How to make YouTube less distracting | Hacker News Reader

How to make YouTube less distracting

josem.co

53 pointsjosem63 comments

After some reflection I came to a conclusion that I rarely (if ever) watched anything of value on YouTube, and so the best method to make YouTube less distracting in my case was adding:

  0.0.0.0         youtube.com
  0.0.0.0         www.youtube.com
  0.0.0.0         youtu.be
  0.0.0.0         www.youtu.be
  0.0.0.0         youtube-nocookie.com
  0.0.0.0         www.youtube-nocookie.com
  0.0.0.0         ads.youtube.com

to /etc/hosts

damn! that's brutal :p

I just registered hn account to write the same thing.

and someone stole the opportunity from you. BAM!

You can also use NextDNS to block it at the DNS level and point all your computers and phones to that one resolver.

I do want to watch some YouTube videos, so I use the scheduling feature in NextDNS to cutoff YouTube before bedtime.

You need to search more youtube... there is value deep inside

I've blocked myself out of YouTube with ColdTurkey. If I want to watch a video, I have to find it on Google Search, copy the link, paste the link into a website that generates a link to an embedded Video, and watch it there.

Clumsy as it gets, but that's how I like it. I can still watch stuff if I really want, but there are almost no recommendations and it's so cumbersome that I won't overdo it.

I've tried total abstinence. It wasn't sustainable for me, sadly.

We should have 56k ISP for health benefits :)

Tools such as mpv (command-line) or VLC (GUI) will play video and multimedia from numerous sites, including YouTube, when provided a URL.

You can also play audio-only, which for many largely spoken videos is far more than sufficient.

Install only one extension: https://farside.link/ - https://sr.ht/~benbusby/farside/

Enjoy distraction-free, spyware-free and CPU-friendly Youtube, Twitter, Medium, Reddit and Imgur

Warning: like adblock, once you get used to it, you wonder how someone can survive on the web without it.

tip: if for some reason you still need the original version, simply open the link in a private window.

EDIT: the extension itself https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/farside/

I'm not a big fan of hiding my traffic from youtube, twitter, medium et al by sending all my traffic to https://farside.link.

I use https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/libredirect/ , which does the same but only in the browser, allows me to use other instances (such as my personal one) and has a button to switch instance if one doesn't work.

Both of these need to 'access [my] data for all websites' - I suppose I'm not really sure what my 'data' amounts to, (it sounds like anything I might input?) but surely they only need the URL, is that really as fine-grained as Firefox allows?

It's a really generic warning unfortunately (something which Mozilla admitted back in 2018, the warning is mostly "technically" accurate rather than literally so). Basically enabling almost anything in the WebExtensions API related to actually loading in webpages will cause Firefox to start displaying that message if I recall.

What it means is that the browser is loading in extra javascript before the page has fully loaded. Basically unless you're making some extremely niche & domain specific extension (that is unrelated to page content), it ends up in that popup message.

Libredirect, the extension, needs access to my data but it remains in the extension.

Farside, as I understand it, sends clicks to https://farside.link, which will redirect to the appropriate proxy with the full URL including the path. I can't really tell because the source code of the extension isn't linked. This behaviour can only be acceptable if I set the extension to query an instance I trust (my own, for example), but at this point it's just easier to do everything in the extension itself.

I share your distrust.

As a conversation here a couple of months back revealed, the problem is rather thorny, once an extension has the capacity to modify page content, virtually anything is technically out of the bag:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33726116>

Not too keen on including Wikiless in that extension; as far as I can tell Wikiless is just a read-only GET proxy for Wikipedia.

There also was some weird stuff going on that led to the project getting booted from codeberg if I recall.

The dev has also gotten overly defensive a couple times since the reasoning for doing it with Wikipedia was some "feds in the walls" reasoning rather than any actual privacy issues with Wikipedia.

Three users on Firefox. What is this extension?

Worst advice. Imagine the risks you are putting yourself into when trusting all these 3rd-party browser extensions https://palant.info/2022/08/10/anatomy-of-a-basic-extension/

It's better to use something like piped that has the following features: https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped#features

Is it really that bad? If the extension has a ton of reviews, doesn't it sort of vouch for credibility? And if they say they can't "read or change data on this website"?

The big issue has been trusted, harmless well-liked extensions where the developer gets offered a nice shiny payout, transfers control to WeSellYourData Inc, and now everything feels the same except for the surreptitious tracking of everything you do.

>>If the extension has a ton of reviews, doesn't it sort of vouch for credibility?

Yes and no. You can't be really sure. They might contain vulnerabilities https://portswigger.net/research/ublock-i-exfiltrate-exploit... not necessarily intended. You can read more here https://github.com/beerisgood/Security-link-collection , "Some examples why browser extensions are bad - since at least....."

>>And if they say they can't "read or change data on this website"? Extensions need access to those to make changes on webpages you visit. However, you can go to manage extension and limit to specific pages instead of all sites.

That's why Google is going for Manifest V3.

Thank you for your contribution towards the slow but steady death of browser extensions and browser customization in general, we really appreciate it.

I only use extensions which have the ability to be limited by the browser to certain sites. Then any potential damage is limited.

