diff --git a/.ameba.yml b/.ameba.yml
index 36d7c48f..e9e67b16 100644
--- a/.ameba.yml
+++ b/.ameba.yml
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ Lint/NotNil:
 
 Lint/SpecFilename:
   Excluded:
-    - spec/parsers_helper.cr
+    - spec/*_helper.cr
 
 
 #
diff --git a/config/config.example.yml b/config/config.example.yml
index 8d3e6212..5171a65a 100644
--- a/config/config.example.yml
+++ b/config/config.example.yml
@@ -206,7 +206,7 @@ https_only: false
 #disable_proxy: false
 
 ##
-## Size of the HTTP pool used to connect to youtube. Each
+## Max size of the HTTP pool used to connect to youtube. Each
 ## domain ('youtube.com', 'ytimg.com', ...) has its own pool.
 ##
 ## Accepted values: a positive integer
@@ -214,6 +214,16 @@ https_only: false
 ##
 #pool_size: 100
 
+##
+## Amount of seconds to wait for a client to be free from the pool
+## before raising an error
+##
+##
+## Accepted values: a positive integer
+## Default: 5
+##
+#pool_checkout_timeout: 5
+
 
 ##
 ## Additional cookies to be sent when requesting the youtube API.
diff --git a/spec/helpers/networking/connection_pool_spec.cr b/spec/helpers/networking/connection_pool_spec.cr
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..3209d4e3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spec/helpers/networking/connection_pool_spec.cr
@@ -0,0 +1,112 @@
+# Due to the way that specs are handled this file cannot be run
+# together with everything else without causing a compile time error
+#
+# TODO: Allow running different isolated spec through make
+#
+# For now run this with `crystal spec -p spec/helpers/networking/connection_pool_spec.cr -Drunning_by_self`
+{% skip_file unless flag?(:running_by_self) %}
+
+# Based on https://github.com/jgaskins/http_client/blob/958cf56064c0d31264a117467022b90397eb65d7/spec/http_client_spec.cr
+require "wait_group"
+require "uri"
+require "http"
+require "http/server"
+require "http_proxy"
+
+require "db"
+require "pg"
+require "spectator"
+
+require "../../load_config_helper"
+require "../../../src/invidious/helpers/crystal_class_overrides"
+require "../../../src/invidious/connection/*"
+
+TEST_SERVER_URL = URI.parse("http://localhost:12345")
+
+server = HTTP::Server.new do |context|
+  request = context.request
+  response = context.response
+
+  case {request.method, request.path}
+  when {"GET", "/get"}
+    response << "get"
+  when {"POST", "/post"}
+    response.status = :created
+    response << "post"
+  when {"GET", "/sleep"}
+    duration = request.query_params["duration_sec"].to_i.seconds
+    sleep duration
+  end
+end
+
+spawn server.listen 12345
+
+Fiber.yield
+
+Spectator.describe Invidious::ConnectionPool do
+  describe "Pool" do
+    it "Can make a requests through standard HTTP methods" do
+      pool = Invidious::ConnectionPool::Pool.new(max_capacity: 100) { next make_client(TEST_SERVER_URL) }
+
+      expect(pool.get("/get").body).to eq("get")
+      expect(pool.post("/post").body).to eq("post")
+    end
+
+    it "Can make streaming requests" do
+      pool = Invidious::ConnectionPool::Pool.new(max_capacity: 100) { next make_client(TEST_SERVER_URL) }
+
+      expect(pool.get("/get", &.body_io.gets_to_end)).to eq("get")
+      expect(pool.get("/post", &.body)).to eq("")
+      expect(pool.post("/post", &.body_io.gets_to_end)).to eq("post")
+    end
+
+    it "Allows more than one clients to be checked out (if applicable)" do
+      pool = Invidious::ConnectionPool::Pool.new(max_capacity: 100) { next make_client(TEST_SERVER_URL) }
+
+      pool.checkout do |_|
+        expect(pool.post("/post").body).to eq("post")
+      end
+    end
+
+    it "Can make multiple requests with the same client" do
+      pool = Invidious::ConnectionPool::Pool.new(max_capacity: 100) { next make_client(TEST_SERVER_URL) }
+
+      pool.checkout do |client|
+        expect(client.get("/get").body).to eq("get")
+        expect(client.post("/post").body).to eq("post")
+        expect(client.get("/get").body).to eq("get")
+      end
+    end
+
+    it "Allows concurrent requests" do
+      pool = Invidious::ConnectionPool::Pool.new(max_capacity: 100) { next make_client(TEST_SERVER_URL) }
+      responses = [] of HTTP::Client::Response
+
+      WaitGroup.wait do |wg|
+        100.times do
+          wg.spawn { responses << pool.get("/get") }
+        end
+      end
+
+      expect(responses.map(&.body)).to eq(["get"] * 100)
+    end
+
+    it "Raises on checkout timeout" do
+      pool = Invidious::ConnectionPool::Pool.new(max_capacity: 2, timeout: 0.01) { next make_client(TEST_SERVER_URL) }
+
+      # Long running requests
+      2.times do
+        spawn { pool.get("/sleep?duration_sec=2") }
+      end
+
+      Fiber.yield
+
+      expect { pool.get("/get") }.to raise_error(Invidious::ConnectionPool::Error)
+    end
+
+    it "Raises when an error is encountered" do
+      pool = Invidious::ConnectionPool::Pool.new(max_capacity: 100) { next make_client(TEST_SERVER_URL) }
+      expect { pool.get("/get") { raise IO::Error.new } }.to raise_error(Invidious::ConnectionPool::Error)
+    end
+  end
+end
diff --git a/spec/load_config_helper.cr b/spec/load_config_helper.cr
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..07a63718
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spec/load_config_helper.cr
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+require "yaml"
+require "log"
+
+abstract class Kemal::BaseLogHandler
+end
+
+require "../src/invidious/config"
+require "../src/invidious/jobs/base_job"
+require "../src/invidious/jobs.cr"
+require "../src/invidious/user/preferences.cr"
+require "../src/invidious/helpers/logger"
+require "../src/invidious/helpers/utils"
+
+CONFIG   = Config.from_yaml(File.open("config/config.example.yml"))
+HMAC_KEY = CONFIG.hmac_key
diff --git a/src/invidious.cr b/src/invidious.cr
index 69f8a26c..20704fd3 100644
--- a/src/invidious.cr
+++ b/src/invidious.cr
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ require "protodec/utils"
 
