YouTube Enhancement Megathread: Tools and Extensions for All Devices

mastermind@lemm.ee to Technology@lemmy.world – 518 points –
Hello, Lemmy People's

If you're as addicted to YouTube as I am, you'll understand the countless hours we've all spent on the platform. Nowadays, YouTube has transformed into something quite different, with features that serve the mighty Google but may not be exactly what we're looking for. I've got just the thing for you - YouTube Tools/Extension!!

Android:

  1. ReVanced - It's provides additional features and customization options via patches. (There are many tutorials available for building an custom APK)

  2. ReVanced Extended - It's the same as OG ReVanced, but it provides additional extra patches.

  3. NewPipe - The lightweight YouTube experience for Android

  4. NewPipe Extended - A fork of NewPipe with SponsorBlock and Return YouTube Dislike functionality.

iOS:

  1. uYou+ - uYou+ is a modified version of uYou with additional features and mainly made for non jailbroken users!

  2. uYou+ Extra - It's the same as uYou+, but it provides additional extra features.

  3. YouTube Reborn - It's LillieH1000’s YouTube Reborn but, this fork does some improvements.

  4. YouTube Reborn Plus - LillieH1000’s YouTube Reborn but with even more features!

Desktop/PC:

  1. FreeTube - FreeTube is a YouTube client for Windows, Mac, and Linux built around using YouTube more privately.

TV:

  1. SmartTube - SmartTube - an advanced player for set-top boxes and tv running Android OS

YT Frontend:

  1. Invidious - Invidious is an open source alternative front-end to YouTube.

  2. Piped Video - An open-source alternative frontend for YouTube which is efficient by design.

  3. Libretube - An alternative frontend for YouTube, for Android.

This is a highly popular YouTube frontend, but there's even more to discover here LibRedirect also it's a web extension that redirects YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and other websites to alternative privacy friendly frontends.

Extensions:

  1. uBlock Origin - Free, open-source ad content blocker.

Currently, there's an annoying popup problem, but don't worry, you can resolve it with these simple steps.[1], [2], also checkout uBlock subreddit.

  1. Return YouTube Dislike -It's an open-source extension that returns the YouTube dislike count.

  2. SponsorBlock - Easily skip YouTube video sponsors. When you visit a YouTube video, the extension will check the database for reported sponsors and automatically skip known sponsors. You can also report sponsors in videos.

  3. Enhancer for YouTube - Take control of YouTube and boost your user experience! Chrome Web Store | Edge Add-ons

  4. BlockTube - It allows you to block specific channels and videos that you don't wish to see or get recommended with. Chrome Web Store | Firefox Add-ons

  5. DeArrow - DeArrow is an open source browser extension for crowdsourcing better titles and thumbnails on YouTube. The goal is to make titles accurate and reduce sensationalism. No more arrows, ridiculous faces, and no more clickbait.

  6. Unhook - Hide YouTube related videos, comments, shorts tab, suggestions wall, homepage recommendations, trending, and other distractions.

  7. RemoveAdblockThing - Removes The "Ad blocker are not allowed on Youtube"

Extra:

  1. PocketTube - Youtube Subscription Manager, The best way to group your subscriptions.

  2. YouT-ube - Add a - after the t in youtube, it's redirect to embed video type format to bypass YouTube's non-skippable ads.

  3. Video Bypass - Watch YouTube videos locally by clicking a button.

Besides these, there are plenty more tools/extensions and user scripts on Greasy Fork and Tampermonkey. If you discover any new and useful ones, feel free to drop a comment.

Thanks for reading.

Edit1: Added TV section.

63

https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube

For Android tv

Honestly smarttube is great. Wish I would've installed it earlier. You can connect with your Google account to see your history and playlists as well.

Is there any risk to your Google account if you connect it from an unofficial app like this? Seeing my YouTube history is great and all, but getting my gmail account banned would be bad, to put it mildly...

Used it for the last 6 months logged In. No problems so far I can see. But if you are unsure you can make a new account, and use a subscription manager to copy them over. That's is the best way.

Google has the functionality to give third party apps access to your YouTube account and that's all you're using here. I can imagine them eventually blocking it altogether, but I can't imagine them banning accounts for it.

SmartTube is faaaaaaar better than YT official app for AndroidTV

uYou+ is no longer maintained, though uYou+ Extra is.

CastSponsorSkip - SponsorBlock for Google Cast devices. Runs on your local network and skips sponsored sections using the SponsorBlock api.

https://github.com/dmunozv04/iSponsorBlockTV

Docker container that you run on a computer on your network, such as an RPi, and add your YouTube playing TVs and Chromecasts and consoles and such. It watches what you're playing and provides sponsorblock skipping for them automatically

If you're using Linux and have podman v4.4 or higher installed, you can use this container file to load it as a systemd service:

[Unit]
Description="Sponsorblock for networked youtube clients"
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

[Service]
Restart=always
TimeoutStartSec=900

[Container]
Image=ghcr.io/dmunozv04/isponsorblocktv:latest
Volume=/etc/containers/config/sponsorblock:/app/data

You'll need to generate the config file by hand the first time, follow the instructions in the GitHub wiki above

How does the computer know what to block? Do I need to provide a hotspot to my TV or Chromecast from my laptop, for example?

