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:

  • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    17·
    4 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
      82·
      4 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
        2·
        4 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
          71·
          4 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
            86·
            4 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.