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
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
Vanced. Still works like a charm! Get Vanced Manager from APK Mirror and install.
Please don’t. Revanced has been around for well over a year now and is actually maintained. Vanced was abandoned ages ago. Revanced is significantly less buggy, has options to block shorts, and has Sponsorblock built in now.
Official site: https://revanced.app
APK mirror is great for getting the right Youtube APK version to patch with Revanced Manager though. Revanced also supports Youtube Music, pretty much giving you the premium features for free.
Switched to it, root install, total happiness.
Also don’t forget these two:
- De-mainstream Youtube
- Clickbait remover for Youtube
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’.
I won’t be using ad blockers in YouTube as they help creaters get paid
For people on Apple devices and Safari, check these out: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app-bundle/fizzy-water-bundle/id1601247237
Vinegar is for YT and Baking Soda for the rest of the web. Little annoying the devs split them up but they are both great as they give you a basic video. No ads, overlays, nothing. It may seem like a small thing but man does it have a huge impact.
Google does not like this…
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.
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Is there a reliable channel blocker addon or front end that let’s you keep a list of channels you want blocked. Some channels just keep populating play next or searches when I don’t want them to because of how popular the channels are.
I use a browser extension that is called “Comments Sidebar for YouTube”. It just puts the comments along the side instead of under the video so I can scroll through them without leaving the video. I think YouTube used to do this? I remember finding this extension to replace that function.
A year ago that would randomly appear for me. It seems they were a/b testing it.
I found YouTube impossible to use without it
for quite some time I use newpipe on mobile and freetube on desktop to watch youtube videos… Its not without its problems, but it gets rid of tracking, adds and other nuisance on their sites.
But mostly if I can, I use and support other sites like odysee.com
Ive been yearning for a while a “video or channel for later, go away now. dont show me the same video more than 5 times” plugin
details
when I load a video or for the first 5 videos in the recommended section when I press a button, of those not in my subscriptions or whitelist, add the video or whole channel to a blocklist and dont show in any list (home, recommendeds, etc), update lists on open pages to reflect the change
Its ment to cull the garbage and get a more inde youtube, I like an artist called Sui uzi but listen to their diskography once and youtube will drive you to listen to the same tracks repeatedly.
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.
Got a link to the program your using? I had used playon.tv when I got their $40 lifetime license, then they decided people only live 6 years.
So I’m hoping to find a way to link up the meta data for all my already downloaded and keep up with new videos.
(Currently at 30k YouTube recordings)
Oh it’s a docker server, and can import existing files.
This is exactly what I was looking for.
That looks great. I suspect YouTube is going to get the enshitification treatment at some point in the near future. Having an archive of content will be handy.
NewPipe is more than enough.
Also a shoutout to Libretube. Much better UI and updates quickly. With the downside that it’s less reliable
Libretube with my own Piped instance, almost flamless. One line setup with docker, Runs perfectly on a 5$ VPS. I haven’t entered youtube in months, there is no reason other that to import suscriptions, channels, etc.
Only problem is for some reason some not-so-popular videos are slow to load on 720p, but load fine in 480p or 1080p. Really weird.
NewPipe is currently doing a big rewrite of the app, so that’s probably why development seems stagnant.
Also I have heard of Clipious being good too
The one thing that stops me from using NewPipe is not seeing answers to comments.
It’s such an important feature but it’s simply missing.
Until that’s added I don’t think NewPipe will be an option for me.
You can try LibreTube, it has almost all the features of youtube. Only downside is some videos are slow to load, but if you can host your own Piped instance that’s solved. It has sponsorblock built in, regular updates, and a better ui imo
I am currently stuck with a super old ipad3 on ios9.3.6 and the only way I have been able to watch youtube on it is through the edge browser, nothing else seems to work. But the version of edge is so old that there aren’t any working extensions. I have jailbroken it with phoenix and installed cydia (both of which suddenly stopped working), but it turns out the cydia app that lets you install older versions of stuff has also been discontinued.
I have never not used some sort of adblocker, I am shocked at how often I have to interact with the device to skip ads. You also have to unfullscreen to be able to skip so sometimes I just let the ads run.
I get that ads keep youtube chugging along but, jesus christ, maybe it shouldn’t be chugging along any longer. I was trying to watch a 40 minute video yesterday and there were double ads basically every 6 minutes! I feel the freedom to place ads wherever you want in your own video has really destroyed the youtube experience for those who can’t or won’t use adblockers.
I recommend a piped instance like piped.video. Website that has adblock and sponsorblock built in so don’t need any extensions or apps. You can also import in your playlist if you want a custom feed from a JSON or CSV file.
They are also on the fediverse !piped@feddit.rocks