YouTube started blocking me because I use an adblocker. So I made this simple Firefox Add-On (haven't made it cross-browser yet, contributions welcome!) to open videos in alternative front-ends (piped.video by default).<p>Default keybinding: Alt+J to reopen current page in the configured frontend.<p>Shift+Click to open any video in a new tab in the configured frontend.<p>You can change the default frontend to something else if you like.
It would be nice if browsers were able to get around all these kinds of shenanigans directly, instead of having to always reach for extensions and addons and endlessly participate in this cat and mouse game. After all, the browser is <i>supposed to be</i> the user's agent. Its job is to do what the user wants and fetch the content that the user asks for.<p>Somewhere along the path, we've made a terrible turn and allowed the browsers to become agents of the web developers instead, gatekeeping on behalf of web sites, rather than serving the user's interests.<p>My ideal browser would load up a site like YouTube, and, knowing my already-configured preference for ad-free, minimalist layout, would present it as a Craigslist-style list of links with thumbnails, ignoring the mess of JS and CSS that the site's developer futilely sends.
As others mentioned: <a href="https://libredirect.github.io/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://libredirect.github.io/</a>
It redirects so many pages to their privacy friendly frontends. Can't use the internet anymore without this extension.
For a few years, I've been using the Redirector add-on [1] to redirect Yotube URLs to various Invidious instances. No ads, and easy to tailor the visual experience to your needs.<p>Here's my Redirector rule:<p><pre><code> Youtube
Redirect: https://www.youtube.com/*
to: https://invidious.protokolla.fi/$1
Hint: Youtube > Invidious instance redirection
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hipBryeDc0E → https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=hipBryeDc0E
Applies to: Main window (address bar)
</code></pre>
As a parenting control trick, I also use Redirector to direct some of the more immersive gaming sites to about:blank for our 10yo son. Definitely proud of that hack, ha.<p>1: <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirector/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirector/</a>
I don't care as much about the privacy as I care about not messing up my Youtube recommendations. Any time I accidentally click on or hover over some BS video my front page is full of clickbait spam and I need to manually clean up my watch history.<p>I guess (?) it works for monetization, but the UX of YouTube and their pushing of clickbait content has become horrible over the past few years. I just wish they stopped trying to be "smart" about what I want to watch. I'm already paying for Premium, just give me an option to make Youtube stupid.
Seems like there's a bit of confusion about what the add-on does exactly. It doesn't automatically redirect all YouTube pages you open.<p>This however gives you the choice to open the pages you want in an alternative frontend.<p>My use case is basically I browse the YT homepage and Shift+click the videos I want to watch. Or if someone shares a link to a video, I access that page and Alt+J to redirect to the alternative frontend.
The link[1] to the Firefox add-on page on your Github repo is dead. Has this just not been published yet?<p>[1] <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/yt-siphon/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/yt-siphon/</a>
What does this do differently to Privacy Redirect? <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/privacy-redirect/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/privacy-redir...</a>
Here's how I use youtube, usually without opening web frontend at all:<p>Install mpv and yt-dlp.<p>Use play-with addon to open youtube or other video links directly in mpv.<p>Periodically convert youtube subscriptions into OPML using an userscript.<p>Import OPML into freetube or other RSS reader to check for new videos.<p><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/play-with/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/play-with/</a><p><a href="https://github.com/theborg3of5/Userscripts/tree/master/youtubeRSSExport">https://github.com/theborg3of5/Userscripts/tree/master/youtu...</a>
I made myself a bookmarklet last week to open the current URL with invidious. Not because of the adblocker prejudice (although there were reports, it hadn't hit me yet) but because YouTube was increasingly unable or unwilling to play videos.<p>As a side benefit, invidious can block comments and related videos so it's a better experience.<p>javascript:window.location=%22<a href="https://[your" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://[your</a> favorite invidious implementation]/watch%22+document.location.search
I'm using ublock Origin and have never seen any of those.<p>For those with ubO who still see them, cleaning the cache and updating the filters within ubO seems to help.<p><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...</a>
While we're on the subject of youtube annoyances: are there any extensions that disable "ambient mode?"<p>This infuriating feature provides nothing useful and absolutely murders Apple Silicon GPUs, draining the battery very, very quickly.
Here's several options for opening with either mpv or saving with yt-dlp:<p><a href="https://github.com/Thann/play-with-mpv">https://github.com/Thann/play-with-mpv</a> (chrome)
<a href="https://github.com/Baldomo/open-in-mpv">https://github.com/Baldomo/open-in-mpv</a> (chrome and firefox)
<a href="https://github.com/MasterDevX/mpvnet">https://github.com/MasterDevX/mpvnet</a> (chrome and firefox)
I use YouTube to watch videos of news uploaded on their YouTube channel like CNN and NBC and etc, I'm wondering what's the YouTube alternative for me?
I just use the FreeTube desktop client, because even if you get around the anti ad-blocking stuff on YT, you're still left with the increasingly terrible UX. No doubt they'll block FreeTube and Invidious sooner or later, but until then I don't even need to worry about the Youtube website at all.
I've been using Privacy Redirect and some of the other generalist redirector extension with quite some success. Privacy redirect also redirects twitter to nitter, reddit to libreddit or old.reddit, Google Maps to openstreetmap and other stuff. Redirects can be enabled/disabled to ones taste. That's quite neat.<p>Combined with my private invidious instance so I can subscribe to channels without this data leaving computers I control.<p>May your own extension succeed too. I guess building it and releasing it are already two successes on their own.
I really wish there was a way to annotate youtube videos easily. Kind of like hypothesis[1], but for video/streaming content.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87h0nYi-i9o">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87h0nYi-i9o</a><p>edit: turns out there is something already: <a href="https://docdrop.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://docdrop.org/</a>