Computer acts as a phone and connects to your YouTube player. It gets information about what you're watching, and checks against the sponsorblock database. If it finds a match, it sends skip commands to the player when a section of the video needs skipping

I'd recommend the Vinegar Safari plugin on iOS. It replaces the YT video player with a basic HTML video player (in Safari), which prevents ads.

I use the iOS app Yattee to stream content from invidious instances and it works great

BlockTube

By now it allows to block (remove) other things: Auto-generated playlists, Explore page, Shorts, Movies and a few other things.

I mostly use it to block content about stuff I don't want to get spoiled on. It supports regex so it's fairly easy for me to very rarely see anything that would diminish my experience from a specific piece of media (assuming I don't forget to do it in the first place...).

For anyone that has an LG smart tv: https://github.com/webosbrew/dev-manager-desktop

You can install an ad free yt app with this tool. Apparently there are issues where you need to re-enable dev mode every 24 hours, but I have not had any issues.

It'll take a google search to find it, but there is a linux shell script you can run on a computer on the same network as the TV to automatically renew dev mode if you need that.

Yeah I was planning on using that but somehow the tool enabled dev mode for an extremely long time.

You can also use IFTTT to update it automatically, the tool itself tells you how to do it

Another one like DeArrow that I use is Clickbait remover for youtube.

I too used it for few years almost, but I disabled it recently and to be honest, I think I'll prefer it with thumbnails. While some of them are quite clickbaity, they're still generally pretty descriptive. DeArrow would give the best of both worlds though.

DeArrow is slow for me, so i reverted back to Clickbait remover.

iOS also has Vinegar, an extension for Safari that is on the App Store. It will also work with Safari on M1/m2 Macs.

This is probably a no.... But does anyone have any solution for using the YouTube on roku TVs with some of these YouTube enhancements in place?

For me the best option on Android is LibreTube with a nice-working piped instance!

I have some mixed feelings about doing this for some creators. Blocking sponsors and all the ads from some creators takes more from creators than it does from Google, right? Isn't it the potential monetization that drives many YouTubers to keep creating content? And won't some give up with no financial support?

Are some of you guys blocking all the ads but subscribing to their Patreon?

To quote Adam Millard (not verbatim):

If you've paid me $5 on my Patreon, I give you permission to block all ads on my channel, since you've already done more than anyone watching ads.

Ad revenue is almost nothing unless you have a massive channel, and if you have a massive channel you're already making sponsorship deals. As far as I know, most sponsors only care about total view count on the video. SponsorBlock isn't as high-profile as ad blockers (yet).

I used to agree, but then everybody gave me the same NordVPN/RAID:ShadowLegends read and it got as bad as other kinds of ads.

Feel free to whitelist creators you like. My favorite (Red Letter Media) don't give a fuck thanks to Patreon.

It can also skip intros and other repetitive aspects and a hotkey allows you to unskip segments.

I do some patreons, I guess about 30 % of my large YouTubers. Did so even before YouTube started the mass enshittification(when I was still premium), but paying patronage to them all is too much. I like the way Peertube operates in that regard. Bandwidth is lower (that's fine) and when a video goes viral some clients will get swapped to P2P mode to offload the host. Checked floatplane and nebula, but the floatplane prices are just too high. I'll probably get nebula for this year and then evaluate my options again for the next year.

I assumed since sponsorblock just fast forwards the video (which a lot of people do manually) then the YouTuber is still ok? Do they not get paid just for uploading the sponsored content to begin with 🤔

If you had to pick one of those iOS clients, which would you pick?

Comes down to use case and what you prefer. On my Mac and iPhone I use vinegar all the time and it works great. Also means you can turn iphone screen off if you are just listening (save battery). Same YouTube account/subscriptions etc.

On my iPad when plugged into a tv I prefer invidious. I tend to watch long (6-8 hour streams) and It outputs at a native resolution to the tv and allows the screen to be off.

Is DeArrow still locked behind a license key? I know it was fairly simple to share them around but it did seem to greatly hinder the extension's use, compared to their SponsorBlock project.

What? I’ve had it installed for months now and have never heard of a license key.

It was introduced later on, so it didn't affect anyone that already had it installed.

You can still use it by clicking on request access at the bottom of the page, It will take 3 days to activate tho.

Wait, what's going on with DeArrow? I've had it installed since it came out. Is it supposed to be broken without a key now? O.o

LibreTube, a Piped client, should be added to the Android section. Allows logging into your Piped account to sync your subs, includes SponsorBlock/DeArrow/RYD, and has one of the best interfaces I've seen of any YouTube app (including the official one).

Worth pointing out that the current version of Return YouTube Dislike doesn't seem to be working while you're logged in. I'm sure it will be fixed soon.

So like nobody likes Ymusic? That has become my default YouTube viewer. Love that app they don't screw you on data usage and you don't get buffering because you can choose the resolution it plays at

Choosing the resolution of video playback is a standard feature in just about every youtube app or frontend. Not really a special feature. I can attest that's available in all the Android ones listed and in SmartTube for GoogleTV devices.

The other two features I know of in Ymusic: downloading as video or audio, and background playback of just the audio with the screen locked, are there in all the listed android apps as well.