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

  • skye@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    i have it set to only like videos from channels im subscribed to, no issues so far personally. i manually liked most of the videos from channels im subscribed to before i discovered the extension, and i spend so much time on youtube that it became useful to me to automate the process. i wouldn’t be subscribed to them if i didnt like the content they make, so it’s usually fine for me to use youtube like this. i dont normally dislike videos, but when i do watch a video i dont like enough to go out of my way to dislike it, i can still manually dislike it. the extension does not lock the like button

    positive interaction means the content creator will know people like the content and thus may be more motivated to make more of it, and for channels with much fewer subscribers (like in the hundreds or under 100) positive interaction can really mean a lot to them, especially for projects they spent a lot of time on and that they care a lot about

    plus if the algorithm ever works right, liking more videos gives it more info to work with about my tastes and it should be able to recommend me videos more relevant to me and my tastes. if. if it ever works right lol, but i spend most of my time by far on youtube watching videos from channels I’m already subscribed to.