Ok, I went to the website, downloaded the app from there. Samsung and or Android warned me about it, but I went ahead. Seems to be legit, it just takes forever to load anything. Feeds, thumbnails, starting a video all take a long time.
My one guess is that 1.1.1.1 is interfering?
Edit: yes, that was it. I allowed Newpipe to bypass 1.1.1.1 DNS and it’s loading just as fast as YouTube itself now. Should have tried that before posting here.