GitVidPlayer Beta

A peer-to-peer video player. Videos are served by peers, and watching pays the creator and whoever served the bytes.

This is a beta — please read before you install

It works, and it is being actively tested — but it is early software, so treat it as something to try and report on rather than something to rely on.

Play money only. The wallet uses a test mint and testnet sats. Do not put real funds anywhere near it, and do not treat anything it shows as a real balance.
Unsigned. There is no Apple or Microsoft developer signature, so your OS will warn you and you will have to click past it. Only do that because you know where this came from. The checksums below catch a corrupted or truncated download; they are served from this same site, so they cannot prove the files were not tampered with here.
Expect rough edges, and expect to lose data. Settings, wallet state and downloads may not survive an update. Nothing here is backed up.
Please report anything odd, including the boring stuff. Knowing what is broken is the entire purpose of this build.

Downloads

macOS — Apple Silicon M1, M2, M3, M4

Download 330 MB

Unzip, then drag GitVidPlayer.app into /Applications.
Right-click the app and choose Open — do not double-click the first time. macOS blocks downloaded apps from unidentified developers, and right-click → Open is the sanctioned way past that prompt.
If macOS still refuses, clear the download flag:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/GitVidPlayer.app

SHA-256f66065cf73b336dd1467d2241bb262d0259fa1ea12d6fac720092df9bbd2cb32

macOS — Intel pre-2021 Macs

Download 334 MB

Unzip, then drag GitVidPlayer.app into /Applications.
Right-click the app and choose Open the first time.
If it still refuses:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/GitVidPlayer.app

SHA-25632e2f5c0d273a4748fae5c2c7293224f7425a71c748e2cce57afa54b96551582

Linux — x86-64 portable, any glibc distro

Download 334 MB

Unzip anywhere, then make it executable:
chmod +x GitVidPlayer
Run ./GitVidPlayer
On a minimal install you may need the usual Electron libraries:
sudo apt install libgtk-3-0 libnss3 libasound2t64 libgbm1
Check you have the right build with uname -m — this one needs x86_64.

SHA-256dacd6879ccb2984e336c82ae149b1840c1cea6736d9f09984c6a09ad5d3293f9

Windows — x64 portable, unverified

Download 358 MB

Unzip, then run GitVidPlayer.exe.
SmartScreen will warn because the build is unsigned — More info → Run anyway.
Heads up: this build has not been launched or tested by anyone. If it fails, say so — that is useful information, not a waste of time.

SHA-256a9329b860925b8d78939fd94b460d89e51e826320843670b1f16069cfbd06155

Verify your download

This catches a corrupted or truncated download. It does not prove the file is genuine: SHA256SUMS comes from this same server, so anyone who could alter a zip here could alter the checksum in the same motion. Treat it as an integrity check, not an authenticity one. Download it into the same folder, then:

shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS      # macOS / Linux
Get-FileHash .\GitVidPlayer-1.3.0-windows-x64.zip -Algorithm SHA256   # Windows

Authenticity: this release also publishes SHA256SUMS.nostr.json — a nostr event signed by npub16r543kh96ksxqx2ge0szndzt8r0pywerx4rvk9cuhth6tg6ndqrszc0tk8 whose content is the checksum file above. That signature is what a tampered host cannot forge, because the key is not on this server. Compare the event's content to your downloaded SHA256SUMS and check the signature against that npub:

nak verify < SHA256SUMS.nostr.json    # then diff its .content against SHA256SUMS

Keeping it up to date

The app cannot update itself — updating means downloading it again

These builds are unsigned, and an unsigned app cannot install its own updates: macOS refuses to apply an update to a bundle it cannot verify. There is no auto-updater, and there will not be one until the builds are properly signed. That means a security fix only reaches you if you come back here and download the new version.

The app will tell you. When a new release is announced, a bar appears at the top of the window saying which version is available. The notice arrives over nostr, signed by npub16r543kh96ksxqx2ge0szndzt8r0pywerx4rvk9cuhth6tg6ndqrszc0tk8 — the app checks nothing against this website and reports nothing back to it.
To update: download the new version above, quit the app, and replace the old copy — drag the new GitVidPlayer.app into /Applications and choose Replace (on Linux and Windows, overwrite the unzipped folder).
Your data is not in the app. Identity, wallet, settings and downloads live in your user profile, not inside the bundle, so replacing the app does not delete them. Being a beta, a new version can still change or reset what is stored — see the warning at the top.
Check which version you are on in Settings → Version. Quote it in bug reports.

Something broken?

Useful things to include: your OS and version, which build you downloaded, and what you expected versus what happened. If the video list is empty, mention whether this was a fresh install or an upgrade — those are two different bugs.

GitVidPlayer 1.3.0 beta · built from c25cee5 · 2026-08-30
Quote that revision when reporting anything, so it is clear which build you were on.