Thankfully there are better frontends for many social media sites. For YouTube, you can use Piped and Invidious. LibRedirect is a browser addon that automatically redirects all YouTube links to your selected frontend. If you want a native desktop app, check out FreeTube. On Android you can use LibreTube, NewPipe or a fork of it called Tubular. On iOS, you can configure Yattee to work with Piped and Invidious, this guide explains it: https://gonzoknows.com/posts/yattee/.
Doesn't piped completely remove the tracking and what not? Which.. I know it sounds bad but I want that. YouTube's algorithm honestly gives me some really cool shit based on what I've watched
Without tracking, it recommends stuff based on the current video. No idea how different the results might be if you have whole history for them to evaluate
I think randomness seems to work better than their algorithm. Youtube didn't recommend Cayley Odle because of anything I'd watched before, but ... damn.
On Android, there's also ReVanced which lets you apply patches to a bunch of apps, not just YouTube. Unlike some other ways of patching apps (like Magisk modules), ReVanced doesn't need root since it patches the APK before you install the app.
Oh yeah I completely forgot about SmartTube. I left out ReVanced on purpose, because it still uses the proprietary YouTube app. But if you're ok with this, there's also uYouPlus for iOS.
It often overcorrects, like not every shitpost really needs a title that sounds like a news article. But for some really clickbaity YouTubers (most) it makes the titles much more usable. The titles are submitted by users, so if the streamer is very small there might be no one to write the titles.
"This 90s Microwave is Better Than Yours" is clickbait sure, but it's also literally the point of the video. It got corrected to something like "review of the Panasonic yadda yadda from 1996" and like, that's a less accurate title, guys, it's not actually a review of old kitchen stuff lol
Hmm. Interesting extension. But for me, not being a heavy Youtube consumer, think I prefer to see the original title and clickbait thumbnail so I can avoid the over-the-top clickbaity stuff easier and not waste my time or give them bastards a view.
Also I don't why so many de-arrow contributors feel the need to use the word "explaining" at the start of every title. Like "how VR has changed over the years is fine", you don't need to make it "Explaining how VR has changed over the years".
The main use is replacing thumbnail by a random or user-submitted timeframe. Titles can be converted to Sentence case to get rid of all caps words and emojis are removed. Titles can also be replaced by user-submitted alternatives.
I know about it but don't have it installed. What am I missing? If I want to skip a sponsorship I just press my arrow keys so I don't see the big deal.
Got 2 monitors. Sometimes I think I have another program focused, but turns out YouTube was focused. The other program also has 0-9 as keybinds (or just writing a number). Now the video jumped to a random timestamp.
You can't just say that and not give a link! I use quite a few of the hotkeys, but those ones in particular cause me grief. If you have an extension that lets you pick and chose, I beg you to save us from that pain.
You can use Invidious or Piped. These have a much better, less bloated UI and Piped comes with SponsorBlock and DeArrow built in. You also don't get any ads or Google trackers.
When Christian Selig announced his independent Apple Vision YouTube App, I thought twice about actually getting one, just so I would’t have to use YouTubes ridiculous Application and Web UIs.
for the longest time the annotations switch in the settings menu existed, up until like 2018 i wanna say? They removed annotations in 2016 iirc, may have been 2018, and i'm fuzzing the years, it's been a hot while give me some slack.
I don't care about video comments anymore; in my experience it was filled with attention-seeking content and incels trying to look cool. It's also full of bots in the reply sections.
Instead, I use mpv media player to watch YouTube. I pick a video off my recommendations or the subscription page then I copy the video link and then I just have to do mpv <video link> in my terminal. It's also much faster on my low-end PC.
It doesn't have sponser-block support, but it does have ad-blocker. I haven't really checked sponser-block support yet either.
HOWEVER, there's cases where you do want to be able to like and comment: My main use case for Youtube these days is following crafters, people who make awesome stuff. And i do want to like and comment on those videos, not just for the obvious feedback to them but also to give them a hand in spreading the word of their stuff.
Mozilla on mobile lets you watch stuff in browser and you can get ublock as well! It also lets you play videos while it's running in the background again. It's truly heaven.
I use the Newpipe Sponsorblock fork, but use the main YouTube client to find content then "share" it to Newpipe. A little fiddly as the share dialog is built to be hostile.
Look into ReVanced (Android only). Get yourself a copy of the recommended YouTube apk version from apkmirror as specified in the patch manager. Load it from the internal storage, patch it right on your phone and install. Follow the prompts to sign in with your YT account on load. Good as new. The process got simplified, so it's easier than ever. Also, they're pretty on top of the emerging api changes and bugs. If you need more details, DM me. I'll try to reply promptly.