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. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. DeArrow: Extension for crowdsourcing better titles and thumbnails. It removes click-bait titles and thumbnails providing a cleaner Youtube.
  5. 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. 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

  • S_204English
    6·
    1 year ago

    Does this stuff work on mobile?

    I use my phone to cast, and/or a google dongle on the TV for Youtube primarily. Almost never from a desktop… does this work still?

    • PolarisFx@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      You can get ReVanced which is a modification of the original YouTube app. It has pretty much everything except DeArrow.

      https://github.com/revanced/revanced-manager

      You’ll need a YouTube APK file and it will patch the app directly on your phone, it will also let you select what “patches” you want. So you can customize your YT experience, but it works exactly like the official app in every other way.

    • QuazarOmega@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      1 year ago

      On the phone yes, you can get them easily in Iceraven, if you use any of the Firefox for Android forks (Fennec, Mull, etc.) instead, you’d have to add in the extensions list manually to get access to them.
      Casting will be unaffected since you’re really just telling a YouTube app running on your Chromecast to play a certain video, some Chromecasts allow you to sideload APKs though, so you could install SmartTubeNext on there

    • Hello Hotel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Newpipe is a personal favorate, its a verry solid, unified package (no plugin support). Can watch most non DRM yt stuff as well as its own non account subscription system, no plugin support means no dearrow or sponsorblock. But it doesnt even relise that the ads even exist so it doesnt load and play them.

      EDIT: dark theme is a thing!