In addition to the unhook addon that others also recommended and is great, I would also suggest, as an alternative, setting a redirection rule from "www.youtube.com/shorts/XYWZ" to "www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYWZ". This will play the short but in the classical youtube video (landscape) format, with no infinite scrolling, or replay or autoplay (assuming these are in general disabled), which takes away a big part of the addictive aspect of shorts.
Instead of directly clicking the short to play it, open the menu at the bottom right and click add to playlist. This will play out in the classic player without having to configure ublock rules. And if the rest of the playlist is playing at more than 1x, this will also apply to the short.
I have a userscript that does this, but one downside is that it refreshes the page, so if I go back in history (eg I misclicked), it resets the recommendation page
A nuclear option that's worked extremely well for me is going into Youtube's settings and disabling history.
I no longer am even able to see shorts, they don't get suggested to me.
However, this is an extreme nuclear option and also disables the entire 'Home' and for-you type content. You can search and watch videos, but it flips it so it is 100% intention driven. Which means discoverability and browsing is non-existent. You're still able to see your existing subscriptions but that's it.
It's REALLY helped me disconnect from the addictive dopamine of the infinite, short type formats. YMMV
This is exactly what I’ve done for my Google settings after feeling more and more upset with what the Youtube homepage was showing me. Not so much in that it was necessarily contrary to what I may have wanted to watch, but more-so me thinking “My god.. is this what I’ve become?”
I now much prefer to open Youtube (quasi)tabula rasa. I still have subscriptions set up so I can follow “vetted” accounts, but for other things I now rely on that intentionality.
The one minor bummer is that Youtube won’t remember your spot in a video, say if you’re watching in your phone and want to continue on your desktop (or vice-versa). Not the biggest hassle to manually check the time and sync it up, though.
I think this is the best way of using Youtube if you're trying to avoid brain rot and doomscrolling. This way helped me alot and gives you full control over what you consume.
For an older Internet user, it feels baffling that returning a website to a state where it shows you what you search for, and what you subscribe to, is considered an extreme nuclear option.
I have been happy with the serendipity of YouTube’s algorithm generally. I followed an external link to a YouTube video about an exotic piano, and played a few related videos afterwards. These were videos about other unusual musical instruments, such as very high-pitched and very low-pitched wind instruments. And somehow that was part of a process leading to Japanese metal bands.
Dopamine-driven behavior in ourselves is certainly to be watched for.
Here is another one I found in my personal userscripts. I believe this script is more effective than my previous one because it prevents recommendations for Shorts or other videos from being shown.
// ==UserScript==
// @name No YT Sidebar and Shorts
// @match https://www.youtube.com/*
// ==/UserScript==
function noYTSidebar () {
const element = document.getElementById('secondary')
if (element === null) {
window.setTimeout(noYTSidebar, 1000)
return
}
element.getElementById('secondary').style.display = 'none'
}
function noYTShorts () {
const elements = document.querySelectorAll('ytd-rich-shelf-renderer')
if (elements.length === 0) {
window.setTimeout(noYTShorts, 1000)
return
}
for (e of document.querySelectorAll('ytd-rich-shelf-renderer')) {
e.style.display = 'none'
}
}
noYTSidebar()
noYTShorts()
Oh this is amazing, thank you! I tried to make my own but youtube's CSS is so complex, I gave up. I have no idea why they push shorts to me when I'm on my computer. But then again, I really cannot stand them, even on my phone.
I also just discovered a way[1] to just get real videos from my youtube RSS feeds, free from shorts. Honestly it's been a joy to not have my RSS reader notify me for a old video republished as vertical.
The CSS is complex indeed. Moreover, the page renders the Shorts widgets after the page has completed loading, so JavaScript-based solutions need to exercise a little care in ensuring that it can hide the distracting elements after the page has loaded. Despite the complexity, I've found that just hiding all elements with the 'ytd-rich-shelf-renderer' class just works fine. For example:
.ytd-rich-shelf-renderer { display: none }
This single line of CSS seems to just work fine for me.
Unhook is solid. I’m building Maxxmod [1] (shameless plug). The goal is similar in spirit, but with more granular control, a structured admin panel with live previews.
Still in development, but feedback from the HN crowd is very welcome. The site includes interactive prototypes and screenshots that give a clear picture of what it’s aiming to become.
For anyone whose Unhook has stopped working, I cannot recommend Youtube Redux enough. I originally installed it because I hate the new layout, but it is amazing in all the options it allows, including disabling infinite scroll and removing shorts altogether.
Some of the Unhook options are broken nowadays I think. Its that or one of my other 10 YouTube extensions I now have to deshittify that damn page. Disable translate, SponsorBlock, Disable AutoPlay, some better thumbnail thing..
Does it still work for you? Unhook hasn't been updated in years and doesn't work for shorts anymore, on Firefox. It's still worth it to get rid of the suggested videos though.
I’ve noticed this behavior for all Google properties. Every time I click “not interested” “don’t show me this again” or anything similar, it seems to have no effect as the best case. The worst case I’ve seen is when clicking these options seems to acts as a positive signal to show me more of that content. I’ve noticed this over years.
As such, I’ve simply stopped interacting with googles recommendation systems and most of googles content delivery systems. Including using YouTube as minimally as possible.
I'm 100% convinced that these 'show fewer' options are there for dark-pattern reasons. They are sprinkled throughout Facebook and LinkedIn as well. My hypothesis is that companies put them there to give consumers the idea that they have any control at all over their "feed." But if they actually try to use them, they discover the options don't actually do anything, and resign themselves to whatever the algorithm feeds them.
I do the same, and after a day of doing it- they seem to go away for a time depending on the platform, but they always come back and sometimes they come back a lot.
The web-browser is the least aggressive and I think I haven’t even seen them on Apple TV.
The iPhone App is the most egregious offender of not respecting the request though, it seems to almost not care at all, and now the thumbnails on the home screen have started autoplaying (with audio) and I can’t find how to disable it (older instructions seem to be invalid).
They have all the content though; so I have no choice but to deal with this, until a good enough competitor comes along and my favourite youtube channels upload to both places.
