I have an extension that can individually disable all the most useless/addicting components of the Youtube site, such as shorts and whatnot. On the search page, I have turned on:

hide Shorts

hide For You

hide Trending

hide ‘People Also Searched For’

hide Search Categories

hide Promoted Videos

hide Promoted Websites

hide Suggested Products

Do you know what Youtube has started doing? They are now inserting engagement slop DIRECTLY into the search results, as seen in the image above. It’s literally a short, yet it’s inserted like a video so you’re forced to see it. The only possible way to remove it is by using a privacy frontend, as even on incognito mode, Youtube will look at the three videos you’ve watched and start inserting shit based off that.

Louis Rossman is right, they all have rapist mentalities… “just let me stick it in”

  • siriusmart@lemmy.ml
    0·
    3 months ago
    • Here’s an extension which turns YouTube into an Invidious-like site, removing all addicting elements.
    • If you’re using Linux, I wrote the youtube-tui a few years back, very similar to the extension where you get nothing but the search bar and subscriptions.
    • TangledHyphae@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      Holy shit this is incredible. I have wanted a way to permanently hide shorts forever, thanks for sharing. Also it’s actually recommended by Mozilla which means it has active security audits on it, impressive.

  • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
    0·
    3 months ago

    I’ve noticed that the search results are getting less and less relevant to what I’m actually looking for. I guess one day the search bar will disappear like the headphone jack of the iPhone.

      • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
        0·
        3 months ago

        Oh that thing where in between the ads you can watch low quality reality shows for a few minutes? Yeah, those were the days…

        • BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee
          0·
          3 months ago

          tried watching a stone cold steve austin show once and had to stop because literally every 4 minutes there were ads. unwatchable

          • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
            0·
            3 months ago

            And then there are the recaps you get every now and then. People making these shows know that most viewers aren’t even really actively watching. It’s just background noise you put on while cooking or doing household chores. When you go to a movie, there are no recap, because the director expects to have your undivided attention at all times.

    • velox_vulnus@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      You don’t need search, all you need is watch. Watch the video, follow the directive of the techo-judgement day Jesus AI, beep-boop.

      • Million@lemmy.zipEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        It’s the future, year 2025…

        Just unplugged from work when I feel a buzz in my forehead and my neuralink pushes new order details straigt into my retinas.

        It’s another deep dive job. Without hesitation I accept the job since I’m low on prime points. Head back to my office and plug myself back in. Get more details from the job file, seems to be some obscure shit again…

        Turn on my cooled chair that prevents my body from overheating during a deep dive. I sit in the chair and start the process.

        Thousands and thousands of mind numbing click bait videos speed past me as I weave through them in the metaverse. I’m multiple hours into the dive with no results, and I can feel my body start failing. I should pull out, but the prime points are too tempting, and I’m already so deep, it has to be around here somewhere.

        My vision flashes red as my neuralinked dive chair is giving me warnings about my body failing, and just as im about to pass out… There it is, I gotcha… Grab the link and pull out as fast as I can.

        Wake up a few hours later after my chair managed to get my heart going again. Scramble through my memories for the link, and there it was. I inform the customer that the matching video has been found and I am awaiting payment… The money is wired to me instantly and I sent them the LINK through neuramail.

        Searching YouTube isn’t easy these days… But it pays good…

      • XNX@slrpnk.net
        0·
        3 months ago

        Twitch could. Still wild they don’t allow editing vods or uploading videos.

        • Chozo@fedia.io
          0·
          3 months ago

          Dan Clancy has already said that Twitch isn’t profitable as it is. Right now, they basically only still exist because of existing contracts, otherwise Amazon would’ve likely pulled the plug a while ago. They can’t handle their current user base; they wouldn’t be able to handle YouTube refugees en masse.

          • XNX@slrpnk.net
            0·
            3 months ago

            They currently allow unlimited vods that are hours long that provides zero revenue. They could disable that and instead allow 30 minutes of edited vods or video uploads and have ads on them to make money

            • Chozo@fedia.io
              0·
              3 months ago

              Yeah that’s true, and I’m honestly surprised that they’ve had features like that available for free for as long as they have.