 require "./invidious/database/*"
 require "./invidious/database/migrations/*"
+require "./invidious/connection/*"
 require "./invidious/http_server/*"
 require "./invidious/helpers/*"
 require "./invidious/yt_backend/*"
@@ -90,15 +91,31 @@ SOFTWARE = {
   "branch"  => "#{CURRENT_BRANCH}",
 }
 
-YT_POOL = YoutubeConnectionPool.new(YT_URL, capacity: CONFIG.pool_size)
+YT_POOL = Invidious::ConnectionPool::Pool.new(
+  max_capacity: CONFIG.pool_size,
+  timeout: CONFIG.pool_checkout_timeout
+) do
+  next make_client(YT_URL, force_resolve: true)
+end
 
 # Image request pool
 
-GGPHT_POOL = YoutubeConnectionPool.new(URI.parse("https://yt3.ggpht.com"), capacity: CONFIG.pool_size)
+GGPHT_URL = URI.parse("https://yt3.ggpht.com")
 
-COMPANION_POOL = CompanionConnectionPool.new(
-  capacity: CONFIG.pool_size
-)
+GGPHT_POOL = Invidious::ConnectionPool::Pool.new(
+  max_capacity: CONFIG.pool_size,
+  timeout: CONFIG.pool_checkout_timeout
+) do
+  next make_client(GGPHT_URL, force_resolve: true)
+end
+
+COMPANION_POOL = Invidious::ConnectionPool::Pool.new(
+  max_capacity: CONFIG.pool_size,
+  reinitialize_proxy: false
+) do
+  companion = CONFIG.invidious_companion.sample
+  next make_client(companion.private_url, use_http_proxy: false)
+end
 
 # CLI
 Kemal.config.extra_options do |parser|
diff --git a/src/invidious/channels/channels.cr b/src/invidious/channels/channels.cr
index 65982325..f71c4293 100644
--- a/src/invidious/channels/channels.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/channels/channels.cr
@@ -166,7 +166,7 @@ def fetch_channel(ucid, pull_all_videos : Bool)
   }
 