I have done the same and it seems to have no consequence. I suspect YouTube only wants to track the opposition to shorts, not to provide a personal preference for their users. This uBlock filter is therefore much appreciated
For me, it does result in no shorts on the main recommendations list. They still appear on the recommendations shown while a video is playing (and there they don't have the "show fewer" option) but they eventually (maybe 7-10 days or so) reappear on the main list as well.
this is all in the iOS YouTube app, which is the only place I watch YouTube.
I "Provide Feedback" every time anything annoys me, repeatedly. And I'm annoyed really easily. I have family premium, so I make sure to mention that.
- Hide all shorts, everywhere on the site, not just on my PC. uBO filters are amazing, but limited.
- The root page to show my Subscriptions instead of "Your History Is Turned Off..."
- I want links to go directly to the video and fill the window. I'll use the back button to go back where I came from, and native "Full Screen" if I want it to fill my screen.
All of it could be non-default settings available with Premium only.
Many stuff are addictive, some legal (smoking, gambling), some legal with prescription (drugs) and some illigal (opioids). Infinite scrolling, either video only (yt shorts) or mixed content lies in the first category. This is a war one fights by himself as law doesn't helps with gatekeeping. Any weapon that helps me is welcome. Filtering the content that whould otherwise polute my screen space and distract me from the useful content is desirable. In Homer Iliad, Ulysses ordered his sailors to tie him up in order to withstand the voice of Sirens, while they were wearing earplugs. Today we have uBlock.
I’m paying over 40 dollars a month for YouTube but it doesn’t allow me to choose almost anything of what I see, despite trying hard to fine-tune my recommendations.
I can’t permanently turn off shorts - and this I find personally insulting. It really feels like encountering a drug dealer outside my house every time I come home, always expecting me to cave and try some of that good smack.
But apart from ignoring me when I say I’m not interested in whole genres of ‘fun’ videos, it also resets the streaming quality to the lowest setting every single day and then hides the quality setting deep inside a menu with several fiddly clicks.
And this isn’t for my benefit of course: I can easily stream 4K video to my screens. It’s to shave a few cents off each stream and max the gouging.
YT is desperate for me to engage with rage bait news, and I’m not biting.
It’s so god damn annoying, regardless of how often I choose to ignore channels or don’t suggest feedback.
All they care about is vote time…give me content I want to view!
Also, in the evenings, my timeline gets weirdly paranoid phobia centric, like deep insecurities people live with that are triggering and keep you up late. It’s so obvious YT is doing this to try and bait me into watching these deeply emotional and personal content, and again, ignoring it and providing feedback seems to do nothing to my feed. I hate it.
Why are you still paying for Youtube? I run uBlock and haven't seen ads in years, don't see any cellphone format crap now thanks to this list, and VacuumTube on my TV defaults to 4K.
I use ReVanced on Android and it allows me to hide shorts. A 'pirated' version of the app offers a much better experience than even the paid option of it.
Since the beginning of Youtube, it has always struck my as reeking of such desperation to keep you hooked. Just the idea that you're watching a video, and there is simultaneously a list of 10 OTHER videos right next to the view. Most have become so numbed to that, but if you step back you should find it just such a sign of desperation to hook you (is the best way I can put it).
Before a video is even over, they have to plaster the video window with MORE VIDEOS. "Here try this, what about this other thing, here have you considered this?"
My mind is always "I haven't even digested this one video and you're already PUSHING MORE!"
When my kids are over my shoulder on YouTube I'm constantly zooming in w/ Mac zoom to obscure the other videos, the other spam, etc.
Just learn to absorb and soak in one thing. And digest it for a moment.
It's all so obnoxious and it's now the norm.
FWIW, I only ever login in a fresh private window.
We have such powerful AI tools these days. Every media recommendation service should have a slider you can set to indicate how much you want to be "challenged."
High challenge = CS papers explained
Medium challenge = bridge engineering videos
Low challenge = some guy playing video games for you on YouTube
This is exactly the only reason why I don’t pay for YouTube. Why would I pay money to make it even more addictive, when what I want is to make it less addictive.
Turn off your watch history. It stops all shorts except from your subscriptions.
If they remove this, I will surely be done with YouTube. I was so desperate to disable shorts and ready to be done with the app, but then I learned that disabling watch history pretty much perfectly allows me to use the app how I want to.
> I can’t permanently turn off shorts - and this I find personally insulting. It really feels like encountering a drug dealer outside my house every time I come home, always expecting me to cave and try some of that good smack.
YouTube's hostility is truly remarkable, by far the most egregious that the Subscriptions page in the TV app having a dedicated row for "recommendations" and "shorts" before you can proceed.
Not only I cannot turn off shorts, recently the iOS YouTube app auto plays random short the millisecond I start the app. That is against my user desires in three different ways - and there's no way I can find to stop it.
And Google whines when people install ad-blockers. It's pathetic.
I was willing to watch ads. But then Google introduced NEVER-ENDING ads, when the program is interrupted frequently and will never return unless you herd it along periodically by clicking Skip. Screw you, Google. I'm cooking, with my hands covered with who knows what, and now I can't watch the program.
A Tapermonkey script which redirects a short to the classic YT experience is somewhat more helpful, because sometimes there are interesting snippets in the Shorts. This lets you see the video but breaks you out of doomscrolling.
What bothers me most about YT is that it constantly plays videos with an AI-generated voice.
In general, I like AI features and use AI daily to build prototypes, but this feature looks so stupid to me and feels so wrong. I have no problem with it being an option, but by default I just want to watch the videos with their original soundtracks. But instead YT decides that I should watch the videos with some mediocre AI translation...
Maybe I could disable it using an account, but I still prefer not to have one when it's not necessary.
Daily reminder that these tools are made possible by the power of general purpose computing, and corporate interests want to take it away. In a hypothetical future not too far from us where your devices become "trusted", you will have to view whatever they want you to see, with no recourse like blocking ads or undesirable content.
