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”
Louis Rossman is my Alex Jones. He’s angry, compelling, and talking about something that makes him seen like a conspiracy theorist to normies. Unlike Jones, though, he’s usually right (if not always, I haven’t fact checked everything he’s ever said). It’s extremely cathartic to see someone use such extreme rhetoric to talk about privacy and software ownership and right to repair; e.g. it’s not “advertiser’s entitlement,” it’s “rapist mentality.”
Ironically, youtube’s inability to completely differentiate between people at the same IP has accidentally gotten my non-techie roommate into him too. I never shared his videos with her, never said anything about him, and one day I hear his voice as she browses the web. I’m so proud of her.
My least favorite thing about the “engagement friendly” slop in youtube’s search results is that it takes up HALF of the results. Because clearly what I expect from SEARCHING for something is to dredge up a bunch of shit that ranges from tangentially related to completely unrelated.
For example, I too just searched a song. Let’s see how that went:
7 results
4 “people also watched” videos
5 results
2 “More from [band name]” videos
2 results
3 “people also searched for” suggestions
2 results
3 “For you” vids (IS IT THE FUVKING SEARCH RESULTS I ASKED FOR??? BECAUSE IF NOT, IT’S NOT REALLY “FOR ME,” IS IT?)
2 Results
3 “From related searches”
2 resultsThat’s 20 results to 15 irrelevant pieces of ADHD triggering visual clutter. Luckily the results were actually relevant, unlike whatever you’re getting.
To all the commenters saying “I have X, I don’t have this problem”: I have adblock, I don’t have this problem, YOU’RE MISSING THE POINT:
YOUTUBE SEARCH IS BROKEN BY DEFAULT. The largest video sharing site on the internet is BROKEN BY DEFAULT. It shouldn’t require extra software to function properly when functioning properly requires less work on the server’s side
I agree with him on right to repair and other rights issues but I can’t stand the guy. He’s incredibly abrasive and annoying. I’m interested in people who have interesting things to say. Long, angry rants about stuff I already agree with are just a waste of my time.
I feel this, to an extent. I rather like the guy, I like what he stands for (for the most part, I don’t agree with his stance on at-will employment), but I don’t generally watch his videos for the same reason; angry preaching to the choir. I already agree, it’s mostly a waste of my time to watch.
I loved Rossmann, but he made a sharp turn to reactionary politics and selfish ideology about the time he really took off. His views on just about anything outside of right to repair are usually so far from right as to be entirely wrong. He also has this idea that because he’s good at repairing things, he must have great takes on everything, and started making so many ridiculously terrible politics videos it became almost impossible to find actually useful content. He’s a smart dude, but like many smart dudes, he’s an idiot in most ways outside his specialty.
It’s not that it’s broken by default, it’s that it’s broken deliberately. They don’t want you to just be able to find what you need and then leave, because that’s the civilized way of doing things, and they are GREEDY FUCKING BARBARIANS.
Deliberately broken by default?
Youtube search results have been garbage for a while now :(
YoutubeGoogle search results have been garbage for a while now :(Youtube Googlesearch results have been garbage for a while now :(
I get nothing. Google is all pissy I turned off history and refuse to use their app. So they refuse to suggest anything.
The upside is no bloat and no ads, just have to know a topic.
positive for me cause I dont want to see their shitty recommendations anyways. I just like/dislike a video to indicate I watched it.
What I have noticed is that if you add “before:2025” (or any other future date) it doesn’t show the unrelated stuff.
- 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.
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.
Ya’ll need FreeTube.
Yal’l n’eed t’o lear’n a’bou’t apo’str’phe pl’ac’em’en’t’.
Ya will need freetube
Damn… That’s a good username. Wish I had thought of it
This boy ain’t right
It’s “y’all” - as in a contraction of “you all.”
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My three biggest problems with YouTube are:
-
It sucks on desktops/laptops with bigger UI scaling enabled, some stuff just doesn’t fit.
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The search function on YouTube is useless and completely broken. Instead of searching normally it:
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Repeats same results multiple times;
-
Display unrelated Shorts nobody asked for;
-
Instead of displaying relevant results it shows stuff you have already watched or picked by YouTube algorithm.
-
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You can’t skip sponsored segments with YouTube Premium. You need SponsorBlock browser extension for that.
-
I simply just stopped searching or clicking on anything I’m not subbed to while logged in. It’s like you commit a crime when you click something. Next
thenthing you know, that same fucking channel is following everywhere you go, in the home page and under every video you watch. Fuck google and fuck all this enshitification campaign the internet is undergoingUnusable for me with ads as well. Grey loading screen and choppy audio instead of actually loading ads, never gets to the video. If I reopen the video a few times to skip the ad the video loads fine. No problems with online gaming, streaming services, etc so I know it’s their shit Roku app and ad network and not me. Ad blockers make it actually usable.
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.
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
Has been for years already sadly. I recommend https://github.com/user234683/youtube-local to watch directly and https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl to download. They both remove the dark patterns trying to abuse the attention of viewers.
i ran into this kind of garbage the other day looking for a Nicholas Jaar video when i couldn’t recall the name. like BoC, there’s tons and tons of tracks by Jaar, but results gave me one or two of his most popular tracks and a buuuuuunch of other stuff. i couldn’t even just keep scrolling, there were a dozen results and then the “related search” garbage.
ugh, i’m so fed up with google, and at the same time not motivated enough to figure out workarounds. i have work and shit to do around my house.
i guess, with me, they won.
edit typo
Works for me
I also got very relevant results for that query.
Fine for me too
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.
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?
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
Thank you for describing your system. I didn’t even know that table of contents were available in Joplin.
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Man, I wonder if there will be freetube support for DeArrow that looks great
Piped. Trust me.
