YouTube stops recommending videos when signed out of Google
bleepingcomputer.com
YouTube is no longer showing recommended videos to users logged out of a Google account or using Incognito mode, making people concerned they are being bullied into always being signed into the service.
This change, which is now rolling out, shows a simple YouTube homepage without any videos or tips on what to watch.
As noted by some on X, users who have cleaned their search and watch history or turned off their history settings also see no suggestions when they're logged in. Some people think YouTube is being pushy about this, trying to make users turn on their history settings.
i like this change
This is great news. I watch videos occasionally but I wouldn't say I'm a user. I don't want to be recommended videos. I want to watch the one I searched for, or my friend linked to me, and go on with my life.
just be prepared that the "default" YouTube recommendations are all clickbait + Mr. Beast + whatever fad is going around. The default recommendations are really really bad.
the trick is to be signed in with history cleared and turned off. Then your 'recommendations' homepage is just a blank screen begging you to turn on history tracking again
Though i don't trust it not to track me secretly regardless, but that's a different issue.
wouldn't that have all the bad things about not having personalized recs (ie: seeing only popular clickbaity videos) while getting none of the benefits (ie: making harder for google to track you)
It just doesn't show you any recommendations at all - i think it depends on you also 'deleting' your account history in addition to turning off history tracking
it does still (in theory) enable them to track you for other outside services, possibly even for pre-roll or mid-roll advertisements, so it really depends on what your priority is
if watching on desktop with adblock on, you can get the best of both worlds - no recommendations and no ads (disclaimer: i have not yet been given the boot for using adblock, YMMV).
AFAIK - Watching on the youtube app does not allow you the benefit of adblocking, at least not in my experience.
*edit: this is what I see on my home page
That home page is perfect. No junk and a message explaining why there's no junk and how to get it back if you want it.
Agreed.
I've been using NewPipe lately and it's given me a greater appreciation for the YouTube recommendations. Because NewPipe just uses the basic, generic recommendations that YouTube shows everyone that isn't logged in, and holy shit I'd forgotten how just bad "mainstream" YouTube is.
That's not what Google is doing. They're literally showing an empty page with a search box (and a sidebar of categories). Similar to going to google.com.
It's clearly being A/B tested though - I only see the empty page sometimes. Other times I get the usual Mr Beast recommendations (this is with no login, not with a login but watch history disabled).
Wait… that makes no sense. You won’t see them now. There are no recommendations.
Lol the users being upset about this is the strangest part, I never ever want to see the recommended feed, how can I opt into this while signed in? XD
delete and pause your watch history, at least that's how it works for me.
Yeah, I actually want my watch history though, been helpful a few times trying to remember some obscure vid I watched like 4 years ago
Subscriptions page really needs an overhaul, at least it mostly actually shows all the videos posted these days, would be nice if we could categorize them in some fashion, or if it auto-groupes videos from the same creator, an example... I like Kyle Kulinski's Secular Talk, but he posts like 4-10 segments a day so it fills up my subs page
There's browser extensions for it
True, probably like tamper monkey scripts if that's still a thing
This is amazing. I saw YouTube only showing a search bar when I went there, and it was liberating. I could search and watch the video on the topic I wanted, then promptly leave. Without all the Hot and recommend shit being shoved down my throat.
Exactly! I love this new feature :)
You know you can always just search for stuff without checking the recommended section right? Its helpful to discover new channels though
Except the algorithm has been horrible for, like..., five years maybe?
yeah. Its constantly trying to force right wing bullshit down my throat, because like once a month I'll watch a video about heavy machinery or camping or something.
All that is left is letting people without a watch history default to seeing their subscriptions instead of a blank page. That's the whole point of subscribing: I want my own curated experience. I don't want to watch BS YouTube thinks I want to watch.
It was a mistake letting YouTube decide on behalf of everyone that recommendations was a better experience than letting the users decide for themselves what to watch. The recommendations are no less of an echo chamber. Worse, the recommendations are gamed with churned, garbage content. It's the same problem as google search.
We need a return to form of user-curated content. Down with algorithmic recommendations.
It actually works like this in the FreeTube app on PC or NewPipe on Android. It feels so much better having my own home page showing only videos who I'm subscribed to. Plus another added benefit is that you can put your subscriptions into categories, which is a great way of filtering down to the exact type of video's you feel like watching at the time. FreeTube personally stopped my unhealthy video-watching habits almost instantly, which were basically psychologically trained into me by YouTube's algorithm.