Then I shall not look at it at all. Some months ago Facebook gave me the "ads vs payment" ultimatum. I closed the tab and didn't log into Facebook since.
Oh, it's a list you can add to your uBO. I thought it was a descriptive headline: "(The) uBlock filter list (is going) to hide ..."
I only watch Youtube via browser now for both adblocking and my own custom userscripts, both on my laptop and my phone. A couple creators I watch mostly do shorts so I tolerate them but I wrote a userscript that changes all /shorts/<videoid> URLs into normal /watch?v=<videoid> to lessen the temptation to doomscroll.
I've been using invidious for a while now but I remember I had blocked all recommends and suggestions on YT so I never saw shorts anyways (I know the recommend block was thru ublock but I can't remember if I'd blocked suggestions through YT options or if that was also a ublock filter).
Also a great way to avoid mindless feed-surfing. I only watched videos from subs or that I have specifically searched for rather than getting sucked into the algo vortex.
That takes care of the browser. Now I just need a way to filter out short videos in NewPipe (and ideally a way to specify that I only want very long ones)
This is one of the several reasons I always react almost violently whenever someone tries to be smarmy in any threads about adblockers on youtube, trying to say that paying for youtube makes everything good the honest way.
I do in fact pay for youtube and have for like 15 years or more, and it still sucks for a variety of reasons.
"why pay then?" for the same reason I would pay to have 8 of my fingernails pulled out instead of all 10.
Another technique is to turn off watch history. As soon as you do that, you get a blank page on YouTube. It puts the decision making on the user to choose what to watch. I rarely get into the rage bait or shorts. It’s shown in search results and the sidebar. But at least, it’s not in the face when you open the website.
I switched from using YouTube to invidious mainly because they don't support shorts and blocked YouTube on the DNS level, it's a bit slower, but I know I won't be sucked into doom-scrolling
I'm curious if anyone knows of something like SponsorBlock or a UBlock list, that can flag tje onslaught of AI videos that are appearing. I find those crappy videos worse than the ads and the shorts.
I got an idea. We could use some kind of voting system where user can upvote or downvote YouTube videos, and it shows the rating when someone click on it.
It could be as simple as 2 buttons and a percentage bar right under the video, on the right, close to the dislike button that does nothing lol.
After dealing with lists like this for far too long, Google will find ways to block it.
The best solution up to date is Brave Browser.
They do provide their own "lists", you do not have access to it :)
That is the beauty of it, you cannot, neither can big techs so it lasts longer.
So far, Brave filter is the only one able to block Shorts and a lot of crappy from YT. No filter will do that, or will get blocked very soon until a new one is released.
i can't even get youtube to load with ublock.. theres a years old thread with hundreds of comments on the github -- what are people actually using today to preserve their sanity on youtube?
edit: the issue with ublock is the black screen - sometimes the video loads after 10 or so seconds, sometimes it doesnt. i dont consider hiding the ad while still having to wait around for it to finsish playing behind an overlay the same as "blocking" :|
Using ublock and umatrix both on firefox with full tracking protection enabled. Don't recall ever having any issues with youtube. Sometimes an alert will pop up "see why you're experiencing playback interruptions" and it clicks through to a page about how this is due to my adblocking extension but the joke is on them because I don't recall it ever actually being interrupted. It's just this erroneous alert that occasionally pops up.
Auto video playback in Twitter/X isn’t much better especially on the mobile app. I realised this can be remedied by switching to the webapp. It’s a subpar user experience due to constraints of mobile web (and lack of investment by X) but it’s also likely why auto video playback rarely works, so it evens out.
Is frustrating I have no control over it s as a paying user, same with hiding the blue checkmark
I've noticed other junk like 'games' and ads for paid 'premium' content getting through uBlock's filter list. Hope those are added to the list too.
I used uBlock's element zapper feature to block the youtube logo on top left, because it's often animated and always distracting (I desperately need fewer distractions when using youtube, not more, even if minor).
It's just the most horrible thing. The whole idea of YouTube for me was to control what you watch in comparison to traditional TV where they fed you what they wanted. I know people say that you should not click on it but we all how low times in our day that we have exhausted our brain.
As a user that doesn't use uBlock, I was also kind of sick of youtube shorts shoving into my eyes. I just made my own firefox plugins forcibly remove them as well. It is good to see the filter list here. Looks like I missed out on the mobile ones.
I swear I didn't even know one COULD pay for YouTube!!
Why would you want to?
They're are so many good front ends that block ALL that toxic garbage. Revamped still works, so does pipepipe, youpipe, noutube, etc.
I know this won't help much, however, FreeTube can help with this. Yes, it is a standalone app, however...
Also, if you a Google/Youtube employee, rubbing your hands together, making fun of folks, and generally thinking negative thoughts, take it from a former veteran software engineer/manager (never had the desire to move up the ladder, and I am disabled now thanks to a tragic accident): There are a ton of negative comments about your UX, even from paid users. Nobody likes your shit. They only tolerate it because you currently have a monopoly. That will not always be the case. You are failing yourself, your job, and your users. Learn to put those users first. If Google had stuck to that early on, uBlock Origin wouldn't exist.
I know everyone at Google is tone deaf, so let me put this another way: Someone is ALWAYS left holding the bag. It could be you, the lowly programmer, or it could be you, the lowly manager. It could also be anyone in C-Suite. Once the numbers don't align with what investors want to see, someone will be blamed. As we reach the top of an AI bubble, those at the top are going to want to find a way to blame others down below, that means you will likely take the hit.
I would pay any money for ability to block for my kids chosen channels on youtube. For some reason this is not possible and worthless crap keeps being promoted there.
anything that blocks the doom-scrolling mode on twitter videos?
I dont see youtube shorts, have no login to instagram or tiktok, and stopped using facebook years ago; only social media i frequent is twitter -- and once i view a video in the feed, it hijacks my attention by auto scrolling to a new video.
I burned a couple of evenings this way -- and I need to be more careful about this.
I can't even stand to visit YT without the combo of Blocktube/Unhook/uBlock Origin/SponsorBlock/Return YouTube Dislike. (Some people may also find Clickbait Remover useful.)
