If you're using F-Droid, it helps to switch to NewPipe's own repo, since the default F-Droid repo tends to be a bit slow with updates.

How can i do that?

Here's their instructions: https://newpipe.schabi.org/blog/announcement/f-droid/pinned/...

I use the app every day - if memory serves they've usually had a new version out within 24hours of breaking changes on youtube.

Thank you

download apks directly from github

NewPipe is generally very rarely "down" - I think the youtube-dl upstream issues are impacting them, or they're playing dead for a minute until the RIAA fucks off.

NewPipe doesn't use youtube-dl. It uses its own library for downloading from Youtube.

playing dead avoids drawing attention to it

In my experience, NewPipe Legacy is more stable than NewPipe. Its intended for Android versions <5 but it works fine on my Android 9 device.