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Youtube is now unusable without a frontend

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"

mvilain ,
@mvilain@fedia.io avatar

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

kylian0087 ,

Yeah i did this until they make the entire homepage blank if you keep history off. Very annoying.

100 ,

but why would your homepage not be your sub box

sukhmel ,

Maybe they don't subscribe

parpol ,

Hey, I don't even have an account. My firefox bookmarks are my feed.

onion ,

May I suggest NewPipe (Android) or FreeTube (Desktop)

FIST_FILLET ,

i had history disabled for a while until i realized that it then forgets your progress in longer videos… deal-breaker for me

notthoughtsjustcrabrave ,

On a similar note, does anybody know of a frontend or add on for Instagram? I do not want the suggested content and reels they shove down everyone's throats because it is very easy to waste hours and get distracted easily with it. Also no ads would be nice. I have to use Instagram to keep in touch with certain people who I have no alternative means of keeping in touch with.

Humorless4483 ,

I’ve been using beeper for the last 2 months and it has been working perfectly, I can see as video if someone sends a short, I can listen to an audio recording and see all of my messages without ever seeing the instagram feed.

cole ,
@cole@lemdro.id avatar

you're looking for "Instander"! I went on a quest for this myself awhile back

notthoughtsjustcrabrave ,

Thanks!

slimarev92 ,

Works for me

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9d2c68e0-cb64-428b-8dfe-ded83ca0543a.jpeg

feddylemmy ,

I also got very relevant results for that query.

Marin_Rider ,

I find most searches will give me the first 3 or videos meeting the criteria roughly followed by a bunch of random stuff that has nothing to do with what I searched

psud , (edited )

Fine for me too

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/67c450bc-f7f3-49f6-885c-6b30da4ff232.png

ColdWater ,
@ColdWater@lemmy.ca avatar

Works fine on yt revanced 1000003714

krolden ,
@krolden@lemmy.ml avatar

OK but what does that have to do with privacy?

mukt ,
@mukt@lemmy.ml avatar

They can't do what they are doing here without an intent to violate privacy.

krolden ,
@krolden@lemmy.ml avatar

How so

mukt ,
@mukt@lemmy.ml avatar

What how so? They already have taken a deceptive consent from every registered user to show ads profiled on per user basis, and serve numerous clicks on their website that offer ads or ad-like stuff.

What is your alternative theory of why they are doing all this?

Saltarello ,

My method for android & desktop. I never sign in to YouTube & never use the app. Using Joplin synced through Nextcloud (any syncable note taking app would do the trick) I keep a list of channels ("subscriptions") & interesting looking videos ("watch later") which I group by length. Obviously, this way the links can be via Piped, YouTube whatever.

I only ever interract through browser which is never signed in. Kiwi browser on Android, Firefox or Brave on desktop. All of them run uBlock + SponsorBlock + DeArrow.

DeArrow is by the same dev/s as SponsorBlock & gives anti clickbait crowd sourced titles & thumbs. Its become an invaluable tool so I'm glad to have paid to offer some support.

All of the browsers have history/cookies etc cleared once closed.

Penguin_Rocket ,

My method for android & desktop. I never sign in to YouTube & never use the app. Using Joplin synced through Nextcloud (any syncable note taking app would do the trick) I keep a list of channels (“subscriptions”) & interesting looking videos (“watch later”) which I group by length. Obviously, this way the links can be via Piped, YouTube whatever.

As a Joplin user, I find it interesting. So you have a "subscriptions" folder and a "watch later" folder? What is your routine?

Saltarello ,

Nothing sophisticated, I just have a note for videos. The note has headings (use the [toc] trick at the top of the note to jump directly to the headings without having to scroll through everything)

You could categorise video links by genre or whatever your preference. I chose to categorise by length, say up 10 minutes, 11 to 20 minutes, 20 to 30 minutes & so on. So i set up appropriate headings.

Thats it. I also set up a heading for "Audio" as some videos are essentially podcasts, audio based talks etc & Kiwi browser allows background play.

Its a few extra steps over tapping "save for later" in YouTube app but it takes seconds to copy title, copy url & paste into a note & it caters for videos from any source. To remove myself from the shitty algorithm it works for me

Penguin_Rocket ,

Thank you for describing your system. I didn't even know that table of contents were available in Joplin.

Brutticus ,

Man, I wonder if there will be freetube support for DeArrow that looks great

buzz86us ,

The damn site tries to crash my browser before showing me what I want

chonglibloodsport ,

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 ,
@Firipu@startrek.website avatar

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 ,

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

chonglibloodsport ,

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.

EngineerGaming ,
@EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

Even viewing comments has been broken on Newpipe and frontends for a while.

kionite231 ,

Use pipepipe. You can view comments there.

krolden ,
@krolden@lemmy.ml avatar

But you dont get the algorithmic recommendations.

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

They are in a endless cycle

TheControlled ,

Cool music taste.

cumskin_genocide ,

I don't know anyone that watches YouTube regularly. Seems like such a boomer thing

HopFlop ,

Do you need help lifting the rock you're living under?

XTL ,

Boomers watch broadcast TV. It's what they grew up with.

potentiallynotfelix ,

hold up... danTDM?

MonkderDritte ,

Uh, yeah. Use <search engine of choice>, give search term, go to <video> tab or corresponding functionality.

Why would you use youtube's internal search anyway? It's age-old knowledge that such platforms use algorithms to "engage" (manipulate) you.

Cistello ,

Pretty sure my Adblocker already does all of this
I still use Youtube about 10% of the time to find new channels
Piped provides some suggestions while you watch some Video but it can't replaces YT's homefeed

MashedTech ,

I use YouTube with https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/search-fixer-for-youtube/bojdknokkpgboeonegndfcgkaommhleo

photonic_sorcerer ,

You're using Chrome in 2024 while also browsing Lemmy? Dear God, man. I wish I had your determination and\or powers of ignorance.

MashedTech ,

I use what works best for me. I use Lemmy because it's better than reddit. The official Reddit app is just unpleasant to use.

Here's your Firefox plugin:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-suite-search-fixer/

Harbinger01173430 ,

It's usable with the default stuff, well, minus the fucking 5 second ads

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