Maybe you'd like to see some Andrew Tate shorts?
That pretty much describes how I use my Piped server in Feed mode. It only show my subs and I can filter out Shorts from those as well. Pretty sure the public Pipeds are the same if you make an account.
You can get extensions which make the homepage redirect to your subscriptions page. Lifesaver imo.
Uh, how could Google show any personal recommendations without storing any data to base that on? If anything this seems to be Google actually doing what they say they're doing.
They could do what they did back in the day; show recommended videos based on the current one.
They still do in my recent experience.
It's just not based on any longer viewing history than the current session.
The homepage rhat starts the viewing session will generally be just what's popular with the general audience in the approximate location they can geolocate from your IP address. If you are logged out and try a few different locations on a VPN, you'll get different homepages to start a new (logged out) session from.
Yep.
Though there is still a reason to be upset IMHO, because I've had history turned off for several years now, but until recently I always had a home page with 'recommended' videos regardless, which to me indicates that they were not honoring my request before the recent data regulations went into effect in the EU, or were otherwise using data from other services or browsing history to base recommendations on.
Google has been perfectly happy to track you with browser fingerprints – just if they showed personalized results, it would be giving their hand away …
Cookies... But yes i noticed it too recently that you dont even get a homepage / trending list anymore when turning on proper privacy settings.
They kinda don't! It'd be trending videos near your IP locations + your watch history for this browser session
Not personal recommendations, they won't show anything. It would be like loading up Lemmy/Reddit and not seeing anything until you logged in or subscribed to a community.
Don’t threaten me with a good time!
Honestly, so glad they are making this change. Now I don't have to see the bottom of the barrel popular slop every time I use the incognito mode thing on Revanced.
What? That's literally a feature I got with a plugin. YouTube feels so much better without the algorithmic reinforced "hype" videos with no content and it's good for your mental health too.
Best. Change. Ever.
YouTube without suggestions? You mean how it was back in the early days?? I would LOVE that.
You can use the Unhook extension to do this right now on at least Firefox and Chrome.
" shows a simple YouTube homepage without any videos or tips on what to watch."
I've had watch history off for like 7 years now and I haven't had videos on my homepage for at least 2 years now. Hasn't bothered me a bit, I only watch my subscription page and find new people with the recommendations based off of their videos.
That's how I work, But I use FreeTube instead, which works the same way. There's a trending videos page, but it doesn't reccomend stuff based on your history.
This is too good to be true. How long until Google reverses this decision? 😂
They change their mind about 100 things bi-weekly. I'm frankly numb to it. I never know what's going on, just keep riding the unpredictable rollercoaster.
like remember a few weeks ago for one day YouTube had an option to choose from recommended videos based on our favorite color scheme? So weird & pointless but i chose Blue lavender then They presented me with a bunch of videos with a blue lavender-ish thumbnail, and I chose one to watch, then everything went back to normal and they never gave me the colors option again.
In EU the next time the law changes 😁
Yeah... this isn't a bad thing as far as I'm concerned. I have never used the front page for anything, besides the search bar, and even that's waning.
That's fine, all the videos they suggest suck anyway. No I don't want to watch Madonna's Like a Virgin video when I've been watching Letterkenny clips, YouTube.
This is an amazing way to view youtube .... this isn't a degradation of the service ... it's the first good useful thing they've done in years
Wouldn't the recommendations be crap anyway? When they don't know your watch history?
I was logged out the other day without realizing and for the first time I saw Mr. Beast and other similar content being recommended
I never watch YouTube while logged in if I can help it, and I've never subscribed to a channel either. I've just bookmarked the /videos page of the channels I like, and check them regularly.
As someone who subscribes to many channels, likely over 100, that post anywhere from daily to a few times per year, fuck that.
You should also consider using Grayjay or something instead to avoid that tedium.
You might like New Pipe/Tubular! Give it a go
Yes, I was like OP for years, but since I switched to NewPipe I also get to experience beeing subbed to chanels and just getting Infos about new Videos.
If you're interested in sponsorblock integration and a return of the dislike button, have a look at Tubular, it's a fork of NewPipe
Thanks, that's awesome.