E.g. I use an ad-blocker to insert JavaScript only on one site: YouTube.com. But I use an anonymous dummy Google account for YouTube. So if anything gets compromised, I don't really care.

From the opening section:

> The radical solution to avoid that addicting design is to avoid it entirely, but there is still so much good information in there that it probably doesn’t make sense.

I think you've already lost half the battle at this point. I think that if people actually did go without their favorite internet kick for a few weeks they'd find that they're really not missing much, if anything.

I've done it multiple times, traveling abroad with low data or censored internet, e.g. in China, and can confidently state at least for myself that I can live happily without Youtube / social media for a long time, probably even indefinitely.

Yes, but.

When you're traveling you're usually stimulated much more than when sitting at home in a rut, being slightly depressed and unable to decide what to do next. That's when you start missing [your favorite addictive distraction] and give in to the lure of it.

I can spend three weeks on holiday and not even notice that I spend no time on a screen. I might feel repelled, even. Back home after a few days, not so much.

Talking about being stuck in a depressing non-stimulating environment: I've done it in a Chinese quarantine hotel for 2 weeks. You really really don't need Youtube / social media / your other "essential" vices as much as you think.

I don't think I need them. I'm just more inclined to use them in an well known environment that offers nothing new or interesting to experience without putting in at least some effort.

I didn't mean the environment had to be depressing. I meant feeling a bit low.

This is exactly why those things are dangerous. You get used to them and your brain starts needing the distraction and constant empty entertainment.

It's only when you stop using it for a few days/weeks, that you notice how much your brain needs that constant feed of stuff. When you get over that short amount of "withdrawal" and no longer need it as a filler of empty time, you can use that time for more healthy things.

Equating video with social media and internet fix is misleading considering what a great format it is to visualise when teaching something. As mentioned in the blog post, it only takes a few seconds to remove the social media aspect from YouTube. No ads, no recommendations, no comments. Just pure video related to the problem you're trying to solve.

Or you can use an alternate frontend like:

https://invidious.projectsegfau.lt/feed/popular

or any other instance:

https://api.invidious.io/

I am also a fan of invidious! I turned off related videos and the configured the start page to only show the search bar, no hot or trending videos.

Or, alternatively, https://piped.video

Clickbait remover for youtube, makes the thumbnails a bit less cringy [1] [2]:

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/clickbait-rem...

[2] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clickbait-remover-...

To add, I use some uBlock Origin rules to make the home page blocked or empty. Blocked if you access directly, and empty if you navigate to it from another YT page (since SPA navigation is not blocked with uBO). Then another picker rule to block the recommendations sidebar. This one is a bit more fragile since they can just change the hierarchy and class names.

||youtube.com^|$doc

youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"]

www.youtube.com##ytd-item-section-renderer.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer.style-scope

uBlock is great for this sort of stuff. I also use it to hide the Hot Network Questions on Stack Overflow. I often get distracted by those.

For what it's worth, I have simply used the picker function of uBlock Origin to remove the comments, sidebars and search bar, then turned off autoplay. I am never logged in (I don't have an account) and don't 'browse' via the main page, just tend to follow links from Twitter and Reddit. Now it's a pure video service with no distractions.

You can get a very long way with the uBlock picker. For example on Twitter I have blocked all the not-logged-in popups, all the engagement metrics (likes, views) and the search bar.

Another random tip, turn off suggestions/autocomplete for the URL bar of your browser. It forces me to type the whole URL of any site I want to visit, and stops me idly 'browsing' my history through the autocomplete.

I don't mind recommended videos, as I have it decently trained, and there's usually something above the fold that I'm interested in spending time on. I installed an extension called "Not Interested", which speeds up the process of eliminating bad suggestions - just hover and press Alt + q. Using "Not Interested" does seem to affect the model rather than just being a placebo button.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/not-interested/icp...

Without browser extensions, you can use Newsboat to subscribe to channels and then play videos with MPV.

A few more:

- https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/enhancer-for-youtu... for more customization

- https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blocktube/bbeaicap... for filtering out annoying channels and keywords

- https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/return-youtube-dis...

- Sometimes, you might want to watch every video of a channel or in a playlist. Download them with yt-dlp configured to add the publication date at the beginning of each video's filename, then delete videos as you finish watching them.

Feed blockers extension helps a lot! such as: Block YouTube Feed - Homepage, Sidebar Videos by unhook.app

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-youtube-feed...

This really works: after installing this a few months back I spend a fraction of the time I used to spend on YouTube. The problem isn’t YouTube so much as the never-ending feed of recommended vids, which I found we usually things I had already seen, clickbait, or generally just mediocre content. All the content is still there with this extension, but having to manually search it out takes away the likelihood of bingong.

+1 for unhook here's the homepage which links to the firefox, chrome, and edge version https://unhook.app/

Some years ago, I got so annoyed that I spent days, just sitting there, clicking the next recommended video, that I just decided to block youtube in the browser. I still had newpipe on my phone, and I used pipe-viewer (commandline youtube browser) on the desktop, to look up vids I found on my phone, so I could watch them on a bigger screen.