   LOGGER.trace("fetch_channel: #{ucid} : Downloading RSS feed")
-  rss = YT_POOL.client &.get("/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=#{ucid}").body
+  rss = YT_POOL.get("/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=#{ucid}").body
   LOGGER.trace("fetch_channel: #{ucid} : Parsing RSS feed")
   rss = XML.parse(rss)
 
diff --git a/src/invidious/config.cr b/src/invidious/config.cr
index 4d69854c..d3a96cff 100644
--- a/src/invidious/config.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/config.cr
@@ -157,8 +157,13 @@ class Config
   property host_binding : String = "0.0.0.0"
   # Path and permissions to make Invidious listen on a UNIX socket instead of a TCP port
   property socket_binding : SocketBindingConfig? = nil
-  # Pool size for HTTP requests to youtube.com and ytimg.com (each domain has a separate pool of `pool_size`)
+
+  # Max pool size for HTTP requests to youtube.com and ytimg.com (each domain has a separate pool)
   property pool_size : Int32 = 100
+
+  # Amount of seconds to wait for a client to be free from the pool before rasing an error
+  property pool_checkout_timeout : Float64 = 5
+
   # HTTP Proxy configuration
   property http_proxy : HTTPProxyConfig? = nil
 
diff --git a/src/invidious/connection/client.cr b/src/invidious/connection/client.cr
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..ab3f8c50
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/invidious/connection/client.cr
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+def add_yt_headers(request)
+  request.headers.delete("User-Agent") if request.headers["User-Agent"] == "Crystal"
+  request.headers["User-Agent"] ||= "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/128.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
+
+  request.headers["Accept-Charset"] ||= "ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7"
+  request.headers["Accept"] ||= "text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8"
+  request.headers["Accept-Language"] ||= "en-us,en;q=0.5"
+
+  # Preserve original cookies and add new YT consent cookie for EU servers
+  request.headers["Cookie"] = "#{request.headers["cookie"]?}; CONSENT=PENDING+#{Random.rand(100..999)}"
+  if !CONFIG.cookies.empty?
+    request.headers["Cookie"] = "#{(CONFIG.cookies.map { |c| "#{c.name}=#{c.value}" }).join("; ")}; #{request.headers["cookie"]?}"
+  end
+end
+
+def make_client(url : URI, region = nil, force_resolve : Bool = false, force_youtube_headers : Bool = false, use_http_proxy : Bool = true)
+  client = HTTP::Client.new(url)
+  client.proxy = make_configured_http_proxy_client() if CONFIG.http_proxy && use_http_proxy
+
+  # Force the usage of a specific configured IP Family
+  if force_resolve
+    client.family = CONFIG.force_resolve
+    client.family = Socket::Family::INET if client.family == Socket::Family::UNSPEC
+  end
+
+  client.before_request { |r| add_yt_headers(r) } if url.host.try &.ends_with?("youtube.com") || force_youtube_headers
+  client.read_timeout = 10.seconds
+  client.connect_timeout = 10.seconds
+
+  return client
+end
+
+def make_client(url : URI, region = nil, force_resolve : Bool = false, use_http_proxy : Bool = true, &)
+  client = make_client(url, region, force_resolve: force_resolve, use_http_proxy: use_http_proxy)
+  begin
+    yield client
+  ensure
+    client.close
+  end
+end
+
+def make_configured_http_proxy_client
+  # This method is only called when configuration for an HTTP proxy are set
+  config_proxy = CONFIG.http_proxy.not_nil!
+
+  return HTTP::Proxy::Client.new(
+    config_proxy.host,
+    config_proxy.port,
+
+    username: config_proxy.user,
+    password: config_proxy.password,
+  )
+end
diff --git a/src/invidious/connection/pool.cr b/src/invidious/connection/pool.cr
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..a97b9983
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/invidious/connection/pool.cr
@@ -0,0 +1,116 @@
+module Invidious::ConnectionPool
+  # A connection pool to reuse `HTTP::Client` connections
+  struct Pool
+    getter pool : DB::Pool(HTTP::Client)
+
+    # Creates a connection pool with the provided options, and client factory block.
+    def initialize(
+      *,
+      max_capacity : Int32 = 5,
+      timeout : Float64 = 5.0,
+      @reinitialize_proxy : Bool = true, # Whether or not http-proxy should be reinitialized on checkout
+      &client_factory : -> HTTP::Client
+    )
+      pool_options = DB::Pool::Options.new(
+        initial_pool_size: 0,
+        max_pool_size: max_capacity,
+        max_idle_pool_size: max_capacity,
+        checkout_timeout: timeout
+      )
+