              I kind of wonder why they haven’t attempted such a pivot already, though, as it seems like they could easily take over the gaming video space that YouTube currently dominates. Much of that audience uses Twitch already and would easily transition over to a more curated platform, so it feels like it should’ve been a pretty obvious move by now.

      • oo1@kbin.social
        0·
        3 months ago

        Things like freetube seems to be basically a simple yt front-end.

        I don’t know what happens if a significant amount of yt users used freetube. but that probably won’t happen.

        I find it a lot more pleasant to use than yt.

        • Takios@discuss.tchncs.de
          0·
          3 months ago

          I don’t know what happens if a significant amount of yt users used freetube. but that probably won’t happen.

          Look at what happened with Nitter (alternative Twitter frontend). They’ll start changing around things so often that alternative frontends break every few days.

        • anothermember@lemmy.zip
          0·
          3 months ago

          Well FreeTube never claimed to be a platform, it’s a fantastic front-end for browsing YouTube videos without having to deal with Google’s crap, but you’re still using YouTube.

        • Jay@lemmy.caEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          I use freetube as well, but I have a feeling that it’s just a matter of time before google brings the axe down on it too, especially if it increases in popularity.

      • lad@programming.dev
        0·
        3 months ago

        DouYin, you know, the Chinese YouTube

        That’s sarcasm though, as I expect them to be as malicious as YouTube

    • Որբունի@jlai.lu
      0·
      3 months ago

      PeerTube isn’t too bad if you’re willing to host your own videos as a big creator, and smaller creators can pool resources for smaller instances.

      • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
        0·
        3 months ago

        My main issue with Peertube is that for some reason, after just a bit of its use the internet connection on my laptop just shuts down until a reboot. It was present on both old and new laptop, and while the same thing happens when I torrent sometimes - only Peertube does it consistently. Would really like if there is a fix for this.

        But yea, I agree in that the answer is not a platform, but a selfhostable solution.

    • Domi@lemmy.secnd.me
      0·
      3 months ago

      Video hosting is a money sink, I wouldn’t hold my breath that somebody else comes along.

      • Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de
        0·
        3 months ago

        I just want to point out that DailyMotion and Vimeo still (somehow) exist.

        I haven’t really looked into them because they obviously my subscriptions wouldn’t be there which is pretty much all I use youtube for, but they are technically competitors that do technically exist.

  • InfiniteGlitch@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    3 months ago

    May I ask the name(s) of these extension(s)? Currently having this issue and that’s why I mainly use MPV to load my music playlist on.

    • DanTDM@lemmy.worldOP
      0·
      3 months ago

      Untrap for Youtube

      The same dev also makes an extension that lets you block individual elements for facebook, instagram, leddit, etc. Useful to break a habit

  • mvilain@fedia.io
    0·
    3 months ago

    I disabled History and only see my channel subscriptions. None of the options above appear in my Youtube feed.

  • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    I’m really surprised at how bad of an experience people are having! I have a bunch of channels I follow and people I interact with. Some big channels but most small. I love channels with only a few hundred to a few thousand viewers. The creators post their videos and then I talk to them through the comments. We have some really interesting conversations.

    Lots of other channels I follow I don’t interact with but still really enjoy. A lot of hobby channels are amazing! I generally avoid the news and politics stuff, though I still occasionally watch Ukraine videos or Trump trial stuff. I get sick of those after one video though!

    • Firipu@startrek.website
      0·
      3 months ago

      Yeah, tbh, the insane focus on privacy makes YouTube a lot worse, no shit. The algorithm just throws shit at the wall hoping it sticks, what do you expect?

      Make a burner account only for YouTube. See how the quality goes up because you can follow people you are actually interested in.

      I personally really don’t see the privacy risk with that? (then again, I gave up on the idea of true privacy online years ago. Privacy through obscurity is enough. I don’t care big companies recognize my habits, as long as they don’t know 100% exactly who I am.)

