Why YSK: Youtube’s enshittification creates an abysmal experience. There’s a list of Chrome extensions I’ve collected over the years that each fix an aspect of Youtube to bring back a genuine experience. I’ve seen in comments people mention one or two of these at a time, so this is a pack that contains everything you could need, and more.

Sample:

Essential Plugins:

  • Ghostery: Blocks trackers and ads
  • uBlock Origin: Blocks In-video ads
  • SponsorBlock: Skips in-video sponsor segments
  • Return Youtube Dislike: Returns the dislike button
  • DeArrow: Better titles and thumbnails, removes clickbait
  • Youtube Redux: Returns youtube to the older style
  • Style Bot: This tool allows you to edit CSS. With a bit of setup, you can use it to block sponsored videos from appearing in our video suggestions:
  1. Open Stylebot options
  2. Styles > New Style

URL: Youtube.com

CSS (copy and paste):

ytd-ad-slot-renderer,
ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(
  > #content
    > ytd-ad-slot-renderer
){
  display: none;
}
  1. Save Style and Refresh Youtube

Optional:

  • fatcat@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    2 months ago

    Is there ANY way to turn of the auto dubbing of Youtube Shorts? I tried “Youtube Anti Translate” but it doesn’t work.

  • vaguerant@fedia.io
    0·
    2 months ago

    This one’s not strictly enshittification-related, but I find YouTube Comment Search (Firefox, Chrome) extremely useful. YouTube videos frequently have way more comments than any sensible person is going to read through. By searching for keywords, you can check whether somebody else already said what you were thinking and 👍 that instead of posting another duplicate comment that will get buried forever.

  • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Biggest YouTube feature i miss was putting channels into folders so you could put all of your diy channels into one feed. I’ve not seen that replicated anywhere yet

    • Cait@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      0·
      2 months ago

      Grayjay has subscription groups, which would be what you’re describing. Grayjay desktop is currently in alpha tho

    • emb@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Yes, seems like such an odd oversight from Google. They want you to subscribe to channels, but after even moderate use over a few years, you end up with a massive list of subscriptions. I guess it’s not actually an oversight, the bad UX (for finding specific content) is probably on purpose, they want to funnel you through their suggestions. But still, surprised they don’t include a way to organize it.

      I use an extension called PocketTube to organize them – but it stores data locally and doesn’t sync very well, so it wouldn’t fit your use case.

      • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        They removed it so they could make standard users reliant on the recommended feed so they’re more likely to watch high earning ad-backed videos.

        But I’m stuck of how short sighted their recommended algorithm is, it only takes into account the very recent videos you’ve watched so over time you get out of touch of old subscriptions unless they somehow go viral again or you search them up explicitly.

  • TheMightyCat@lemm.ee
    0·
    2 months ago

    I would suggest using another frontend like freetube then trying to fix google’s frontend.

    • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org
      0·
      2 months ago

      Freetube is great but keeps breaking every now and then. I assume YouTube is making an effort to block it and others.

    • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      This. Youtube is dead to me.

      Sounds like OP actually interacts on the site with comments and likes and whatever so I can’t account for that.

      In my case I get by with a combination of freetube and tubearchivist. I expect that one day youtube will find a way to finally close the door on this type of freeloading. Hopefully that will provide the incentive for more people to use more platforms.

      • grue@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        I like interacting with actual YouTube because it keeps track of my subscriptions and watch history across my devices. (It’s not that I want Google to know my habits; it’s that I don’t want videos I already watched coming up in my feed.)

        If one of these YouTube alternative front ends would solve for that use-case without too much faff and hassle, I’d happily switch.

        • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          You can usually export & import your subscriptions and bookmarks.

          Mileage varies between different apps.

          Many would call that faff and hassle. I’m not that attached to my subscriptions.

          • grue@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 months ago

            I need you to understand that manually exporting and importing subscriptions isn’t even slightly like automatically synchronizing watch history (including non-subscribed channels).

            • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              0·
              2 months ago

              Sure. This functionality just isn’t important to me.

              Also maybe just be aware that starting sentences with “I need you to understand” makes you sound like a bit of an ass.

  • Tigrafale@sh.itjust.worksFrançais
    0·
    2 months ago

    One I use is called “Unhook”. You can use it to block different features e.g. Suggestions, video end screen suggestion, front page feed, shorts. It’s great if you spend too much time on YT and going on a cycle of watching suggested videos. Now, I only watch videos that appear in my subscriptions or those that I search for.

    I also use Better Subscriptions allowing me to hide watched or unwanted videos, and Return YouTube Dislike.

  • capybara@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    DeArrow should be optional because it’s not a strict improvement. Some thumbnails and titles are good and many times at least better than the title someone comes up with to de-clickbait it.

    • knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de
      0·
      2 months ago

      Also sometimes I like to to click not interested on any video with a red arrow in hopes the algorithm will learn someday

  • trotfox@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    How well does sponsor block work?

    I wrote a small script that filtered it by grabbing the transcription, uploading it to chatgpt through api, analyzing and sending back timestamps of suspected ads.

    These were overlayed on the video scroll bar in yellow blocks. As the video played it skipped these blocks altogether.

    It was fun to build and worked well. Now I’m on Firefox and would like something similar…

    • aeshna_cyanea@lemm.ee
      0·
      2 months ago

      Sponsor block just uses crowd sources submissions people vote on. No reason an ai bot couldn’t submit entries too, if they’re good they’ll get upvoted

    • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      It works really good.

      Any channel with constant 10k views typically get a submission with in a day, channels with 1mil views typically get submissions with the hour.

      Its not hard to submit times your self, its all built in to the player bar.

      There are multiple categories that you can choose what get automatically skipped or not.

      Some categories are; sponser, self-promotion, into/recap, credits, filler/tangents, non-music (for music videos) and highlight, which is a marker showing where the “point” of the video is.

  • MrSilkworm@lemmy.ml
    0·
    2 months ago

    uBlock origin, Sponsor block, dark reader and return YouTube dislike will do the trick.

    Use those on a privacy orientented browser like librewolf on desktop or fennec on android.

    Also setting a private DNS would be helpfull. Adguard is a good one.

    Lastly there is always the choice of Revanved if you’re a little tech savvy and use Android

  • kepix@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    im pretty sure ublock blocks trackers, and does it in a more open way.

    “enhancer for youtube” is also great, i like how it only allows one video playback at once. has some visual customisation options as well.

    the other is “youtube search fixer” , which disables the related and recommend crap from the search.

    • gurnu@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Clarification: you can set YT Enhancer to only allow one video to play, but you can enable multiple playback, too

      YouTube search fixer sounds like something I need, I hate that only the first ten or so search results are actually relevant

  • tordenflesk@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Some relevant userscripts:

    https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/498145-youtube-hd-premium

    https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/457319-youtube-video-resize-fix

    https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/13040-youtube-hide-watched-videos

    https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/480312-compact-youtube-layout

    https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/528305-youtube-channel-auto-redirect-to-videos-section

    https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/447727-youtube-disable-inline-playback-keep-hovering-to-play

    https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/479883-youtube-shorts-to-traditional-video

    https://github.com/Zren/ResizeYoutubePlayerToWindowSize/

  • Chip_Rat@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Ok I think I read all the comments sufficiently and I still don’t see the feature I most want: sort by duration.

    Dinner is in 20 minutes. Click time range, set for 15-20 minutes. Look through suggestions from subscriptions that are 15-20min long. Pick one. Enjoy video knowing when it ends you’ll be able to go eat dinner/go to bed/leave for work.