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:
- uBlock Origin: (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.
- SponsorBlock: 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.
- Return YouTube Dislike: Since YouTube removed the dislike count, it’s been harder to gauge the quality of videos. This extension brings back the dislike count.
- DeArrow: Extension for crowdsourcing better titles and thumbnails. It removes click-bait titles and thumbnails providing a cleaner Youtube.
- 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
- 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
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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.
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.
looks like i may be heading back over to Firefox.
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 Redirect1 to redirect YouTube links to it. It’s great!
- Couldn’t get LibRedirect to work properly. Followed this guide instead.
This extension
brings backcreates 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.
They gathered as much data they could on dislikes before it was removed, so it also shows actual numbers on older videos.
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.
If you use a script manager (Tampermonkey, Violentmonkey, Greasemonkey, Firemonkey) I can recommend some userscripts:
- Tabview for Youtube - condenses comments, description, playlists and chat into a neatly organised sidebar,
- YT Resource Unholder - improves how YT handles resources and improves performance,
- YT CPU Tamer - more performance improvements,
- YT AV1 - forces YT to use AV1 for all videos.
What’s the benefit of AV1 on youtube?
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.
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.
Oh, I see, thanks for the info!
Reminder to all, Firefox on Android can use UBlock Origin. It’s an easy setup, no more ads.
Corollary, you can install Firefox Nightly and setup an addon collection on the FF website and use pretty much all desktop addons on your mobile Firefox browser.
I’ll add that NewPipe is a great app, has a fork to support sponsorblock and can mix your YouTube subscription with other sources (eg. PeerTube), which could allow for a smooth transition.
You have to be willing to loose your personalized suggestions page, but when it comes to me it helped a lot to get less addicted.
Losing personalized suggestions was a plus for me, since youtube is so thrown off by one video and even when it recommends channels that fit into the genre you like it doesn’t seem to be able to understand why it is that you like certain channels.
For instance, video games. It should know not to recommend channels that don’t have really loud youtubers who are screaming at me to smash the like button and have the most obnoxious thumbnails. But, it just sees that I like games. And then it is horrible for spoilers where I might watch a video for a game review I’m interested in then next it does is start filling my feed with spoiler content from that video.
I can do without it.
Yeah it’s the same for me. When I watch Youtube on my computer I often feel like I wasted a lot of time. On my phone I can only pick high quality content from the curated list of creators that I’ve maintained over the years, and it is a much better experience.
If you are already an android user. It’s definitely worth putting I some time to check out ReVanced on github.
They are the spiritual successor to Vanced and you use the ReVanced manager to patch your own youtube APK (and many more apks.)
Here’s a filter list for UBlock Origin that blocks out all YouTube Shorts.
Brave browser on android has YouTube ad blocking by default.
For non Firefox users, use kiwi browsers for chrome extensions or revanced
For non Firefox users, use kiwi browsers for chrome extensions or revanced
I came across Unhook, which lets you remove parts of YouTube that are designed to keep you there.
Changed the YT home page to subscriptions instead of ‘the algorithm’.
RYS is also similar to unhook but has more features
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll give it a try.
Open source is a bonus.
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.
Probably not the crowd for this but I just use YouTube premium at this point. I used ublock previously to manage some of this but the kicker was ensuring I could watch YT seamlessly on all devices (TV - fire stick, ipad, ios). I know I can setup a pi hole but have been moving last couple years. Perhaps soon once I settle.
Of all the streaming services we subscribe to, our family uses YT Premium the most by a large margin. In terms of hours watched/$ it’s easily the best value. And you get YT Music.
I have every *arr in existence, I don’t pay for anything. But I have YT Premium Family. I still use ReVanced for sponsor block and other customization preferences, but I have it for my family so they can be bullshit free on every device.
Yea. I got Google music way back, it got moved to YouTube music and wrapped with premium. Can’t complain about the result
lemmings
Tunnel Snakes
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.
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=CAASAhABThen you can use it from the search bar like
yt testingand it will redirect you to this URL (replacing%swithtesting):https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=testing&sp=CAASAhABEDIT: 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.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/results?search_query=
https://piped.video/results?search_query=testing&sp=CAASAhAB
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
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.
df tube (distraction-free youtube): toggleable options that allow hiding the recommendation feed and featured videos on the homepage, so as to reduce distractions.
To those who allow their free time to be consumed by youtube because they consider it to be a good investment of their time since they’re learning new things, please try this. You might realize that Youtube really just is a poisonous social media amongst all the others and that you really don’t need the suggestions.
Its funny how the only reason for me to be on the video player screen is to distractedly click on all the destracting links. (I run yt-dlp on a bulk of yt urls)
been wanting something like this for years, thanks
That sounds great, I’m going to try it
Youtube shorts block is a godsend by the sounds of it, installing now.
You can also easily block them with ublock origin’s block element feature :)
I like the part where it’ll play as a normal video as well.
Yesssss. Youtube shorts are fine except that it won’t let you navigate them like a normal video. I don’t understand why they don’t wanna have consistant layout between shorts and videos. It’s like a separate site
My guess: keeping it similar to TikTok, since that’s what shorts trt to compete with.
alternatively:
“Blocktube” allows you to just straight up block all shorts
and use slightly more advanced code to block any videos with various parameters (specific words in their title, length, from a certain channel etc)
a lot of youtubers i follow constantly have “podcast” episodes and i dont give a fuck about them, but with blocktube… its like they dont exist
What about for twitch? cause its actually worst that cable tv was sometimes
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 (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/twitch_5/)
- Pay for youtube premium
ducks
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.
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.
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.
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.
Some people will pay $10/month for Spotify and then act like it’s just absurd to pay $12/month for YouTube Music and Premium. I use the music service constantly, and I watch a ton of YouTube, so why not?
(Not that I’d see ads without it. I’ve used an adblocker for so long now anyway.)
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.
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.
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.
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…
Not paying 12/month just to block ads. I don’t care about the other stuff it has.
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. :)
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.
VPN to Turkey, get YouTube Premium for like $2 a month.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you watch a lot of YouTube and can afford it, it’s totally worth it. 👌
I never Heard of DeArrow thats nice thanks
DeArrow needs lots of permissions to function.
Thankfully, its verry open about the API calls to its database servers
Also, there are some permissions that are less powerful (on purpose) than others due to a more narrow scope. So you need more.
- edit youtube.com
- edit youtu.be
- edit yt music’s page
Versus
- edit every page