      • onion@feddit.de
        0·
        3 months ago

        You can subscribe without an account using third party clients like NewPipe or FreeTube

        • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
          0·
          3 months ago

          You can subscribe but you can’t comment without an account. I know YouTube has a terrible reputation for the low quality of comments but that’s exclusively a large channel problem. Small, niche channels actually have decent discussions.

  • Zier@fedia.io
    0·
    3 months ago

    Firefox, uBlock Origin, on a Linux Desktop. I have none of these problems and have filters to hide shorts, endcards, autoplay, ambient mode. And I block all cookies from Youtube/Google. Works perfectly.

    • Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de
      0·
      3 months ago

      Add on the PokeTube skin from userstyles.org and you can pretend you live in a world that’s free and balanced where children can kick the asses of wannabe capitalistic overlords instead of the corporate hellscape we currently find ourselves in.

    • Norule6@lemmy.sdf.org
      0·
      3 months ago

      I’m working towards a Linux distro instead of windows. Until I get there it’s Firefox, unblock on a desktop with mullvad VPN. Set the vpn location to Albania for no ads.

      • Zier@fedia.io
        0·
        3 months ago

        Kubuntu is very friendly, it’s my daily. Try Mint if you want easier.

    • 7heo@lemmy.ml
      0·
      3 months ago

      This is the way. And I might add, Unix desktop. Let’s not start bikeshedding between FOSS Unix distributions out of dogmatic reasons (I’m sure you didn’t mean to specifically single out “Linux” here, but I wish we would stop opposing “Linux” and other Unixes like BSD, Illumos, etc).

      The point is, voting with your data for software that is defending your interests, and respecting your rights.

      Edit: Dang, I didn’t expect to get so much slack for “Unix as opposed to Unix-Like”. I absolutely meant “Unix-Like”, but my point is that it shouldn’t matter. Most software is trying to be compatible, these days, and Linux isn’t (in spite of all that marketing material) an OS. It is a kernel. So semantics for semantics, can it even be compared to something it is not? I merely tried to be inclusive.

      • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        This is a weird response to me.

        This is the way. And I might add, Unix desktop.

        Sure man, rock on. ✊

        Let’s not start bikeshedding between FOSS Unix distributions out of dogmatic reasons (I’m sure you didn’t mean to specifically single out “Linux” here

        Eh… OP seems to be talking about their own setup. They probably “singled out” Linux because it’s what they use.

        I wish we would stop opposing “Linux” and other Unixes like BSD, Illumos, etc).

        I oppose none of those things, but Linux isn’t Unix.

        (Usually the Unix folks are the ones at pains to point that out.)

      • folkrav@lemmy.ca
        0·
        3 months ago

        It’s not so much opposition rather than other BSDs having almost negligible desktop presence… If we really want to get into semantics, too, Linux is technically not UNIX.

  • SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net
    0·
    3 months ago

    1 minute videos aren’t put into the shorts interface, so it’s not YouTube noticing that you disabled shorts but rather some YouTuber trying to follow the algorithm using a channel they made for shorts and mistakenly (I assume) uploading a video longer than minute on it. All such videos appear as normal videos instead of as shorts.

    Google is terrible though, so I understand why you would think that.

  • Matriks404@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    My three biggest problems with YouTube are:

    • It sucks on desktops/laptops with bigger UI scaling enabled, some stuff just doesn’t fit.

    • The search function on YouTube is useless and completely broken. Instead of searching normally it:

      1. Repeats same results multiple times;

      2. Display unrelated Shorts nobody asked for;

      3. Instead of displaying relevant results it shows stuff you have already watched or picked by YouTube algorithm.

    • You can’t skip sponsored segments with YouTube Premium. You need SponsorBlock browser extension for that.

    • Lad@reddthat.com
      0·
      3 months ago

      I wouldn’t dream of paying for premium unless they added an official version of sponsorblock across desktop and mobile. The fact that you can get more out of YouTube with a free client is laughable.

      You’re pretty much just throwing away money if you pay for premium.