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Top Extensions to Make YouTube Bearable

Hello fellow, lemmings, lemmur !

If you are like me, you probably spend a lot of time on YouTube, more than you want to admit.

I remember the days when videos had stars instead of thumbs up or down, and when YouTube had, let’s say, more mature content on it.

Now the site has a lot of functionalitys that are great for Google, but that I don’t need nor want.

So, to improve the enjoyment of the platform, I present to you the ultimate extension survival kit for YouTube:

  1. https://ublockorigin.com/: (or your favorite ad-blocker) This is an absolute must-have. It’s a good ad-blocker that not only blocks YouTube ads but also works across all websites. It’s lightweight, efficient, and open-source. Say goodbye to ads.
  2. https://sponsor.ajay.app/: Skip over the sponsored segments of videos. It’s a community-driven project, with users submitting the timestamps of sponsored content. You can even customize it to skip over different types of segments like intros, outros, and more.
  3. https://www.returnyoutubedislike.com/: Since YouTube removed the dislike count, it’s been harder to gauge the quality of videos. This extension brings back the dislike count.
  4. https://dearrow.ajay.app/: Extension for crowdsourcing better titles and thumbnails. It removes click-bait titles and thumbnails providing a cleaner Youtube.
  5. https://github.com/doma-itachi/Youtube-shorts-block: If you’re not a fan of shorts, this extension is for you. It plays the Youtube shorts video as if it were a normal video and hides the “shorts” tab from the left menu. Firefox Link Chrome Link
  6. https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/enhancer-for-youtube/: Allows you to add theming options, auto-HD, keyboard shortcuts and more.

These are the extensions I use. Don’t hesitate to suggest more. I will edit the post accordingly.

It’s not lost on me that these extensions remove many things that were not initially a problem on YouTube but that either arose because of the monetary incentive of Google handling the website, Youtubers trying to make money, or as countermeasures to problems that were taken care of by a previous extension. This kind of feels like an arms race…

Edit 1: Changed the YouTube Shorts Block description and added Enhancer for YouTube

pazukaza ,

Please keep in mind that every extension you install is an attack vector for hackers. Just because an extension does something cool doesn’t mean you should install it.

Please stick with the most used extensions, the ones that Mozilla recommends. This is for your safety.

EuroNutellaMan ,
@EuroNutellaMan@lemmy.world avatar

Youtube non-stop basically prevents the “are you still watching” thing. Useful if you’re like me and listen to playlists on the background while studying.

soulifix ,

I’ll gladly take YouTube Shorts Block. It is by far, to me, the most unnecessary thing I’ve found on YouTube. So when you watch one of these things, note that you cannot control the volume of them. It’s always mute or not mute. They also have a tendency to snap in place when you’re between videos and in doing so, will restart the video all over again. It is annoying.

I get it’s purpose, but I don’t need it in my face.

bilb ,
@bilb@lem.monster avatar
  • Pay for youtube premium

^ducks^

EnderWi99in ,

Nah, it's worth it. Services like that cost money for a reason. I'm fine paying for a platform like YouTube. I'm just bothered by how they've changed monetization that negativity impacts the people making the content.

DerKriegs ,
@DerKriegs@lemmy.ml avatar

Honest truth, you go around actually paying a network for their services and everyone loses their minds. There’s a Nolan Batman GIF somewhere here…

ClamDrinker ,

I had YT premium for a while, and then I just wanted to download some videos (you know, like they advertise you can) and they just didnt allow it. Had to either watch it in the YT app or on youtube.com on my PC. That’s not downloading - thats just streaming with less computation for youtube, which helps youtube but not me. What a great ‘premium benefit’!

Cancelled my premium right then and there, if they cant provide a feature as simple as just being able to download videos to mp4 or something, thats just misleading. Literally takes seconds to find a third party site or app (NewPipe) that does it.

Hankaaron ,

That’s what I do.

Everyone wants stuff for free and I get that. And I also get the “fuck big corporations” stance kinda…

But these services cost money. So we either pay for it directly (and yes they need to make a profit also - this is capitalism) or we have to watch ads. It’s not really a complicated concept. I hate watching ads and have $11 per month to spare so I pay.

Ath47 ,

I also pay for premium, so I don’t have to worry about ads. But that only covers the first extension on this list. The others are all useful and still not available with premium.

imperator3733 ,

Yeah, I also pay for YouTube Premium (have since it was YouTube Red), and get a ton of value out of it, but I’m still bombarded by all those absurd “Shorts” clogging up my subscriptions feed. I’ll have to try the linked extension - I’ve been meaning to see what’s available…

ZeroHora ,
@ZeroHora@lemmy.world avatar

If there a possibility that if I paid for the service and they stop getting my data and reselling and they start to respect my privacy, fine I’ll pay for it, but that not what’s happens.