I like to tell myself I even get better search results when signed out (YouTube doesn’t seem to try as hard to insert extra filler)
I'm so tired of searching for something specific, getting two or three results relevant to my search, then it just goes into my subscriptions and other recommended channels. I'm really really hoping a new video site comes up soon to replace YouTube. You can't even use YouTube as a video host anymore. I tried uploading some gameplay of me and my friends fucking around. Had music in the background. I put the video as unlisted, marked it as mature, I'm not a partner or anything that would get me paid, and YouTube refused to allow me to upload it without first muting the music parts. All I wanted was an easy way to share a personal video with my friends, but no, YouTube needs to make money off of every little thing that gets uploaded so I end up fucked even though I have no intentions of making "content".
Dont forget to mention getting unrelated shorts shoved down your throat everywhere. I seriously deleted my decade old youtube channel over this. Fuck Google.
“Youtube-shorts block” (or one of several similar addons) that forces shorts to be treated as normal videos
But that you need a half-dozen addons just for Youtube alone to either make it usable or to restore functionality it used to have …
I just use uBlock to hide shorts. Works fine.
I went through and cleared all of my old watch history, search history, everything from YouTube. It immediately started recommending the same things I've already watched. It continues to recommend seven year old videos regularly. Videos I know it knows I've watched already since it clearly didn't erase any of my history like I asked. The shorts shit is awful. It's even worse if you tell YouTube not to track you, it freaks out and only plays the same shorts over and over
This is the craziest thing. I make a search, I want to see search results.
"Here's some totally unrelated videos for you!"
No! I want search results!
"Here's the annoying ass you've blocked five times!"
No! Search results!
"Here's the video you just watched!"
I did a search! I want to see search results and nothing else. The last possible thing I'd watch is what I already finished before searching for a different very specific thing.
"Here's the worst cancer in your country for you!"
JUST GIVE ME SEARCH RESULTS!
Yes!! That's the other thing, why is YouTube constantly recommending videos I've already watched? I get it all the time where videos I've literally watched the day before are being recommended to me. Even more so for videos I've watched the week prior. The other thing that's been annoying the shit out of me is that YouTube is so desperate to send me down political rabbit holes. My political leanings must be a mystery to them since I like liberal stand up comedy, gaming, Linux, and guns, so I'm getting hit with political garbage from both sides. Can I please just have an option to tell YouTube what I want instead of it poorly guessing? Oh wait, that's the search function, which doesn't work
Love it
I moved to a newpipe fork about a year ago. I stopped using their suggestions altogether. I'm not going to lie it was a couple of months before I was able to get used to it. I've come to believe that having YouTube on permanent autoplay based on their algorithmic calculations of what I'd want to see is not entirely healthy for me.
At current, once I've watched everything from my chosen creators for the day. That's it I'm done, I go and find something more useful to do.
Now I see only the shows from my chosen creators,and if one of those guys recommends a different creator that they enjoy I'll usually throw a follow in that direction. Very organic very much not in someone's pocket. I've avoided TikTok like the plague. I think that, as much as possible, no companies financial statement should have a serious impact over my content consumption.
which fork of new pipe are you using? I'd be interested to hear your take on it.
Tubular, it's The same as new pipe plus sponsor block but it's currently active.
Recommending things when you're not logged in means they're tracking you without your consent. Why would anyone want that?
No they usually recommend what is trending to users who are not logged in or have no watch history
That said i personally really don't mind the change
I've started using Invidious as a YouTube front end and it works really great for me
https://invidious.io/
Oh, I interpreted "recommended" as recommended as in tailored to your preferences. What they mean is that youtube won't show popular videos anymore. Still, doesn't seem like the wrong choice to me necessarily, but I'm personally not interested in the type of videos that have the highest popularity.
Is that a problem?? I mean I leave myself logged in all the time because I use google music and I absolutely hate their recommended videos and the algorithms behind it.
No fucking google I don't want to watch some douche canoe movie reviewer complaining about the latest movie being woke just because I watched some other movie critic that's actually thoughtful and insightful or at least funny to me without delving into sounding like a dog with the constant "woke...woke woke...woke woke woke woke".
Their algorithm sucks. I don't want to see a how-to video I saw 12 years ago. It's there nothing else on the internet?!?!