Blocktube is a godsend; it adds a context menu for blocking videos/channels, and you can block vids/channels/comments based on a regex or keywords (e.g. transparently remove every 'minecraft' or 'roblox' vid, or remove every comment with 'Telegram' in it). It even removes vids before the DOM rendering, so blocked vids don't show up as empty title cards or blank spaces.
Unhook lets you independently toggle visibility of the home feed, the rec sidebar, endscreen recs, comments, shorts, and the unrelated BS they ad to search results. (The latest YT update lets endscreen recs slip through again; be sure to add
youtube.com##.html5-video-player.ended-mode .ytp-fullscreen-grid to your ublock filter to get rid of them again.)
Surprisingly YouTube still generates a feed for every channel's video page, so I just add channels to my RSS reader for updates instead of bothering with the increasingly flaky subscriptions page. (If they ever break this or yt-dlp I'm not even going to bother with YT in the future.)
Remember when Google exec Prabhakar Raghavan (the man who previously ran Yahoo search into the ground) made Google Search worse so they could serve more ads?
This is the YouTube philosophy; make the platform worse to drive 'engagement', completely ignoring the second and third order effects of their 'optimizations'. Want to search by upload date? Sorry, we removed that! Have some slop! Want to look for a video? Here's a bunch of unrelated bullshit instead - have you tried some slop? Also, have some ads.
The experience for creators is even worse. The recommendation algorithm and monetization policies change every month and YT conveniently gets to collect all the ad money if you've been demonitized. They're shoving a bajillion AI tools down creator's throats and even editing videos after they've been uploaded.
In the end, YouTube caters to advertisers. You're just the product.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a bot shoving slop in a human's face -- forever.
I used to use Invidious but it was breaking too often. Nowadays, I just open YouTube in a private window, or use yt-dlp from time to time to watch something later offline.
I have some lists [1] I use to hide YouTube's constant recommendations of things I've already watched.
They also hide previously watched music videos, which may be a downside.
Nice. I've also been doing this for a while too. I don't like to depend on a lot of addons, so I find the ublock only implementation of it quite elegant and fast. I also try to use filters nowadays to block other types of dark patterns (eg. Infinite scroll recommendations). It's surprising how much you can de-enshittify the modern corporate internet by just blocking tags with some css path filters.
Unpopular opinion, but I like youtube shorts. No ads, no rambling, no product placement. it forces brevity and getting to point. it is how youtube should be.
Is there an explanation for why YouTube is hell bent on pushing Shorts to people, other than to get them addicted? There must be something we can do about these abusive arseholes. I hate that the number one business strategy right now is to make something addictive. This isn't good for us.
Not everyone has the brain chemistry to watch them in a healthy way. Google seems to be preying on that population by preventing people from disabling the feature; to make some quarterly charts look better.
They appear to have recently removed the "show fewer shorts options" in the app. I pay for premium and the idea I cannot remove them from the app even as part of that is absolutely infuriating.
unlock is great. So many standalone extensions turn out to be a lot better simply as ublock filters.
I would like one of these to block the community posts as well. I'm getting really tired of seeing screencaps of Twitter engagement bait from 8 years ago. There's one account that just won't go away, even now that I'm reporting it for spam when it comes up.
Welcome to HN! Plugging your stuff is okay, but it’s generally frowned upon if you’re only here to sell something:
> Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity. – https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Perhaps you could just participate in the discussion for now, and do a Show HN later when you’re ready?
Looks great! But all the screenshots are of the settings. It would be nice to see what the end result is after enabling certain features.The preview is not the actual UX. I would like to see how will this tool change my youtube experience.
The reason I like unhook is, it doesn't change or force me to learn new ways to use YouTube but just reduce it to just video viewing with no distractions and blocking all the addictive pulls.
Legit question, do you guys get really bad Shorts recommendations? Mine aren't half bad (really more of the same as with regular videos) plus creators don't insert ad spots. I get it, TikTok-style scrolling is annoying, but the format has its merits. At least less yapping and more to the point.
Nearly all of the video I watch is on horizontal screens.
Whether I'm using a real computer or a BFT or an iPad or I'm watching a something with my pocket supercomputer while bored on a plane: It's horizontal. This is simply how I do it, how I have always done it, and how I am likely to always do it.
YouTube Shorts aren't compatible with this viewing method.
In addition: Nearly all of the videos I watch are longer than 3 minutes, and YouTube Shorts aren't compatible with this either.
Whether I'm watching a video because I want to be entertained or to learn something new, I want to be involved with it and focused on it. I am very capable of making time to do so when it behooves me.
---
Anyway, to answer your question: I have no idea if my YouTube Shorts recommendations are good or not good. I don't partake. I don't need empty, <3-minute dopamine hits in my life.
I constantly get tik tok style everything everywhere all at once fever dream headache rapid edited clips. There's a difference between to the point and just being brain rot delivered with no background. Reminds me of happy hardcore techno - you can't really feel the bass because it's not getting enough time to reverberate.
I avoid Shorts (and Tiktok) for the same reason I avoid stimulant drugs and video games: it depletes dopamine faster than regular YT videos (especially the somber kind of videos I mostly watch).
There are about a dozen reasons to hate shorts regardless of the content.
Everyone else has listed a bunch already. Here's yet another, the pointlessly limited UI.
There are no play controls to back, forward or scrub. You missed something? Hope it was near the beginning because while you can restart by reloading, you can't skip ahead. Want to pause at a particular spot to show your wife? You get to wait for the whole thing to play again from the start so you can hopefully pause it at the right spot. There was one important part? too bad, you can only replay the whole thing... And why? Even if you want to assume the case of some video that is actually legitimately only a couple minutes long, ok fine, but why the artificially stupid UI?
There is no legitimate reason. It's pure user manipulation. It's the service calling the shots to do what it wants to get what it wants instead of giving you a service that does what you want to give you what you want. Even if you are paying them money
There are all kinds of other problems, like I simply didn't ask for this. I don't care how great someone else thinks something is, or even if I would agree it's great if I asked for it. But anything that you don't want but can't avoid, and it's not the weather but something someone DOES have control over and is choosing to inflict on you over your expressed wishes, as a paying customer on top of all, is automatically intolerable.