Later I discovered invidious, and recently the even better piped.

These days I still have youtube blocked, and I use newpipe + piped for my daily viewing. I still watch a bit more than I'd like sometimes, but it is a lot better than it used to be.

For me, the happy medium is an extension that replaces thumbnails with a frame from the actual video itself (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clickbait-remover-...).

Videos are still visually identifiable this way, and as a plus you get a preview of their actual contents, all while significantly cutting down on visual noise.

Personally, I use Youtube only in a contextual way. From a blog, newsletter, social network, whichever...somebody points out an interesting video and I may watch it.

I do not ever visit youtube.com as some kind of home landing page and think "let's see what's going on today, what interesting content there is today".

Because the answer always is: an infinite amount of it.

I just use NewPipe on android. Gives me almost everything I want and no ads (only thing it doesn't is YouTube live broadcasts)

Recommended videos are how I find the new content and I find it valuable. But my home page is set to /feed/library, so I'll usually just finish watching videos from history or from watch later or some other list I curated. I'll open the main page when I really have time to spend. I use that time to fill my watch later lists.

https://newpipe.net/ for mobile and https://freetubeapp.io/ for desktop. Best part is that freetube supports import of subscription list exported using newpipe.

For the last point (blocking thumbnails), you don't need an extension if you're comfortable with DNS blocking. Add in your /etc/hosts:

    0.0.0.0       i.ytimg.com
    fe80::1%lo0   i.ytimg.com
    0.0.0.0       yt3.ggpht.com
    fe80::1%lo0   yt3.ggpht.com

I dragged my feet behind me but nowadays I find SponsorBlock to be one of the most useful extensions next to uBlock Origin. It became very clear how much ads and self promotion that are included in videos. Unfortunately my podcast provider doesn't support it.

I'm a huge consumer of YouTube content, playing x2 speed all the time and now using AI to transcript and summarize. It's not that I'm afraid to miss high value added information on YouTube but I'm too lazy to read it elsewhere, except on HN.

here's something I use (more simpler than installing those numerous extensions and bloating your browser) for making youtube less distracting and more productive: less addictive youtube: https://github.com/AlexisDrain/Less-Addictive-YouTube

and follow the uBlock origin instructions mentioned in this blog post: https://pawelurbanek.com/youtube-addiction-selfcontrol

I'd like a UI that does not cover the video while paused. Watching tutorials on Youtube can be frustrating when you can't see the content on pause.

I use a chrome extension called DF Tube. I also don't subscribe to anyone so that makes it better.

I wish more of these extensions shipped as userscripts, where you don't need to trust the extensions themselves too much.

I removed SponsorBlock recently after learning how petty the people controlling it can be. There's a video about USB4 by LTT that involves a sponsored laptop, and SponsorBlock contributors meticulously added segments for every time the name or specs of the laptop are mentioned, sometimes less than a second long. I thought my BT headphones had a problem several times.

I want a sponsor blocking tool that gets rid of segments that waste my time, not segments where the extension author wanted to deny a sponsor the satisfaction of knowing they were involved with a video by meticulously expunging every trace of them, with the end goal seemingly being to make a sponsored video look like normal editorial content.

Next they'll add black bars on the laptop logos and subtitle censorship (the author of Sponsorblock actually said the later was a real planned feature)

SponsorBlock is community based so you can vote on any blocked segment you find bad. I agree that cutting 1-2 seconds makes little sense. LTT spending seven minutes talking about a bag or eight minutes talking about his screwdriver in the latest video shows the benefits though. Even though I'll never agree 100% with other people on what to cut.

I've talked to the author and sole maintainer about this video specifically, and he confirmed it is absolutely intentional and subtitle censoring is coming. He also confirmed that cutting out entire thirds out of videos is intentional, if the affected segment is also used to pitch a Nebula companion video (but otherwise just a continuation of the video). This happens on channels like Mustard and RealLifeLore. SponsorBlock isn't trying to eliminate annoyances, they're trying to turn existing videos into something something they're not - untainted by commercial interests. And they don't care if it takes away from the actual content of the video or removes tons of context.

The last straw for me was a Climate Town video about astroturfing that ends by introducing a petition to the EPA as "sponsored" by the grassroots organization that set it up. Someone cut 3 entire minutes out of that video to spite the supposed "sponsor" and took at least 2.5 minutes of content pertinent to the topic of the video with them. Sppnsorblock author also said that was intentional.

There is a setting to avoid skipping segments below X seconds if that's something you prefer. There is also an option to not skip anything if there is a full video sponsorship label, which probably will help in the scenario you are describing.

The Climate Town video is a sponsorship, and he clearly declares it as a sponsorship in the video, as I told you already on Twitter. Just because he says the word "grassroots" inside it doesn't make it not paid promotion.

anything for android/ios YouTube app?

Android has already been mentioned in the comments.

iOS: AltStore + uYouPlus

https://altstore.io/

https://github.com/qnblackcat/uYouPlus/releases

Thank God for New pipe.

Curious if there's any guide on making it less distracting while watching it on TV? The hacks here are only for web browsers.

Hook up a small PC to your TV and watch YT from the web browser on that with all the plug-ins.

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