WaterBottleOnAShelf ,

I paid for youtube premium which not only gets rid of ads, but gives you access to the youtube music app. I got rid of Spotify because of that and end up paying less money for more functionality.

cxx ,

I’m impressed! Suggesting paying for YouTube premium on Reddit is a one-way ticket to downvotesville.

I pay for it too, and it’s completely worth it considering how much time I spend there every day (including music)…

Not to mention the other day I had to use normal YouTube on someone else’s computer and the ads are unbearable.

Black_Gulaman ,
@Black_Gulaman@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I’m a revanced user. I’m just curious and had to ask an actual premium user. The youtube app ads are gone and premium features are available.

But how is the experience when dealing with vloggers who keep plugging their sponsors in their video? and the constant like and subscribe adlib reminders of other vloggers?

cause for me, that’s one thing that revanced has solved over the premium option of youtube.

Edit: to say it before someone asks. I do pay for other premium streaming platforms, but I am selective, because, you know, my resources aren’t infinite.

cxx ,

YouTube premium doesn’t change anything about the videos themselves, so you still get the sponsor and like/subscribe plugs.

I understand there are extensions that remove that stuff but I’ve never tried them as I watch YouTube on many different devices and can’t be bothered to tweak each and every one. Also those don’t bother me that much and are easy enough to skip.

Black_Gulaman ,
@Black_Gulaman@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Thank you for taking the time to reply. It seems that I will stay with revanced for now. Though we’ll see what youtube offers in the future.

avidamoeba ,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

As another Premium subscriber, at this point I feel a sense of incompleteness if I don’t hear about the video’s sponsor or like-comment-subscribe.

I’m also selective of what I pay for. YouTube Premium won out against some others. Having YT Music along with it is also nice.

marmo7ade ,

People spend hundreds of hours watching youtube or playing a video game and then complain they had to pay for it. The entitlement is disgusting.

Thulcander ,

I pay, i get the family pass and have 4 other people added. It also works for watching youtube on smart devices that don’t always have blocking options - pihole setups sometimes block legit google services that keep smarthome operations from happening.

4815162342 , (edited )

.

mrmanager ,
@mrmanager@lemmy.today avatar

I would if it was another company than Google but I’m not going to support big tech companies with my money.

Google is tracking people all over the internet, and is one of the richest companies in the world. Now they want to get even more money? Right.

I’m paying for email and search but they are not from big tech.

nl4real ,

Not paying 12/month just to block ads. I don’t care about the other stuff it has.

marmo7ade ,

Technically I am paying less than $12 / month for youtube premium because I have Pixel Pass. My total monthly google bill is much higher. Worth every cent. :)

Jarix ,

This is the problem. You have a monthly bill to google.

This is why we cant have good things. Because too many people are cant just say no i wont pay for something that didnt used to be and doesnt need to.

latewizard ,

VPN to Turkey, get YouTube Premium for like $2 a month.

avidamoeba ,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

If you watch a lot of YouTube and can afford it, it’s totally worth it. 👌

LightDelaBlue ,
@LightDelaBlue@lemmy.world avatar

where mr beast addon???

xavier666 ,

😮

WarmSoda ,

What do you watch that makes his stuff come up? I’ve never seen any of his videos suggested to me in my life.

LightDelaBlue ,
@LightDelaBlue@lemmy.world avatar

its a joke addons taht put mrbeast in alls tubmnails nothing serious XD just a funny silly joke

WarmSoda ,

Silly jokes, huh?
Hmm…
Ok carry on then. Move it along folks.

backshift0022 , (edited )

If you want some of these features on mobile Android TV, you’ve still got options!

For Android TV, there’s SmartTubeNext: smarttubenext.comIt includes ad blocking and SponsorBlock. I also think the UX is a bit better than the official YouTube app.

For Android, there’s obviously ReVanced: revanced.app

And for iOS there’s uYou+ (hasn’t been updated in a while): github.com/qnblackcat/uYouPlus or iVanced (github.com/TherionRO/YouTubeiVanced) they will need AltStore to be installed, and will need to be re-signed with a PC/Mac every week.

You can also use AdGuard on iOS though safari and the SponsorBlock extension in the App Store too, but video quality isn’t great.

If you want to avoid resigning with AltStore or using Google services, there’s also Yattee for iOS: apps.apple.com/app/id1595136629 and Invidious and Piped client!