But in fact I don't agree they are great at all ever. It doesn't matter what the content is or who's making it, including people I like on topics I like.
I want to say I don't have ADHD and don't want to develop it, but really idk I might actually have some level by the looks of all my unfinished projects, and even so, shorts make me feel like what people with adhd look and sound like from the outside. It's a hell existence. I don't understand how people can just willingly sit there and let these things feed them this constant stream of spastic hyper ephemeral shit. Even if I can understand how someone can fall into it unwittingly initially, how do they not realize what's happening to them after a while? Is everyone really so utterly unconscious?
Mine are usually pretty bad. If I ever do see one that I like I catch myself flicking through way too many of them afterwards and I hate that. So I prefer to hide them entirely.
There’s a lot of stupid shit garbage on the internet that needs more blocking and nobody’s doing anything about it. Aside from bad JavaScript and css garbage and other things that are obvious and still only slightly blocked by ubo, there’s entire swaths of categories that are going completely untouched.
Every Reddit mod post is cancer for example. So is every pinned post and automod. 99% of email. Any story about farting or buttholes or diarrhea or any other child joke about how you were unable to be in control of your butthole. I don’t want to hear it and every single day there it is. Any pro-terrorism post from jihadist groups like maga, posts from other nations pretending to be Americans, posts asking people to explain a loaded joke they understand but are trying to get more views on or spread the topic about. Any ai video any video about crypto any fake news.
There’s a lot of room for improvement. Even just detecting things like if a news article doesn’t actually contain information. It seems like we have a ton of areas we could be filtering out cancer a lot better.
Best I can come up with: people flag shit and it goes to a server, and like PiHole, anyone subscribed to that server will have the crap excised.
I'm liking Apple's "Hide Distracting Items…" feature in Safari. Now if only everyone's audits could be shared, a consensus arrived at, then others could be spared having to spend time hiding-distracting-items themselves.
On the main page, shorts, as all the other videos, are served by the recommendation algorithm which should filter out general audience crap you'd see if you're not logged in or have view history disabled. You'd normally see the same stuff you're subscribed to there, plus a few random videos of cats. Maybe a wamen butt occasionally. Might as well hide the main page entirely if you're not that easily entertained. To be quite frank, the main page is such an echo chamber lately that I almost got myself unhooked from procrastinating on YouTube.
On the search page, shorts are mostly a mixed bag, but you do occasionally get useful results.
So what does this solve? Seems like a form of protest nobody important (those in power) cares about.
Another thing is, I have, to my own surprise, discovered a few decent channels that I like, that post their videos in form of shorts exclusively. That's a somewhat new trend and mostly relevant to humor-related or music channels, though.
Almost forgot to mention. YouTube recently added the scroll bar to the shorts so they aren't all that different from the other videos now.
Filtering content is not "a form of protest", it is about deciding what content you want to see in your browser and what not. Youtube, even the paid version, does not offer much in terms of customising one's experience (imo the "algorithm" deciding what you should watch based on your history does not count as one) and shorts is a proven addictive pattern that one may not want to encounter online.
It is fine if you like watching shorts, such filter lists are for those who do not want to watch shorts.
The main benefit for me is hiding content I'm actively uninterested in seeing. Shorts are portrait mode content that pretty much never seem to be long enough to discuss anything interesting. I watch on widescreen monitors, so I just don't care for them. There's nothing else to it really.
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
freehorse|16 days ago
divingdragon|15 days ago
(Except that it doesn't work if you click on a short from YouTube's interface - it loads with JavaScript which bypasses the redirection.)
netsharc|16 days ago
djsavvy|16 days ago
ulam2|15 days ago
bigprof|15 days ago
s4i|15 days ago
unknown|15 days ago
[deleted]
sheept|15 days ago
TyrunDemeg101|15 days ago
I no longer am even able to see shorts, they don't get suggested to me.
However, this is an extreme nuclear option and also disables the entire 'Home' and for-you type content. You can search and watch videos, but it flips it so it is 100% intention driven. Which means discoverability and browsing is non-existent. You're still able to see your existing subscriptions but that's it.
It's REALLY helped me disconnect from the addictive dopamine of the infinite, short type formats. YMMV
byproxy|15 days ago
I now much prefer to open Youtube (quasi)tabula rasa. I still have subscriptions set up so I can follow “vetted” accounts, but for other things I now rely on that intentionality.
The one minor bummer is that Youtube won’t remember your spot in a video, say if you’re watching in your phone and want to continue on your desktop (or vice-versa). Not the biggest hassle to manually check the time and sync it up, though.
caro_kann|15 days ago
3form|15 days ago
cardiffspaceman|15 days ago
Dopamine-driven behavior in ourselves is certainly to be watched for.
LtWorf|15 days ago
temp1514351|15 days ago
susam|16 days ago
susam|16 days ago
ackyshake|16 days ago
I also just discovered a way[1] to just get real videos from my youtube RSS feeds, free from shorts. Honestly it's been a joy to not have my RSS reader notify me for a old video republished as vertical.
[1]: https://blog.amen6.com/blog/2025/01/no-shorts-please-hidden-...
susam|15 days ago
unknown|15 days ago
[deleted]
liquidise|16 days ago
1a: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-recom...
1b: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/unhook-remove-youtu...
Vingdoloras|16 days ago
maxxmod|16 days ago
Still in development, but feedback from the HN crowd is very welcome. The site includes interactive prototypes and screenshots that give a clear picture of what it’s aiming to become.
[1] https://maxxmod.com
snodd|16 days ago
Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-redux...
stefan_|16 days ago
awfulneutral|16 days ago
henning|16 days ago
marcosscriven|16 days ago
hightrix|16 days ago
As such, I’ve simply stopped interacting with googles recommendation systems and most of googles content delivery systems. Including using YouTube as minimally as possible.
bityard|16 days ago
dijit|16 days ago
The web-browser is the least aggressive and I think I haven’t even seen them on Apple TV.
