The id with anything outside YouTube's own alphabet removed.
+ *
+ * The ids reaching here are already matched against `[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{11}` upstream, so this
+ * changes nothing today. It exists because the value is spliced straight into an HTML
+ * attribute, and that should be safe on its own terms rather than because of a check in a
+ * different file that a later edit might move.
+ */
+private fun scrub(videoId: String): String = VIDEO_ID_CHARS.replace(videoId, "")
+
+/** The path of [url], or "/" when it has none. */
+private fun pathOf(url: String): String {
+    val afterScheme = url.substringAfter("://", missingDelimiterValue = "")
+    val afterAuthority = afterScheme.substringAfter('/', missingDelimiterValue = "")
+    val path = "/" + afterAuthority.substringBefore('?').substringBefore('#')
+    return path
+}
+
+/** The host of [url], lowercased, or null when it is not a URL with one. */
+private fun hostOf(url: String): String? {
+    val afterScheme = url.substringAfter("://", missingDelimiterValue = "")
+    if (afterScheme.isEmpty()) return null
+    val authority = afterScheme.substringBefore('/').substringBefore('?').substringBefore('#')
+    val host = authority.substringAfterLast('@').substringBefore(':')
+    return host.lowercase().ifEmpty { null }
+}
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