Comment by throwaway0223 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway0223 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

If you use Chrome, YouTube Shorts Block [1] is a good extension for that, and removes (mostly) Shorts videos. Not perfect, still leaves some traces (e.g. empty spaces, channel titles in subscriptions), but it helps to declutter your user experience.

And while we're talking about extensions to customize your YT experience, here's three more that I really enjoy:

- Clickbait Remover [2], to remove the usually clickbait-ish video thumbnails

- Unhook [3], to remove the recommended videos entirely. This extension helped me reduce the time spent on YT. I now browse recommendations on my phone much more quickly, add what I want to check out to Watch Later queue, so on desktop I only search, check subscriptions, or consume my WL queue

- Video Speed Controller [4]. This one is super popular, so probably you already have it installed.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-shorts-blo...

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

[3] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unhook-remove-yout...

[4] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-contro...

You forgot the by far most important: sponsor block

Its an ad blocker for the in-video sponsorship segments

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sponsorblock-for-y...

It's also available for other browsers.

This is a great addon. works on most channels.

I personally do not use it though as I do not have a problem with advertising in general. As long as there is no data collection and targeted ads, I am good to sponsor with my time.

There is also

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

- you can tweak several things by one extension

For android BlockerHero [1]

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blockerher...

Do we have equivalents for Firefox as well? I'm struggling to find them.

I use Enhancer for Youtube (https://addons.mozilla.org/en/firefox/addon/enhancer-for-you...)

Allows hiding(*) and converting to normal video.

(*) "Firefox 103+ and layout.css.has-selector.enabled set to True - Experimental CSS feature not fully working on Firefox, some rendering issues may occur"

I created this uBlock Origin rule that will remove all Shorts without any cosmetic remnants. Seems simpler and more secure than installing an addon.

youtube.com##:xpath(//ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[@overlay-style='SHORTS']//ancestor::ytd-grid-video-renderer)

Fantastic list, thank you. I didn't know about most of these. What's the benefit of the video speed controller over the playback speed controls provided by YouTube?

more fine grained speed levels, can go up to 4x, plus it works on ALL videos on every page not jsut youtube

Isn't installing extensions considered extremely dangerous?

What's your threat model?

The thread model is that maintainers of popular extensions get offers of several thousand $ all the time to pass over ownership. And there have been several incidents in which the new owners added trackers to the extension itself, tracking the user across all domains.

These extensions usually have full access to the DOM, so they can do everything they want to.

So their question is very much warrented: installing as new extension should always be well considered.

That's not a threat model, at all.

The threat is what's important. Nobody will give you a six slide c-level powerpoint presentation.

I mean... I don't really have a response to this. This is security modeling 101. To different threat models, this is a varying degree of a threat - anywhere from "not a threat" to "unacceptable threat".

You cannot universally answer the question "how much of a threat are chrome extensions".

I understand that this is a pet peeve of yours. But what exactly stops you from learning what kind of data chrome extensions have access to (they can see everything on any page you visit and send it to perpetrators) and assuming the worst?

oooo..... are you talking about chrome store that has adware filled garbage duplicates of good quality extensions?

firefox addon store is very much better in that regard. Anyway, this makes me feel like you don't know about gorhill and UBO? that is actually recommended for sane internet browsing on any browsers.

As i often say, surfing the internet in a browser without UBO feels like having unprotected sex. Fun but dangerous.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com