- Enhancer for Youtube
- uBlock Origin
- CustomTube
- Return YouTube Dislikes
- Annotations Restored
- SponsorBlock
- DeArrow
Thankfully there are better frontends for many social media sites. For YouTube, you can use Piped and Invidious. LibRedirect is a browser addon that automatically redirects all YouTube links to your selected frontend. If you want a native desktop app, check out FreeTube. On Android you can use LibreTube, NewPipe or a fork of it called Tubular. On iOS, you can configure Yattee to work with Piped and Invidious, this guide explains it: https://gonzoknows.com/posts/yattee/.
On Android you can use LibreTube, NewPipe or a fork of it called Tubular.
Or SmartTube on Android TV.
On Android, there’s also ReVanced which lets you apply patches to a bunch of apps, not just YouTube. Unlike some other ways of patching apps (like Magisk modules), ReVanced doesn’t need root since it patches the APK before you install the app.
Oh yeah I completely forgot about SmartTube. I left out ReVanced on purpose, because it still uses the proprietary YouTube app. But if you’re ok with this, there’s also uYouPlus for iOS.
ReVanced used the proprietary app, but it patches out a bunch of stuff. I like it because it still works like the regular app.
Is dearrow actually good? Does it work for small streamers?
It often overcorrects, like not every shitpost really needs a title that sounds like a news article. But for some really clickbaity YouTubers (most) it makes the titles much more usable. The titles are submitted by users, so if the streamer is very small there might be no one to write the titles.
Tech Connections is a great example imo
“This 90s Microwave is Better Than Yours” is clickbait sure, but it’s also literally the point of the video. It got corrected to something like “review of the Panasonic yadda yadda from 1996” and like, that’s a less accurate title, guys, it’s not actually a review of old kitchen stuff lol
Yeah, that is annoying. But for the “You won’t BELIEVE what this microwave can do! 🤯🤯🤯” or worse the “This appliance from the 90s is going to REVOLUTIONIZE your kitchen!” at least become something that gives you some idea if you want to watch. Unfortunately some good videos are hidden behind shitty titles I otherwise wouldn’t click.
Not technology connections obviously, their titles are fine.It’s been a while since I watched his videos, looks like my day off is planed out.
You can exclude channels from dearrow, do that with him
Also I don’t why so many de-arrow contributors feel the need to use the word “explaining” at the start of every title. Like “how VR has changed over the years is fine”, you don’t need to make it “Explaining how VR has changed over the years”.
I absolutely prefer the latter, adding “Explaining” makes it a readable title for me that I won’t skip over.
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It really only serves to perpetuate the behaviour you’re trying to avoid cuz to the creator there’s still views coming in.
Just my two cents.
Invidious exists, ui is a bit strange but its fine
And based on it, Freetube
That’s a good one.
The amount of userscripts I have for YouTube is getting ridiculous…
You can use Invidious or Piped. These have a much better, less bloated UI and Piped comes with SponsorBlock and DeArrow built in. You also don’t get any ads or Google trackers.
Invidious
Or Piped
Not as nice (in my opinion)
When Christian Selig announced his independent Apple Vision YouTube App, I thought twice about actually getting one, just so I would’t have to use YouTubes ridiculous Application and Web UIs.
@christianselig@mastodon.social
Then I decided that it would be silly to spend any money on a 1st Gen Apple Vision.
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Just dropping in to say FreeTube is excellent. Carry on.
You can replace some of them with a userstyle extension (not Stylish, that tracks you) and applying a style someone else already made.
for the longest time the annotations switch in the settings menu existed, up until like 2018 i wanna say? They removed annotations in 2016 iirc, may have been 2018, and i’m fuzzing the years, it’s been a hot while give me some slack.
Still sad about annotations.
Eww, still using the official spyware?
Why not try out a privacy respecting frontend?
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/frontends/#youtubeinvidious is a good option
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This is me with the last few “redesigns” of chrome. Stop adding dead space to my fuckin bookmarks!
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at least with chrome there’s alternatives
Use Firefox or LibreWolf
They’re moving comments?? Why??
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I don’t care about video comments anymore; in my experience it was filled with attention-seeking content and incels trying to look cool. It’s also full of bots in the reply sections.
Instead, I use
mpvmedia player to watch YouTube. I pick a video off my recommendations or the subscription page then I copy the video link and then I just have to dompvin my terminal. It’s also much faster on my low-end PC.It doesn’t have sponser-block support, but it does have ad-blocker. I haven’t really checked sponser-block support yet either.
Edit: found this for sponser-block support.
HOWEVER, there’s cases where you do want to be able to like and comment: My main use case for Youtube these days is following crafters, people who make awesome stuff. And i do want to like and comment on those videos, not just for the obvious feedback to them but also to give them a hand in spreading the word of their stuff.
There’s even a firefox addon that lets you open videos in mpv with one click: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ff2mpv/
On macOS, I recommend a fork of mpv called IINA. It also has a Firefox addon: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-in-iina-x/