The iPhone App is the most egregious offender of not respecting the request though, it seems to almost not care at all, and now the thumbnails on the home screen have started autoplaying (with audio) and I can’t find how to disable it (older instructions seem to be invalid).
They have all the content though; so I have no choice but to deal with this, until a good enough competitor comes along and my favourite youtube channels upload to both places.
atoav|16 days ago
Strom|16 days ago
temporallobe|16 days ago
api|16 days ago
Manheim|15 days ago
SoftTalker|15 days ago
this is all in the iOS YouTube app, which is the only place I watch YouTube.
mcv|16 days ago
calmbonsai|16 days ago
NewsaHackO|16 days ago
kgwxd|15 days ago
- Hide all shorts, everywhere on the site, not just on my PC. uBO filters are amazing, but limited.
- The root page to show my Subscriptions instead of "Your History Is Turned Off..."
- I want links to go directly to the video and fill the window. I'll use the back button to go back where I came from, and native "Full Screen" if I want it to fill my screen.
All of it could be non-default settings available with Premium only.
It also seems to make zero difference :/
drnick1|16 days ago
lofaszvanitt|16 days ago
halyconWays|16 days ago
[deleted]
tsoukase|16 days ago
smw|15 days ago
phony-account|16 days ago
I can’t permanently turn off shorts - and this I find personally insulting. It really feels like encountering a drug dealer outside my house every time I come home, always expecting me to cave and try some of that good smack.
But apart from ignoring me when I say I’m not interested in whole genres of ‘fun’ videos, it also resets the streaming quality to the lowest setting every single day and then hides the quality setting deep inside a menu with several fiddly clicks.
And this isn’t for my benefit of course: I can easily stream 4K video to my screens. It’s to shave a few cents off each stream and max the gouging.
testfrequency|16 days ago
It’s so god damn annoying, regardless of how often I choose to ignore channels or don’t suggest feedback.
All they care about is vote time…give me content I want to view!
Also, in the evenings, my timeline gets weirdly paranoid phobia centric, like deep insecurities people live with that are triggering and keep you up late. It’s so obvious YT is doing this to try and bait me into watching these deeply emotional and personal content, and again, ignoring it and providing feedback seems to do nothing to my feed. I hate it.
bluescrn|16 days ago
drnick1|16 days ago
sva_|16 days ago
matt-attack|16 days ago
Before a video is even over, they have to plaster the video window with MORE VIDEOS. "Here try this, what about this other thing, here have you considered this?"
My mind is always "I haven't even digested this one video and you're already PUSHING MORE!"
When my kids are over my shoulder on YouTube I'm constantly zooming in w/ Mac zoom to obscure the other videos, the other spam, etc.
Just learn to absorb and soak in one thing. And digest it for a moment.
It's all so obnoxious and it's now the norm.
FWIW, I only ever login in a fresh private window.
asdfman123|16 days ago
High challenge = CS papers explained
Medium challenge = bridge engineering videos
Low challenge = some guy playing video games for you on YouTube
simondotau|16 days ago
ckosidows|16 days ago
If they remove this, I will surely be done with YouTube. I was so desperate to disable shorts and ready to be done with the app, but then I learned that disabling watch history pretty much perfectly allows me to use the app how I want to.
nathancspencer|16 days ago
nextaccountic|16 days ago
This should be illegal..
month13|16 days ago
NikolaNovak|16 days ago
Grrr.
FranklinJabar|15 days ago
VerifiedReports|16 days ago
I was willing to watch ads. But then Google introduced NEVER-ENDING ads, when the program is interrupted frequently and will never return unless you herd it along periodically by clicking Skip. Screw you, Google. I'm cooking, with my hands covered with who knows what, and now I can't watch the program.
efilife|16 days ago
Larrikin|16 days ago
alex1138|16 days ago
Sorry - these companies have proven they're malicious even while you're paying them
(Except possibly Gmail. Facebook Verified is apparently a crock of shit, but Gmail MIGHT give you some account support more than people who don't pay)
micromacrofoot|16 days ago
phero_cnstrcts|16 days ago
mog_dev|16 days ago
amelius|15 days ago
shadkhan|16 days ago
[deleted]
486sx33|16 days ago
[deleted]
easwee|16 days ago
[deleted]
jbjbjbjb|16 days ago
jahnu|16 days ago
teddyh|16 days ago
qwertox|15 days ago
edgartaor|15 days ago
quaintdev|16 days ago
jarvist|16 days ago
subscribed|16 days ago
drnick1|16 days ago
arendtio|15 days ago
In general, I like AI features and use AI daily to build prototypes, but this feature looks so stupid to me and feels so wrong. I have no problem with it being an option, but by default I just want to watch the videos with their original soundtracks. But instead YT decides that I should watch the videos with some mediocre AI translation...
Maybe I could disable it using an account, but I still prefer not to have one when it's not necessary.
digiown|16 days ago
Tade0|16 days ago
ekipan|16 days ago
I only watch Youtube via browser now for both adblocking and my own custom userscripts, both on my laptop and my phone. A couple creators I watch mostly do shorts so I tolerate them but I wrote a userscript that changes all /shorts/<videoid> URLs into normal /watch?v=<videoid> to lessen the temptation to doomscroll.
b00ty4breakfast|16 days ago
Also a great way to avoid mindless feed-surfing. I only watched videos from subs or that I have specifically searched for rather than getting sucked into the algo vortex.
autoexec|16 days ago
Brian_K_White|16 days ago
This is one of the several reasons I always react almost violently whenever someone tries to be smarmy in any threads about adblockers on youtube, trying to say that paying for youtube makes everything good the honest way.
I do in fact pay for youtube and have for like 15 years or more, and it still sucks for a variety of reasons.
"why pay then?" for the same reason I would pay to have 8 of my fingernails pulled out instead of all 10.