+      @pool = DB::Pool(HTTP::Client).new(pool_options, &client_factory)
+    end
+
+    {% for method in %w[get post put patch delete head options] %}
+      # Streaming API for {{method.id.upcase}} request.
+      # The response will have its body as an `IO` accessed via `HTTP::Client::Response#body_io`.
+      def {{method.id}}(*args, **kwargs, &)
+        self.checkout do | client |
+          client.{{method.id}}(*args, **kwargs) do | response |
+            result = yield response
+            return result
+          ensure
+            response.body_io?.try &.skip_to_end
+          end
+        end
+      end
+
+      # Executes a {{method.id.upcase}} request.
+      # The response will have its body as a `String`, accessed via `HTTP::Client::Response#body`.
+      def {{method.id}}(*args, **kwargs)
+        self.checkout do | client |
+          return client.{{method.id}}(*args, **kwargs)
+        end
+      end
+    {% end %}
+
+    # Checks out a client in the pool
+    def checkout(&)
+      # If a client has been deleted from the pool
+      # we won't try to release it
+      client_exists_in_pool = true
+
+      http_client = pool.checkout
+
+      # When the HTTP::Client connection is closed, the automatic reconnection
+      # feature will create a new IO to connect to the server with
+      #
+      # This new TCP IO will be a direct connection to the server and will not go
+      # through the proxy. As such we'll need to reinitialize the proxy connection
+
+      http_client.proxy = make_configured_http_proxy_client() if @reinitialize_proxy && CONFIG.http_proxy
+
+      response = yield http_client
+    rescue ex : DB::PoolTimeout
+      # Failed to checkout a client
+      raise ConnectionPool::PoolCheckoutError.new(ex.message)
+    rescue ex
+      # An error occurred with the client itself.
+      # Delete the client from the pool and close the connection
+      if http_client
+        client_exists_in_pool = false
+        @pool.delete(http_client)
+        http_client.close
+      end
+
+      # Raise exception for outer methods to handle
+      raise ConnectionPool::Error.new(ex.message, cause: ex)
+    ensure
+      pool.release(http_client) if http_client && client_exists_in_pool
+    end
+  end
+
+  class Error < Exception
+  end
+
+  # Raised when the pool failed to get a client in time
+  class PoolCheckoutError < Error
+  end
+
+  # Mapping of subdomain => Invidious::ConnectionPool::Pool
+  # This is needed as we may need to access arbitrary subdomains of ytimg
+  private YTIMG_POOLS = {} of String => ConnectionPool::Pool
+
+  # Fetches a HTTP pool for the specified subdomain of ytimg.com
+  #
+  # Creates a new one when the specified pool for the subdomain does not exist
+  def self.get_ytimg_pool(subdomain)
+    if pool = YTIMG_POOLS[subdomain]?
+      return pool
+    else
+      LOGGER.info("ytimg_pool: Creating a new HTTP pool for \"https://#{subdomain}.ytimg.com\"")
+      url = URI.parse("https://#{subdomain}.ytimg.com")
+
+      pool = ConnectionPool::Pool.new(
+        max_capacity: CONFIG.pool_size,
+        timeout: CONFIG.pool_checkout_timeout
+      ) do
+        next make_client(url, force_resolve: true)
+      end
+
+      YTIMG_POOLS[subdomain] = pool
+
+      return pool
+    end
+  end
+end
diff --git a/src/invidious/mixes.cr b/src/invidious/mixes.cr
index 28ff0ff6..6728ff47 100644
--- a/src/invidious/mixes.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/mixes.cr
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ def fetch_mix(rdid, video_id, cookies = nil, locale = nil)
   end
 
   video_id = "CvFH_6DNRCY" if rdid.starts_with? "OLAK5uy_"
-  response = YT_POOL.client &.get("/watch?v=#{video_id}&list=#{rdid}&gl=US&hl=en", headers)
+  response = YT_POOL.get("/watch?v=#{video_id}&list=#{rdid}&gl=US&hl=en", headers)
   initial_data = extract_initial_data(response.body)
 
   if !initial_data["contents"]["twoColumnWatchNextResults"]["playlist"]?
diff --git a/src/invidious/routes/api/manifest.cr b/src/invidious/routes/api/manifest.cr
index c27caad7..bc1258f5 100644
--- a/src/invidious/routes/api/manifest.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/routes/api/manifest.cr
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::API::Manifest
     end
 
     if dashmpd = video.dash_manifest_url
-      response = YT_POOL.client &.get(URI.parse(dashmpd).request_target)
+      response = YT_POOL.get(URI.parse(dashmpd).request_target)
 
       if response.status_code != 200
         haltf env, status_code: response.status_code
@@ -167,7 +167,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::API::Manifest
 
