YouTube Enhancement Megathread: Tools and Extensions for All Devices

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.

chrishazfun,

BlockTube has become as essential to my YouTube experience as uBlock, surprisingly flexible for an extension as new as it is.

Interstellar_1,
@Interstellar_1@pawb.social avatar

Seems like LibreTube should be in the Android category.

HughJanus,

Please add Grayjay from FUTO.

Why9,

This looks promising!

Paradox,
@Paradox@lemdro.id avatar

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:


<span style="color:#323232;">[Unit]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Description="Sponsorblock for networked youtube clients"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Wants=network-online.target
</span><span style="color:#323232;">After=network-online.target
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">[Install]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">[Service]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Restart=always
</span><span style="color:#323232;">TimeoutStartSec=900
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">[Container]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Image=ghcr.io/dmunozv04/isponsorblocktv:latest
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Volume=/etc/containers/config/sponsorblock:/app/data
</span>

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

stefanyas,

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?

Paradox,
@Paradox@lemdro.id avatar

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

Baku,

There’s also TubeArchivist which is sort of like a self hosted YouTube. It can pull videos automatically from channels you subscribe to and download them through yt-dlp and has some organisational capabilities too

tgxn,
@tgxn@lemmy.tgxn.net avatar

Yeah I’ve been trying this lately and it’s really good. Their browser plugin isn’t bad either!

WYLD_STALLYNS,
@WYLD_STALLYNS@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Not sure if anyone has mentioned Vinegar on the iOS AppStore.

apps.apple.com/us/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/

Thorny_Insight,

YouTube changes their detection scripts twice a day

This turns out to be the reason I kept getting the notification despite all my efforts to evade it. You just need to keep updating it as explained there. Also learned, that I don’t need to update every list, just the quick fixes part.

Moneo,

For anyone that has an LG smart tv: 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.

wizardbeard,
@wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

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.

Marmanvii,

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

Moneo,

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

ryan_,

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

Sterile_Technique,
@Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world avatar

This thread is a gold mine - thanks for putting all that together!

zbb,

For Roku, there’s the Invidious frontend Playlet.

Snapz,

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?

mzesumzira,
@mzesumzira@leminal.space avatar

Since it wasn’t a direct answer maybe you missed this comment

Vaeril,

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

Thorny_Insight,

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.

Predator,
@Predator@feddit.uk avatar

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

EqMinMax,
@EqMinMax@lemmy.world avatar

For android, libretube

github.com/Libre-tube/LibreTube

ugmug,
ugmug avatar

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.

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