KellyCriterion|16 days ago
And if I click on the panel "no more shorts", is this setting then applied continuously?
revolvingthrow|16 days ago
To solve it once and for all you’d probably want to extract the length of all displayed videos and hide all that fit within the short’s limits
etothepii|16 days ago
I actually stopped paying for premium to make YouTube less appealing.
tecoholic|16 days ago
tobiasdorge|16 days ago
deepfriedrice|16 days ago
SamDc73|15 days ago
venusenvy47|16 days ago
aucisson_masque|16 days ago
It could be as simple as 2 buttons and a percentage bar right under the video, on the right, close to the dislike button that does nothing lol.
h4kunamata|15 days ago
They do provide their own "lists", you do not have access to it :) That is the beauty of it, you cannot, neither can big techs so it lasts longer. So far, Brave filter is the only one able to block Shorts and a lot of crappy from YT. No filter will do that, or will get blocked very soon until a new one is released.
Everything is public, won't last!
modzu|16 days ago
edit: the issue with ublock is the black screen - sometimes the video loads after 10 or so seconds, sometimes it doesnt. i dont consider hiding the ad while still having to wait around for it to finsish playing behind an overlay the same as "blocking" :|
fc417fc802|16 days ago
chickensong|16 days ago
asdff|16 days ago
vermarish|16 days ago
flakes|16 days ago
hahn-kev|16 days ago
carlosjobim|16 days ago
akst|16 days ago
Is frustrating I have no control over it s as a paying user, same with hiding the blue checkmark
nomilk|16 days ago
I used uBlock's element zapper feature to block the youtube logo on top left, because it's often animated and always distracting (I desperately need fewer distractions when using youtube, not more, even if minor).
darkoob12|15 days ago
Phelinofist|16 days ago
vidyesh|15 days ago
i5heu|15 days ago
I appreciate your comment though! Thanks :)
I_like_tomato|16 days ago
31337Logic|15 days ago
temp1514351|15 days ago
egze|16 days ago
eek2121|16 days ago
Also, if you a Google/Youtube employee, rubbing your hands together, making fun of folks, and generally thinking negative thoughts, take it from a former veteran software engineer/manager (never had the desire to move up the ladder, and I am disabled now thanks to a tragic accident): There are a ton of negative comments about your UX, even from paid users. Nobody likes your shit. They only tolerate it because you currently have a monopoly. That will not always be the case. You are failing yourself, your job, and your users. Learn to put those users first. If Google had stuck to that early on, uBlock Origin wouldn't exist.
I know everyone at Google is tone deaf, so let me put this another way: Someone is ALWAYS left holding the bag. It could be you, the lowly programmer, or it could be you, the lowly manager. It could also be anyone in C-Suite. Once the numbers don't align with what investors want to see, someone will be blamed. As we reach the top of an AI bubble, those at the top are going to want to find a way to blame others down below, that means you will likely take the hit.
ErrorNoBrain|16 days ago
can also hide other things
piokoch|15 days ago
WadeGrimridge|16 days ago
papichulo2023|16 days ago
iainctduncan|16 days ago
- Install Stylebot extension for your browser
- make an entry for youtube.com
- enter this css: .shortsLockupViewModelHost { display: none}
Bam, no more shorts.
brycewray|16 days ago
Repo: https://github.com/openstyles/stylus
Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpe...
Firefox extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/styl-us/
Hoodedcrow|16 days ago
unknown|16 days ago
[deleted]
albert_e|15 days ago
I dont see youtube shorts, have no login to instagram or tiktok, and stopped using facebook years ago; only social media i frequent is twitter -- and once i view a video in the feed, it hijacks my attention by auto scrolling to a new video.
I burned a couple of evenings this way -- and I need to be more careful about this.
ThrowawayTestr|16 days ago
FranklinJabar|15 days ago
MrDresden|16 days ago
RRRA|15 days ago
everyone|16 days ago
asdff|16 days ago
hk1337|16 days ago
doctor_blood|16 days ago
Blocktube is a godsend; it adds a context menu for blocking videos/channels, and you can block vids/channels/comments based on a regex or keywords (e.g. transparently remove every 'minecraft' or 'roblox' vid, or remove every comment with 'Telegram' in it). It even removes vids before the DOM rendering, so blocked vids don't show up as empty title cards or blank spaces.
Unhook lets you independently toggle visibility of the home feed, the rec sidebar, endscreen recs, comments, shorts, and the unrelated BS they ad to search results. (The latest YT update lets endscreen recs slip through again; be sure to add youtube.com##.html5-video-player.ended-mode .ytp-fullscreen-grid to your ublock filter to get rid of them again.)
Surprisingly YouTube still generates a feed for every channel's video page, so I just add channels to my RSS reader for updates instead of bothering with the increasingly flaky subscriptions page. (If they ever break this or yt-dlp I'm not even going to bother with YT in the future.)
Remember when Google exec Prabhakar Raghavan (the man who previously ran Yahoo search into the ground) made Google Search worse so they could serve more ads?
This is the YouTube philosophy; make the platform worse to drive 'engagement', completely ignoring the second and third order effects of their 'optimizations'. Want to search by upload date? Sorry, we removed that! Have some slop! Want to look for a video? Here's a bunch of unrelated bullshit instead - have you tried some slop? Also, have some ads.
The experience for creators is even worse. The recommendation algorithm and monetization policies change every month and YT conveniently gets to collect all the ad money if you've been demonitized. They're shoving a bajillion AI tools down creator's throats and even editing videos after they've been uploaded.
In the end, YouTube caters to advertisers. You're just the product.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a bot shoving slop in a human's face -- forever.
temp1514351|15 days ago
calmbonsai|16 days ago
notpushkin|16 days ago
platevoltage|16 days ago
inv|16 days ago
xhcuvuvyc|15 days ago
farazbabar|15 days ago
abdusco|15 days ago
broof|16 days ago
OrvalWintermute|16 days ago
sciencesama|16 days ago
ragall|16 days ago
dolomo|16 days ago
danny_codes|16 days ago
chaps|16 days ago
cmvincen|16 days ago
1. https://caleb-vincent.io/post/2025-10-01_youtube-filters/#ju...
thoughtjunkie|16 days ago
nmaleki|16 days ago
orena|15 days ago
zytoon|15 days ago
unknown|16 days ago
[deleted]
bkjlblh|16 days ago
i5heu|16 days ago
I don't think that something super bad can happen with these uBlock filter, they will sanitize the filter heavily.