   # /api/manifest/hls_playlist/*
   def self.get_hls_playlist(env)
-    response = YT_POOL.client &.get(env.request.path)
+    response = YT_POOL.get(env.request.path)
 
     if response.status_code != 200
       haltf env, status_code: response.status_code
@@ -223,7 +223,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::API::Manifest
 
   # /api/manifest/hls_variant/*
   def self.get_hls_variant(env)
-    response = YT_POOL.client &.get(env.request.path)
+    response = YT_POOL.get(env.request.path)
 
     if response.status_code != 200
       haltf env, status_code: response.status_code
diff --git a/src/invidious/routes/api/v1/videos.cr b/src/invidious/routes/api/v1/videos.cr
index 6a3eb8ae..9d10b0e1 100644
--- a/src/invidious/routes/api/v1/videos.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/routes/api/v1/videos.cr
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::API::V1::Videos
       # Auto-generated captions often have cues that aren't aligned properly with the video,
       # as well as some other markup that makes it cumbersome, so we try to fix that here
       if caption.name.includes? "auto-generated"
-        caption_xml = YT_POOL.client &.get(url).body
+        caption_xml = YT_POOL.get(url).body
 
         settings_field = {
           "Kind"     => "captions",
@@ -147,7 +147,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::API::V1::Videos
         query_params = uri.query_params
         query_params["fmt"] = "vtt"
         uri.query_params = query_params
-        webvtt = YT_POOL.client &.get(uri.request_target).body
+        webvtt = YT_POOL.get(uri.request_target).body
 
         if webvtt.starts_with?("<?xml")
           webvtt = caption.timedtext_to_vtt(webvtt)
@@ -300,7 +300,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::API::V1::Videos
         cache_annotation(id, annotations)
       end
     else # "youtube"
-      response = YT_POOL.client &.get("/annotations_invideo?video_id=#{id}")
+      response = YT_POOL.get("/annotations_invideo?video_id=#{id}")
 
       if response.status_code != 200
         haltf env, response.status_code
diff --git a/src/invidious/routes/channels.cr b/src/invidious/routes/channels.cr
index 508aa3e4..f3e75e35 100644
--- a/src/invidious/routes/channels.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/routes/channels.cr
@@ -392,7 +392,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::Channels
     value = env.request.resource.split("/")[2]
     body = ""
     {"channel", "user", "c"}.each do |type|
-      response = YT_POOL.client &.get("/#{type}/#{value}/live?disable_polymer=1")
+      response = YT_POOL.get("/#{type}/#{value}/live?disable_polymer=1")
       if response.status_code == 200
         body = response.body
       end
diff --git a/src/invidious/routes/embed.cr b/src/invidious/routes/embed.cr
index 930e4915..9395f11e 100644
--- a/src/invidious/routes/embed.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/routes/embed.cr
@@ -96,7 +96,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::Embed
 
       return env.redirect url
     when "live_stream"
-      response = YT_POOL.client &.get("/embed/live_stream?channel=#{env.params.query["channel"]? || ""}")
+      response = YT_POOL.get("/embed/live_stream?channel=#{env.params.query["channel"]? || ""}")
       video_id = response.body.match(/"video_id":"(?<video_id>[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{11})"/).try &.["video_id"]
 
       env.params.query.delete_all("channel")
diff --git a/src/invidious/routes/errors.cr b/src/invidious/routes/errors.cr
index 1e9ab44e..2f35f050 100644
--- a/src/invidious/routes/errors.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/routes/errors.cr
@@ -9,10 +9,10 @@ module Invidious::Routes::ErrorRoutes
       item = md["id"]
 
