Technology @lemmy.world oct_opus @lemmy.world 1y ago

Top Extensions to Make YouTube Bearable

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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In addition to some of the ones listed in OP, I use

YouTube Auto Like - automatically likes videos you open them (optionally only when you're subscribed to the channel). If you're on a Chromium browser, Google removed this extension from their web store so you can't install it from there anymore. But you can install it manually if you want by downloading it from the Github repo here.

I also use the following userscripts:

Return Youtube Dislike - Does the same thing as the Return Youtube Dislike extension in the OP

Youtube Shorts Redirect - redirects Youtube Shorts to a full watch page, so you can watch them like a regular video.

Resize YT To Window Size - resizes the video player so that it fills in the entire dimensions of the browser window and moves video players to the top of the page so you can scroll down to see comments, recommend videos, etc.

YouTube CPU Tamer by AnimationFrame - reduces Youtube's CPU usage during video playback. I don't really understand the technical aspects but it's all explained in the description of the userscript. This script IS NOT compatible with SponsorBlock!

Stuff I'm looking for (if anyone has any recommendations):

Remove duplicate videos from a playlist

display playlists in a grid layout instead of a list layout

block youtube channels i don't like

edit: fixed a formatting mistake
- You might be interested in pockettube. Not quite what you asked for but it does allow you to make groups of subscriptions and display those in a grid layout.
  
  pockettube looks great, thanks for the recommendation!
- Why the hell would anyway want to poison their liked views with an extention that likes every video they watch?
  
  I do this on my work and home account.
  
  I seldom watch 'random' videos, mostly stick to a large curated list of channels I've grown to like over the years and I got sick of always having to remember to like or even go back to like videos (as doing my small part of channel interaction is the least I could do for them).
  
  I enjoy all the videos of said channels (otherwise I wouldn't be watching them..).
  
  The auto like is set to happen after 30% of the video and is very easy to hit the 0 key or - key to unlike or dislike on the small amount of videos I watch that don't deserve a like.
  
  Pretty simple. A solution that works for many might not work for you and that's just dandy.
  
  The 30% watch and like option is a neet feature. Seems very customisable.

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