Maybe a potential attack vector for these lists in general is to hide the body of a few sites but this is more annoying then dangerous AFAIK.
charcircuit|16 days ago
nikitau|15 days ago
paulpauper|16 days ago
larsmaxfield|16 days ago
Brian_K_White|16 days ago
_cs2017_|16 days ago
globular-toast|15 days ago
zhovnd|15 days ago
gardnr|15 days ago
jahsome|15 days ago
misterthp|16 days ago
pooploop64|16 days ago
I would like one of these to block the community posts as well. I'm getting really tired of seeing screencaps of Twitter engagement bait from 8 years ago. There's one account that just won't go away, even now that I'm reporting it for spam when it comes up.
unknown|16 days ago
[deleted]
throwaway613746|16 days ago
[deleted]
maxxmod|16 days ago
[deleted]
notpushkin|16 days ago
> Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity. – https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Perhaps you could just participate in the discussion for now, and do a Show HN later when you’re ready?
vidyesh|16 days ago
The reason I like unhook is, it doesn't change or force me to learn new ways to use YouTube but just reduce it to just video viewing with no distractions and blocking all the addictive pulls.
RicoElectrico|16 days ago
ssl-3|16 days ago
Whether I'm using a real computer or a BFT or an iPad or I'm watching a something with my pocket supercomputer while bored on a plane: It's horizontal. This is simply how I do it, how I have always done it, and how I am likely to always do it.
YouTube Shorts aren't compatible with this viewing method.
In addition: Nearly all of the videos I watch are longer than 3 minutes, and YouTube Shorts aren't compatible with this either.
Whether I'm watching a video because I want to be entertained or to learn something new, I want to be involved with it and focused on it. I am very capable of making time to do so when it behooves me.
---
Anyway, to answer your question: I have no idea if my YouTube Shorts recommendations are good or not good. I don't partake. I don't need empty, <3-minute dopamine hits in my life.
pigggg|16 days ago
danny_codes|16 days ago
hollerith|16 days ago
Brian_K_White|16 days ago
Everyone else has listed a bunch already. Here's yet another, the pointlessly limited UI.
There are no play controls to back, forward or scrub. You missed something? Hope it was near the beginning because while you can restart by reloading, you can't skip ahead. Want to pause at a particular spot to show your wife? You get to wait for the whole thing to play again from the start so you can hopefully pause it at the right spot. There was one important part? too bad, you can only replay the whole thing... And why? Even if you want to assume the case of some video that is actually legitimately only a couple minutes long, ok fine, but why the artificially stupid UI? There is no legitimate reason. It's pure user manipulation. It's the service calling the shots to do what it wants to get what it wants instead of giving you a service that does what you want to give you what you want. Even if you are paying them money
There are all kinds of other problems, like I simply didn't ask for this. I don't care how great someone else thinks something is, or even if I would agree it's great if I asked for it. But anything that you don't want but can't avoid, and it's not the weather but something someone DOES have control over and is choosing to inflict on you over your expressed wishes, as a paying customer on top of all, is automatically intolerable.
But in fact I don't agree they are great at all ever. It doesn't matter what the content is or who's making it, including people I like on topics I like.
I want to say I don't have ADHD and don't want to develop it, but really idk I might actually have some level by the looks of all my unfinished projects, and even so, shorts make me feel like what people with adhd look and sound like from the outside. It's a hell existence. I don't understand how people can just willingly sit there and let these things feed them this constant stream of spastic hyper ephemeral shit. Even if I can understand how someone can fall into it unwittingly initially, how do they not realize what's happening to them after a while? Is everyone really so utterly unconscious?
unknown|16 days ago
[deleted]
7734128|16 days ago
I hate it so much that I couldn't even see the content hiding behind it, and don't really know what the recommendation is like.
themafia|16 days ago
I mean, you can eat Doritos for dinner, and maybe you can convince yourself it's nutritionally sufficient, but it's still garbage.
StrangeSound|16 days ago
I use YouTube Tweaks which has a lot of different customisation options. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/youtube-tweak...
bgro|16 days ago
Every Reddit mod post is cancer for example. So is every pinned post and automod. 99% of email. Any story about farting or buttholes or diarrhea or any other child joke about how you were unable to be in control of your butthole. I don’t want to hear it and every single day there it is. Any pro-terrorism post from jihadist groups like maga, posts from other nations pretending to be Americans, posts asking people to explain a loaded joke they understand but are trying to get more views on or spread the topic about. Any ai video any video about crypto any fake news.
There’s a lot of room for improvement. Even just detecting things like if a news article doesn’t actually contain information. It seems like we have a ton of areas we could be filtering out cancer a lot better.
JKCalhoun|16 days ago
I'm liking Apple's "Hide Distracting Items…" feature in Safari. Now if only everyone's audits could be shared, a consensus arrived at, then others could be spared having to spend time hiding-distracting-items themselves.
A kind of HTML shadow banning?
n4bz0r|16 days ago
On the search page, shorts are mostly a mixed bag, but you do occasionally get useful results.
So what does this solve? Seems like a form of protest nobody important (those in power) cares about.
Another thing is, I have, to my own surprise, discovered a few decent channels that I like, that post their videos in form of shorts exclusively. That's a somewhat new trend and mostly relevant to humor-related or music channels, though.
Almost forgot to mention. YouTube recently added the scroll bar to the shorts so they aren't all that different from the other videos now.
freehorse|16 days ago
Filtering content is not "a form of protest", it is about deciding what content you want to see in your browser and what not. Youtube, even the paid version, does not offer much in terms of customising one's experience (imo the "algorithm" deciding what you should watch based on your history does not count as one) and shorts is a proven addictive pattern that one may not want to encounter online.
It is fine if you like watching shorts, such filter lists are for those who do not want to watch shorts.
zeta0134|16 days ago