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
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.
https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-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.
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.
For non Firefox users, use kiwi browsers for chrome extensions or revanced
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.)
Brave browser on android has YouTube ad blocking by default.
For non Firefox users, use kiwi browsers for chrome extensions or revanced
And, you can add sponsorblock using beta, nightly or fennec f-droid and custom list of addon.