I see a lot of recommendations for videos from channels I watch that are very old and I've seen them before. I frequently submit feedback that I've seen it and I don't want to rewatch something I've seen before (unless I'm specifically searching for it).
Also, if I jump into my history feed, and go back as far as I can, I eventually hit the end, and I know I've watched more than wherever the end is. So the history falls off eventually. Frustrating.
I too also submit feedback to say that I have seen these videos before. I have even had a video auto play the same video I just watch prior to the one I'm watching. Honestly, what are they doing?
I honestly thought this was how it always worked...seems like a good thing if they're at least appearing to not track people who aren't signed in, especially since in every other way they will try to get your data fighting tooth and claw. (Not saying they aren't tracking habits of non account users though)
Considering the right-wing garbage YT is constantly trying to slip into my recommendations - a habit of YT that has mysteriously gotten a whole lot worse in the last few weeks - I'd say they are threatening me with a good time.
It's pretty obvious they're only doing this to try to push people who like the recommendations to create an account. But can't people just create throwaway accounts to temporarily relieve their recommendation fix?
Their recommendations are useless anyway. I don't want to see 200 rock hard abs videos just because I watched a clip of Roseanne doing sit-ups.
I stopped letting YouTube save my watch history years ago because their suggestion algorithm became too intrusive: watch a quick cooking tutorial, get nothing be cooking channels, look up the proper way to use a toggle bolt, YouTube wants to teach me how to re-shingle a roof. It was out of control.
First, they took away my home screen, because they claimed they couldn't reccomend videos without my watch history (even though they'd done it for years). Then they took away the shorts tab, because they said they couldn't reccomend shorts without my watch history (even though they'd done it for months). So now I just have my subscriptions, a curated list of things I actually want to watch. They've punished me with the product I wanted this whole time.
My guess,
It has stopped doing this for me too though. I'm European. I'm assuming it's because they really want to stay on the correct side of European law.
so many companies telling on themselves when they would rather remove functionality or block countries rather than just comply with privacy regulations …
I think it's number 2. Now I can't see what the "default" presentation is (which always had 1 conspiracy theory thing).
This was my first thought
Not a Bug.
This is more of a feature than a problem IMO.
Most services (like meta/Facebook/Instagram/anything owned by zuck', the service formerly known as Twitter....) are going to a model of: you need an account to even see anything posted publicly.
Not just extremely limited information like LinkedIn, like, instant redirect to "you need to be logged in to see this" or simply a login page.
At least you can still find something you want to see, and go and watch it... With ads and everything, sure, but the information is there and accessible.
will this affect invidious/piped?
they also dont recommend anything on your homepage when you're signed in if you don't have your watch history turned on (as if they're not tracking it anyway)
lol, who cares
Fantastic news.
deleted by creator
Meh. For all the YT I consume, I haven't visited the site in years. yt-dlp, sponsor block, invidious, and newpipe keep me far away, while still having all my subs stored in a json file. Simple, easy, no algo suggestions, just organic heard about them from word of mouth sub on an alternative platform. No ads, no sponsor or patreon mentions, no like, no subscribe. Is bliss.
EDIT: Typo fix and slight rewording.
YouTube definitely not bullying users into staying signed it so that Google can aggregate more data about you /s
Service to humanity.
I noticed this a few days ago or so and I was delighted by it. I never sign in to YouTube and hated the garbage recommendations on the homepage.
You search for one thing and it starts showing recommendations.
I fail to see how this is a bad thing. Youtube's old default homepage would show scam and content mill recommendations.
As with what others are saying here, pulling out algo nonsense is good, however I do worry that it slowly devolves into something similar to what's happening with Twitter where you can barely look at anything without being pushed to login. It's unusable unless you have an account. Websites shouldn't operate like that.
It'll be rolled back when they realize engagement drops.
I have never signed in to use YouTube
Congratulations?
this move kinda got me to stop using youtube (for me, it also happens when my watch history is empty, and then it Specifically Nags that you need to unpause it for the feed to come back.) From personal reflection, I get how they could see people just enabling the watch history if they do this. (though right now, you don't need to not have it paused, there just needs to be stuff in it for the feed)
So, the majority WANTS to see the political propaganda, endless livestream of chill music to relax and study to, a bunch of spoiled kids making faces, and something indistinguishably small being pointed at by a huge red arrow?