Hide the 'Shorts' channel tab:
Settings > Content > Channel tabs > Uncheck 'Shorts'

Hide shorts in feed/subscriptions:
Settings > Content > Fetch channel tabs > Uncheck 'Shorts'

I thought the app was being rewritten and that this version was only gonna receive fixes until the rewrite is over.

That's correct. The "New" and "Improved" changes are mostly from pull requests that were opened before the rewrite announcement, or are important quality of life improvements.

Changelog

New

• Add comment replies
• Allow reordering playlists
• Show playlist description and duration
• Allow resetting settings

Improved

• [Android 13+] Restore custom notification actions
• Request consent for update check
• Allow notification play/pause while buffering
• Reorder some settings

Fixed

• [YouTube] Fix comments not loading, plus other fixes and improvements
• Solve vulnerability in settings import and switch to JSON
• Various download fixes
• Trim search text

Changelog

New

• Add comment replies
• Allow reordering playlists
• Show playlist description and duration
• Allow resetting settings

Improved

• [Android 13+] Restore custom notification actions
• Request consent for update check
• Allow notification play/pause while buffering
• Reorder some settings

Fixed

• [YouTube] Fix comments not loading, plus other fixes and improvements
• Solve vulnerability in settings import and switch to JSON
• Various download fixes
• Trim search text

Changelog

New:

• Support channel tabs
• Select image quality
• Get URLs to all images

Improved:

• Accessibility of player interfaces
• Better audio selection for video-only downloads
• Option to include playlist and video names to shared playlist content

Fixed:

• [YouTube] Fix getting like count
• Fix player not responding popups and crashes
• Selection of wrong languages in language picker
• Player audio focus was not respecting mute
• Playlist item addition occasionally not working

Changelog

New:

• Support channel tabs
• Select image quality
• Get URLs to all images

Improved:

• Accessibility of player interfaces
• Better audio selection for video-only downloads
• Option to include playlist and video names to shared playlist content

Fixed:

• [YouTube] Fix getting like count
• Fix player not responding popups and crashes
• Selection of wrong languages in language picker
• Player audio focus was not respecting mute
• Playlist item addition occasionally not working

Since Whatbox allows you to SSH into your seedbox, you can setup slskd manually (root not required) and access its WebUI remotely.

This tutorial is pretty good as an introduction to modding APKs:
https://old.reddit.com/r/ApksApps/comments/oat3qu/tutorial_how_to_modify_apk_files_for_premium/
The example used is unlocking premium features but the principles are the same for disabling DRM.

https://piped.video/watch?v=jNiKU4-ybBc

In the future, you can just manually replace www.youtube.com with piped.video to view it on Piped, since the rest of the URL is identical between Youtube and Piped.

Torrminatorr has a Linux section with quite a few games, including GOG releases.