       # Check if item is branding URL e.g. https://youtube.com/gaming
-      response = YT_POOL.client &.get("/#{item}")
+      response = YT_POOL.get("/#{item}")
 
       if response.status_code == 301
-        response = YT_POOL.client &.get(URI.parse(response.headers["Location"]).request_target)
+        response = YT_POOL.get(URI.parse(response.headers["Location"]).request_target)
       end
 
       if response.body.empty?
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::ErrorRoutes
       end
 
       # Check if item is video ID
-      if item.match(/^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{11}$/) && YT_POOL.client &.head("/watch?v=#{item}").status_code != 404
+      if item.match(/^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{11}$/) && YT_POOL.head("/watch?v=#{item}").status_code != 404
         env.response.headers["Location"] = url
         haltf env, status_code: 302
       end
diff --git a/src/invidious/routes/feeds.cr b/src/invidious/routes/feeds.cr
index 070c96eb..c7df71e2 100644
--- a/src/invidious/routes/feeds.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/routes/feeds.cr
@@ -160,8 +160,9 @@ module Invidious::Routes::Feeds
       "default" => "http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom",
     }
 
-    response = YT_POOL.client &.get("/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=#{ucid}")
+    response = YT_POOL.get("/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=#{ucid}")
     return error_atom(404, NotFoundException.new("Channel does not exist.")) if response.status_code == 404
+
     rss = XML.parse(response.body)
 
     videos = rss.xpath_nodes("//default:feed/default:entry", namespaces).map do |entry|
@@ -310,7 +311,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::Feeds
       end
     end
 
-    response = YT_POOL.client &.get("/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=#{plid}")
+    response = YT_POOL.get("/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=#{plid}")
     return error_atom(404, NotFoundException.new("Playlist does not exist.")) if response.status_code == 404
 
     document = XML.parse(response.body)
diff --git a/src/invidious/routes/images.cr b/src/invidious/routes/images.cr
index 51d85dfe..7097ab79 100644
--- a/src/invidious/routes/images.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/routes/images.cr
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::Images
     end
 
     begin
-      GGPHT_POOL.client &.get(url, headers) do |resp|
+      GGPHT_POOL.get(url, headers) do |resp|
         return self.proxy_image(env, resp)
       end
     rescue ex
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::Images
     end
 
     begin
-      get_ytimg_pool(authority).client &.get(url, headers) do |resp|
+      ConnectionPool.get_ytimg_pool(authority).get(url, headers) do |resp|
         env.response.headers["Connection"] = "close"
         return self.proxy_image(env, resp)
       end
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::Images
     end
 
     begin
-      get_ytimg_pool("i9").client &.get(url, headers) do |resp|
+      ConnectionPool.get_ytimg_pool("i9").get(url, headers) do |resp|
         return self.proxy_image(env, resp)
       end
     rescue ex
@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::Images
     end
 
     begin
-      YT_POOL.client &.get(env.request.resource, headers) do |response|
+      YT_POOL.get(env.request.resource, headers) do |response|
         env.response.status_code = response.status_code
         response.headers.each do |key, value|
           if !RESPONSE_HEADERS_BLACKLIST.includes?(key.downcase)
@@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::Images
     if name == "maxres.jpg"
       build_thumbnails(id).each do |thumb|
         thumbnail_resource_path = "/vi/#{id}/#{thumb[:url]}.jpg"
-        if get_ytimg_pool("i").client &.head(thumbnail_resource_path, headers).status_code == 200
+        if ConnectionPool.get_ytimg_pool("i").head(thumbnail_resource_path, headers).status_code == 200
           name = thumb[:url] + ".jpg"
           break
         end
@@ -127,7 +127,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::Images
     end
 
     begin
-      get_ytimg_pool("i").client &.get(url, headers) do |resp|
+      ConnectionPool.get_ytimg_pool("i").get(url, headers) do |resp|
         return self.proxy_image(env, resp)
       end
     rescue ex
diff --git a/src/invidious/routes/playlists.cr b/src/invidious/routes/playlists.cr
index f2213da4..cb24648f 100644
--- a/src/invidious/routes/playlists.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/routes/playlists.cr
@@ -464,7 +464,7 @@ module Invidious::Routes::Playlists
 
