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
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.
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.
Here’s a filter list for UBlock Origin that blocks out all YouTube Shorts.
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.
Use youtube revanced with microg on non rooted phones, it comes with all the premium and unique features…
I’m in the Newpipe bandwagon. NewPipe has been the best way for accessing YouTube for a long time on Android. It’s available in f-droid. Another plus on my book. I’m kinda not so much into installing a random apk for revanced.
Newpipe, you mean that app that displays an annoying “GURU MEDIDATION” error for 30% of videos? Try LibreTube, it actually works.
i’ve never had an issue with newpipe that wasn’t fixed by updating to the latest version
I used vanced and was very satisfied. Now revanced draws so much power I constantly had to recharge my phone, even when not using YouTube. Hat to uninstall it for this reason.
For YouTube Shorts, you can copy this filter into the uBlock My Filters.
That’s nice, although somewhat different than what OP linked. I think the filter you linked will completely remove shorts, where the extension OP linked (Youtube Shorts Block) will instead convert shorts into a normal video, despite the misleading name. Although I think the extension has an option to completely block shorts too
Two things I also like to do is changing my Youtube bookmark to https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions and adding the following two filters to uBlock:
www.youtube.com##.ytp-endscreen-content
www.youtube.com###related
This basically makes it so that I only see videos from channels I’m actually subscribed to, without having any content pushed on me from the algorithm.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/feed/subscriptions
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
https://odysee.com/ is a descentralized option too.
It has sponsorblock too https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sponsorblock-for-odysee/gdmldddlfnlmipdpobiaibalcbjjpmib
and this extensions help a lot too https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/watch-on-odysee/kofmhmemalhemmpkfjhjfkkhifonoann
Or https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/watch-on-lbry/jjmbbhopnjdjnpceiecihldbhibchgek which does the same thing and can also select Odysee as the default.
If you are an Android user, I highly recommend libretube or pipepipe from f-droid, Izzy, or github repo. No ads. No suggestions. Only what you tell it to show you. Nothing else. And it can download.
Libretube: https://libre-tube.github.io/
pipepipe: https://codeberg.org/NullPointerException/PipePipe
