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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

Ataraxia ,
@Ataraxia@lemmy.world avatar

Won’t most of these get you the warning from youtube? I stopped using YouTube except libretube and newpip sb because of it. I don’t want any of my accounts banned.

meisme ,

YouTube Unhook is also great

cottonmon ,
@cottonmon@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, I think this was the add-on that allowed me to remove those cards near the end of the video. I hated those.

WestyFlyer ,

I didn’t see it listed in the comments but Stopthe Madness is the best extension I use, helps with YouTube but also other sites:

apps.apple.com/us/app/…/id1583082931

pixelvolt ,

Thank you for this, I was able to watch YouTube videos just fine with ublock enabled, but I didn’t really know about the YouTube shorts blocker addon. YouTube shorts are just annoying to look at.

hockeyhippie ,

I use YouTube Archivist to download channels I want and view them in Jellyfin. There’s now a companion app for FF/Chrome to subscribe or download stuff you’re interested in from a browser.

Longmactoppedup ,

That looks great. I suspect YouTube is going to get the enshitification treatment at some point in the near future. Having an archive of content will be handy.

tookys ,
@tookys@fosstodon.org avatar

@hockeyhippie

@oct_opus

Got a link to the program your using? I had used playon.tv when I got their $40 lifetime license, then they decided people only live 6 years.

So I'm hoping to find a way to link up the meta data for all my already downloaded and keep up with new videos.

(Currently at 30k YouTube recordings)

tookys ,
@tookys@fosstodon.org avatar

@hockeyhippie

@oct_opus

Oh it's a docker server, and can import existing files.

This is exactly what I was looking for.

S0berage ,
@S0berage@lemmy.world avatar

Great post OP!

HouseWolf , (edited )

I’d like to throw in Youtube Redux.

It’s main function is to restore the older desktop look/feel of pre 2016ish Youtube, but it’s insanely customizable and good for cutting down on random buttons or features you don’t care about.

Only downside is it’s being maintained by one guy and it’s abit slow to be updated sometimes.

nl4real ,

Yeah, love it.

Lord_Boffum ,

Perhaps it bears mentioning that DeArrow is developed by the same person as SponsorBlock. That gave me a lot of faith in it right off the bat.

NumbersCanBeFun ,
@NumbersCanBeFun@kbin.social avatar

deleted_by_author

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    b1_ ,
    @b1_@kbin.social avatar

    I'm with you.

    ericisshort ,

    FYI You can save posts to come back to later without needing to announce it to everyone with a comment. Just use the save button, then go to your Profile > Saved Posts to view what you’ve saved.

    Undearius , (edited )
    @Undearius@lemmy.ca avatar

    I don’t think you can save posts on Kbin.

    Ah, just checked and the terminology is “boost” but your instructions still apply.

    Gestrid ,

    Weird. You can save posts and comments on Lemmy.

    Undearius ,
    @Undearius@lemmy.ca avatar

    You can on Kbin as well. It’s just called “boosting” instead, same as Mastodon (but in Mastodon it’s more like a re-tweet).

    Stealth_Bummer , (edited )

    Youtube search fix: This is not a extension but if you save this as a bookmark javascript:location.href=location.href+‘&sp=CAASAhAB’; in your browser it can be used to remove youtubes recommended / “people also watched” videos from a search.

    To use it, search for something on youtube and then click the bookmark you have made and it will then reload the search page and only show listings for what you searched for and remove youtubes recommended / “people also watched" videos from the search.

    Crul ,

    javascript:location.href=location.href+‘&sp=CAASAhAB’;

    In firefox, you can also add a keyword to this shortcut (e.g.: yt):

    https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s&sp=CAASAhAB

    Then you can use it from the search bar like yt testing and it will redirect you to this URL (replacing %s with testing):

    https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=testing&sp=CAASAhAB

    EDIT: and a fancier option is to use Redirector, Request Control (or similar) to create a redirection from YT searches without the CAASAhAB query param to the one with it.

    PipedLinkBot ,

    Here is an alternative Piped link(s): piped.video/results?search_query=

    piped.video/results?search_query=testing&sp=CAASA…

    Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

    I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.

    SharpMaxwell ,
    @SharpMaxwell@lemmy.world avatar

    Annotations Restored For Youtube is also a really good one, adds back the old styled annotations to old videos that had them, makes old videos a little bit more watchable if they had important info in the annotations

    QubaXR ,
    @QubaXR@lemmy.world avatar

    Any idea if there’s a way to block shorts using PiHole? I mostly consume YouTube on mobile devices (Android and iOS) but would love to get rid of that garbage.

    Quik2007 ,

    Unfortunately that is very unlikely, as YouTube shorts are served from the same servers as all other content on YouTube, so PiHole can’t tell the difference.

    But even for iOS there is uYou+ which can block shorts and I’m sure there will be a similar piece of software for Android.

    lando55 ,

    If there was a way to block Shorts and anything with “Reacts” in the video title, I would jump at the chance

    shortgiraffe ,

    The blocktube extension lets you do both those things.

    lando55 ,

    I guess I was referring to something at a network level, akin to a pihole that would work to block on my mobile devices

    chat_mots ,
    @chat_mots@jlai.lu avatar

    For custom settings during playback and some granular tweaks, the extension enhancer for YouTube might come in handy 👍.
    I’ll take a look at DeArrow, looks like a great project thx

    CaptObvious ,

    Just checking that I had the name right. You beat me to it.

    Definitely second this extension.

    QubaXR ,
    @QubaXR@lemmy.world avatar

    DeArrow is a misguided effort. Without it you can identify spammy content at a glance. Without it it’s like all gossip tabloids were sold with The New Yorker cover.

    micka190 ,

    You can set its behavior (in the settings) to not replace anything by default. Then, you can add the channels you want to replace in a specific filter.

    So if you wanted to see something from, say, Linus Tech Tips, but really don’t like their thumbnails and titles, you could add them to the filter without affecting the rest of YouTube.

    oct_opus OP ,

    I added it to the list 😀 thanks !

    kratoz29 ,

    Google does not like this…

    morgan_423 ,
    @morgan_423@lemmy.world avatar

    Maybe if they’d stop enshittifying their site trying to strong arm people into buying Premium, and start making the user experience actually bareable for people without ad blockers (I’d happily take a unskippable ad between videos if they’d remove the experience-destroying mid-roll ads), then people wouldn’t go through these measures to block ads and modify things in Google-unfavorable ways.

    t0lo ,

    Is there something which alters the algorithm to have less company videos?

    STUPIDVIPGUY ,

    i never get corpo videos? algorithm is just confusing

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