   # Undocumented, creates anonymous playlist with specified 'video_ids', max 50 videos
   def self.watch_videos(env)
-    response = YT_POOL.client &.get(env.request.resource)
+    response = YT_POOL.get(env.request.resource)
     if url = response.headers["Location"]?
       url = URI.parse(url).request_target
       return env.redirect url
diff --git a/src/invidious/search/processors.cr b/src/invidious/search/processors.cr
index 25edb936..4c635ab2 100644
--- a/src/invidious/search/processors.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/search/processors.cr
@@ -16,11 +16,11 @@ module Invidious::Search
     # Search a youtube channel
     # TODO: clean code, and rely more on YoutubeAPI
     def channel(query : Query) : Array(SearchItem)
-      response = YT_POOL.client &.get("/channel/#{query.channel}")
+      response = YT_POOL.get("/channel/#{query.channel}")
 
       if response.status_code == 404
-        response = YT_POOL.client &.get("/user/#{query.channel}")
-        response = YT_POOL.client &.get("/c/#{query.channel}") if response.status_code == 404
+        response = YT_POOL.get("/user/#{query.channel}")
+        response = YT_POOL.get("/c/#{query.channel}") if response.status_code == 404
         initial_data = extract_initial_data(response.body)
         ucid = initial_data.dig?("header", "c4TabbedHeaderRenderer", "channelId").try(&.as_s?)
         raise ChannelSearchException.new(query.channel) if !ucid
diff --git a/src/invidious/yt_backend/connection_pool.cr b/src/invidious/yt_backend/connection_pool.cr
deleted file mode 100644
index 0daed46c..00000000
--- a/src/invidious/yt_backend/connection_pool.cr
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,153 +0,0 @@
-# Mapping of subdomain => YoutubeConnectionPool
-# This is needed as we may need to access arbitrary subdomains of ytimg
-private YTIMG_POOLS = {} of String => YoutubeConnectionPool
-
-struct YoutubeConnectionPool
-  property! url : URI
-  property! capacity : Int32
-  property! timeout : Float64
-  property pool : DB::Pool(HTTP::Client)
-
-  def initialize(url : URI, @capacity = 5, @timeout = 5.0)
-    @url = url
-    @pool = build_pool()
-  end
-
-  def client(&)
-    conn = pool.checkout
-    # Proxy needs to be reinstated every time we get a client from the pool
-    conn.proxy = make_configured_http_proxy_client() if CONFIG.http_proxy
-
-    begin
-      response = yield conn
-    rescue ex
-      conn.close
-      conn = make_client(url, force_resolve: true)
-
-      response = yield conn
-    ensure
-      pool.release(conn)
-    end
-
-    response
-  end
-
-  private def build_pool
-    options = DB::Pool::Options.new(
-      initial_pool_size: 0,
-      max_pool_size: capacity,
-      max_idle_pool_size: capacity,
-      checkout_timeout: timeout
-    )
-
-    DB::Pool(HTTP::Client).new(options) do
-      next make_client(url, force_resolve: true)
-    end
-  end
-end
-
-struct CompanionConnectionPool
-  property pool : DB::Pool(HTTP::Client)
-
-  def initialize(capacity = 5, timeout = 5.0)
-    options = DB::Pool::Options.new(
-      initial_pool_size: 0,
-      max_pool_size: capacity,
-      max_idle_pool_size: capacity,
-      checkout_timeout: timeout
-    )
-
-    @pool = DB::Pool(HTTP::Client).new(options) do
-      companion = CONFIG.invidious_companion.sample
-      next make_client(companion.private_url, use_http_proxy: false)
-    end
-  end
-
-  def client(&)
-    conn = pool.checkout
-
-    begin
-      response = yield conn
-    rescue ex
-      conn.close
-
-      companion = CONFIG.invidious_companion.sample
-      conn = make_client(companion.private_url, use_http_proxy: false)
-
-      response = yield conn
-    ensure
-      pool.release(conn)
-    end
-
-    response
-  end
-end
-
-def add_yt_headers(request)
-  request.headers.delete("User-Agent") if request.headers["User-Agent"] == "Crystal"
-  request.headers["User-Agent"] ||= "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/128.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
-
-  request.headers["Accept-Charset"] ||= "ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7"
-  request.headers["Accept"] ||= "text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8"
-  request.headers["Accept-Language"] ||= "en-us,en;q=0.5"
-
-  # Preserve original cookies and add new YT consent cookie for EU servers
-  request.headers["Cookie"] = "#{request.headers["cookie"]?}; CONSENT=PENDING+#{Random.rand(100..999)}"
-  if !CONFIG.cookies.empty?
-    request.headers["Cookie"] = "#{(CONFIG.cookies.map { |c| "#{c.name}=#{c.value}" }).join("; ")}; #{request.headers["cookie"]?}"
-  end
-end
-
-def make_client(url : URI, region = nil, force_resolve : Bool = false, force_youtube_headers : Bool = false, use_http_proxy : Bool = true)
-  client = HTTP::Client.new(url)
-  client.proxy = make_configured_http_proxy_client() if CONFIG.http_proxy && use_http_proxy
-
-  # Force the usage of a specific configured IP Family
-  if force_resolve
-    client.family = CONFIG.force_resolve
-    client.family = Socket::Family::INET if client.family == Socket::Family::UNSPEC
-  end
-
-  client.before_request { |r| add_yt_headers(r) } if url.host.try &.ends_with?("youtube.com") || force_youtube_headers
-  client.read_timeout = 10.seconds
-  client.connect_timeout = 10.seconds
-
-  return client
-end
-
-def make_client(url : URI, region = nil, force_resolve : Bool = false, use_http_proxy : Bool = true, &)
-  client = make_client(url, region, force_resolve: force_resolve, use_http_proxy: use_http_proxy)
-  begin
-    yield client
-  ensure
-    client.close
-  end
-end
-
-def make_configured_http_proxy_client
-  # This method is only called when configuration for an HTTP proxy are set
-  config_proxy = CONFIG.http_proxy.not_nil!
-
-  return HTTP::Proxy::Client.new(
-    config_proxy.host,
-    config_proxy.port,
-
-    username: config_proxy.user,
-    password: config_proxy.password,
-  )
-end
-
-# Fetches a HTTP pool for the specified subdomain of ytimg.com
-#
-# Creates a new one when the specified pool for the subdomain does not exist
-def get_ytimg_pool(subdomain)
-  if pool = YTIMG_POOLS[subdomain]?
-    return pool
-  else
-    LOGGER.info("ytimg_pool: Creating a new HTTP pool for \"https://#{subdomain}.ytimg.com\"")
-    pool = YoutubeConnectionPool.new(URI.parse("https://#{subdomain}.ytimg.com"), capacity: CONFIG.pool_size)
-    YTIMG_POOLS[subdomain] = pool
-
-    return pool
-  end
-end
diff --git a/src/invidious/yt_backend/youtube_api.cr b/src/invidious/yt_backend/youtube_api.cr
index b40092a1..9a0c1cf8 100644
--- a/src/invidious/yt_backend/youtube_api.cr
+++ b/src/invidious/yt_backend/youtube_api.cr
@@ -639,15 +639,13 @@ module YoutubeAPI
     LOGGER.trace("YoutubeAPI: POST data: #{data}")
 