I don’t have an android device so if any of my info is wrong let me know!

awesome_person ,

The ReVanced url you gave is an impersonator, real one is revanced.app

edit: SmartTubeNext one most likely is too, doubt it has an actual website so just link to the repo github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext

backshift0022 ,

Fixed, thanks!

zeekzag ,
@zeekzag@lemmy.world avatar

If you use a script manager (Tampermonkey, Violentmonkey, Greasemonkey, Firemonkey) I can recommend some userscripts:

  1. Tabview for Youtube - condenses comments, description, playlists and chat into a neatly organised sidebar,
  2. YT Resource Unholder - improves how YT handles resources and improves performance,
  3. YT CPU Tamer - more performance improvements,
  4. YT AV1 - forces YT to use AV1 for all videos.
DagingAnalog ,

What’s the benefit of AV1 on youtube?

zeekzag ,
@zeekzag@lemmy.world avatar

Videos encoded with AV1 are smaller and look better on lower bitrates so you save some bandwidth. I noticed it’s also a bit less straining on the CPU which is nice if you wanna save some battery juice if you’re on a laptop without a dGPU.

ryo ,

If you have constrained CPU power it’s better to use HW decoding on the iGPU so you have more headroom.

You can use AV1 but most hardware that’s not the latest will only be compatible with VP9 or even AVC1.

zeekzag , (edited )
@zeekzag@lemmy.world avatar

Oh, I see, thanks for the info!

DiabolicalDucks ,

I use DF YouTube which lets you hide various parts of the UI

Screenshot

drphungky ,

I am loving Darrow, and for some reason I just never bothered adding dislikes but it’s great to have them back.

Wondering if anyone knows of a script to get the likes and dislikes onto the video preview page instead of having to click on the video to see it. Would help me get a sense of the videos YouTube is recommending.

grill ,

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-resumer/ is one of my favorites. It resumes video where you left.

Chev ,

This is how youtube works for me by default. Why do you need an extension for something that it already does?

grill ,

It’s more accurate, faster and it remembers position “for ever”. Even for an example when I am watching 3hour podcast and I misclick and close the browser. Next time I open the video I am on the same exact position as I was before. I never had this experience with vanilla youtube. It’s very unrealible. At least this was my experience every time.

GnuLinuxDude ,
@GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml avatar

I wouldn’t mind YouTube Shorts, except it seems that most of them are of such low quality and value. I don’t have a TikTok account but I have seen many great TikToks (because they get reposted elsewhere). I have seen comparatively few quality YouTube Shorts.

WiseMoth ,
@WiseMoth@lemmy.world avatar

Recommendation: add Vinegar for all the Apple (iOS, macOS, iPadOS) users. It’s suuuuper good

nameisnotimportant ,
@nameisnotimportant@lemmy.ml avatar

Vinegar

Users have to pay for it, correct?

WiseMoth ,
@WiseMoth@lemmy.world avatar

They do, but it’s like 4 bucks and is well worth it imo

DietBajaBlast ,

The App Store says $1.99 right now. Even better!

noodlejetski ,

just one needed: LibRedirect set to automatically redirect the URLs to Piped or Invidious. no.ads, no shorts, no tracking, and Piped comes with SponsorBlock built in.

addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/…/libredirect/

itsAsin ,

looks like i may be heading back over to Firefox.

NightOwl ,

!Firefox

schwim ,
@schwim@lemmy.world avatar

I found this comment more useful than the OP. With Google getting ready to block ad blockers, I’m hoping this is a way to continue watching YT content.

CumBroth ,
@CumBroth@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

If you are getting unsatisfactory performance from public instances (they might be getting rate-limited), consider self-hosting. I’m running my own instance of Invidious with SponsorBlock (added my domain to list of custom domains) and using Redirect^1^ to redirect YouTube links to it. It’s great!

  1. Couldn’t get LibRedirect to work properly. Followed this guide instead.
marmo7ade ,

This extension brings back creates a new dislike pool of other people who also use the extension.

Fixed that for you. It does not show you current youtube dislike counts, which is what people actually want.

thecoolowl ,

They gathered as much data they could on dislikes before it was removed, so it also shows actual numbers on older videos.

JohnBoBon ,

My understanding is it gets the counts of dislikes from participating content creatos (the dislike count is still there, it’s just hidden except to the video authors) and for non-participating creators it uses data from the users with the extension. I think it applies some smart logic to predict the dislikes based on user feedback in that case, which may not be 100% accurate, but is likely at least somewhat close.

Juggernaut ,

What about for twitch? cause its actually worst that cable tv was sometimes

Lautrebeacon ,

I’m using an extension called “Alternate Player for Twitch.tv”, works pretty well to hide ads but sometimes you only get black screens instead of ads (addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/twitch_5/)

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