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:

  • trotfox@lemmy.world
    0·
    26 days 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·
      26 days 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·
      26 days 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.

  • fatcat@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    26 days ago

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

  • Frellwit@lemmy.world
    0·
    26 days ago

    If you use uBO then Ghostery is redundant. It can also cause some of uBO’s filters to not work correctly.

    • Oka@sopuli.xyzOP
      0·
      26 days ago

      I don’t think uBO removes trackers. I originally wanted to do the filter with uBO ) I have a filter for promoted LinkedIn jobs) but found a reddit thread that used Style Bot with instructions

      • Froggie 🐸@lemmy.zip
        0·
        26 days ago

        Not only is Ghostery redundant when you use uBlock Origin (you can choose the tracking removal lists, like EasyPrivacy, for example), Ghostery has a conflict of interests as it works with the ads industry at the same time it has this tool, and it reports the ads and tracking it finds back to advertisers, who can then make them bypass that detection better.

        If you insist in a separate add-on, Privacy Badger does the same blocking of trackers and it is maintained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit for digital privacy.

      • Frellwit@lemmy.world
        0·
        26 days ago

        uBO do remove trackers with the EasyPrivacy and uBlock filters – Privacy filters. More filters and options can also be enabled if you know what you’re doing. For beginners it’s best to stick to the default settings as more additions can lead to more breakage.

  • vaguerant@fedia.io
    0·
    26 days 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.

  • REDACTED@infosec.pubEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    This post is a bit of a mess. It links to images hosted on discord, meaning it’s a temporary link that has already expired and post links only to chrome addon store

    • invertedspear@lemm.ee
      0·
      24 days ago

      Just don’t look?

      Annoying that they clog the search results I guess, but they are a great way for creators to drive engagement with their long form content. Sports has guided me to some really interesting content I wouldn’t have found otherwise.

  • emb@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    Thanks for the list! I use a handful of these (in Firefox), but wasn’t aware of all of them. Youtube Redux especially seems cool.

  • Zacryon@feddit.org
    0·
    25 days ago

    There’s a list of Chrome extensions

    If you don’t want to have an enshittified internet, it would be reasonable to not use and thereby support software by a company which actively works on enshittifying virtually everything it touches.

    In other words: stop using Google / Alphabet products.

    • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org
      0·
      25 days 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·
      26 days 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·
        26 days 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·
          26 days 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·
            26 days 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·
              26 days 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.