     # Send the POST request
-    body = YT_POOL.client() do |client|
-      client.post(url, headers: headers, body: data.to_json) do |response|
-        if response.status_code != 200
-          raise InfoException.new("Error: non 200 status code. Youtube API returned \
-            status code #{response.status_code}. See <a href=\"https://docs.invidious.io/youtube-errors-explained/\"> \
-            https://docs.invidious.io/youtube-errors-explained/</a> for troubleshooting.")
-        end
-        self._decompress(response.body_io, response.headers["Content-Encoding"]?)
+    body = YT_POOL.post(url, headers: headers, body: data.to_json) do |response|
+      if response.status_code != 200
+        raise InfoException.new("Error: non 200 status code. Youtube API returned \
+          status code #{response.status_code}. See <a href=\"https://docs.invidious.io/youtube-errors-explained/\"> \
+          https://docs.invidious.io/youtube-errors-explained/</a> for troubleshooting.")
       end
+      self._decompress(response.body_io, response.headers["Content-Encoding"]?)
     end
 
     # Convert result to Hash
@@ -695,7 +693,7 @@ module YoutubeAPI
     # Send the POST request
 
     begin
-      response = COMPANION_POOL.client &.post(endpoint, headers: headers, body: data.to_json)
+      response = COMPANION_POOL.post(endpoint, headers: headers, body: data.to_json)
       body = response.body
       if (response.status_code != 200)
         raise Exception.new(