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.
marcosscriven 3 hours ago [-]
I’m sure I’ve clicked “show fewer shorts” every single time it’s shown me shorts. It seems to make zero difference.
hightrix 2 hours ago [-]
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.
SubiculumCode 14 minutes ago [-]
I feel like they don't use those signals, just time spent...and you spend more time fishing for the 'not interested' button
2 hours ago [-]
dijit 2 hours ago [-]
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.
shermantanktop 18 minutes ago [-]
Auto play with audio needs to be controllable for accessibility. May be a regulatory requirement depending where you live. So it’s gotta be there somewhere.
temporallobe 35 minutes ago [-]
That’s like the crosswalk button that does nothing. It’s there purely for the placebo effect.
mcv 35 minutes ago [-]
It used to be that they were gone for a month. Now they're gone for a day. Possibly less.
Strom 2 hours ago [-]
For me, clicking that hides shorts for 30 days and then I need to click it again. So it's a monthly ritual.
atoav 15 minutes ago [-]
Do you want $foo?
Yes | Ask again later
Modern tech companies behave like abusers or creepy stalkers. They won't take No for an answer.
NewsaHackO 36 minutes ago [-]
It's like pressing the "close door" button on an elevator.
fhub 27 minutes ago [-]
Door close button is supposed to cancel the door dwell time. But due to some disability codes in some regions all major manufactures allow it to be disabled (as required by some codes). i.e. The owners/managers/technicians can disable it.
api 2 hours ago [-]
Short form video is addictive, so they want to push it. It maximizes time on site.
derektank 14 minutes ago [-]
As someone that pays for YouTube premium (and isn’t served ads), I don’t understand why they push Shorts to me too. Presumably they should want me to spend the bare minimum amount of time on YouTube necessary to keep me subscribed, as any further use just contributes to higher infrastructure and bandwidth costs.
zem 11 minutes ago [-]
they don't want you to realise that you're not watching it much and cancel your subscription
drnick1 2 hours ago [-]
Clearly that is useless for people who browse YT anonymously, hence the usefulness of the list.
lofaszvanitt 10 minutes ago [-]
The whole YT front page is an absolute utter clusterfook.
halyconWays 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
ncr100 2 hours ago [-]
Chafe them nipples.
Seriously though, do any of our German / French compatriots here on HN have different experience of corporations, versus the USA's "maximizing profit" purpose, given the "corporate social responsibility" mandate of those countries?
Greed (opportunism) is human and I wonder if that's "better" in the Germany or French corporate-world?
i5heu 2 hours ago [-]
Mhhh although this is a bit OT it is also very interesting:
Germany has unions and works council.
It is required by law that companies allow works council to exist and if they exist they get certain rights.
> In Germany, they serve two functions. The first is called co-determination, through which works councils elect members of the board of directors of German companies. The second is called participation, and means that works councils must be consulted about specific issues and have the right to make proposals to management.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council#Germany )
Also Germany has good amounts of regulations for certain issues (sometimes too much regulation but oh well).
And Germany has many options to participate in local and regional politics that prevent the worst offenders.
But in the end a company is still a company that is forced to act in a way that maximizes it's profits. I think from my perspective we do not have such wild predator companies like you see them in the US but there are certainly a few very dubious things going on.
Except maybe the gGmbH and Vereine (clubs) which are companies and semi company structures that must act for the common good and without profit interest.
And one funny thing is that in Germany stock companies are required to act to the "best interests of the company" and not the "best interests of the stock holder" - in German law the company includes the worker, the future of the company and social aspects.
liquidise 3 hours ago [-]
Unhook[1] has been my go-to for this. Gives full customization over shorts, recommendations, comments, etc.
Sadly, it hasn't been updated since 2024 and is slowly breaking. Haven't found a good replacement yet.
awfulneutral 2 hours ago [-]
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.
zanehelton 15 minutes ago [-]
It still works for me in Brave. While we're on the topic of "Unhooking" I also like to recommend the DeArrow[1] extension for YouTube.
It works fine for me, I have not noticed degradation
> doesn't work for shorts anymore, on Firefox
I do get shorts in search results, but if I click they do not load (the audio plays but no video). For the purposes it fills, that blocks them enough for me.
stefan_ 1 hours ago [-]
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..
malfist 45 minutes ago [-]
You should check out dearrow as well. Gets rid of clickbait titles and thumbnails
henning 2 hours ago [-]
I clicked comments to say the same thing. Can recommend
freehorse 1 hours ago [-]
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.
djsavvy 56 minutes ago [-]
That's an awesome idea — sometimes I really do want to watch a short but not in that interface. Do you know how to set this up in general?
susam 1 hours ago [-]
I wrote this little quick and dirty userscript for myself sometime back:
This isn't as comprehensive as the uBlock filter but it has worked pretty well for me so far.
drnick1 21 minutes ago [-]
I can confirm this works great, you are back to a mid 2010s kind of homescreen without any of the modern cellphone format crap.
everyone 1 minutes ago [-]
I have so many freakin' rules in ublock just to make youtube's UI acceptable
jbjbjbjb 31 minutes ago [-]
I use Brave to watch YouTube. I was pleasantly surprised that they had so many YouTube related features, blocking shorts is one of them.
jahnu 5 minutes ago [-]
Same. One I want though is for it to remember to not auto-preview videos. YouTube refuses to remember this setting.
asdff 12 minutes ago [-]
Just take the next step and stop going to youtube entirely, and pull the video from the url.
n4bz0r 1 hours ago [-]
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.
freehorse 1 hours ago [-]
> Seems like a form of protest
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.
n4bz0r 1 hours ago [-]
I might be wrong, but I don't think people really care about the addictiveness in the first place. As I see it, the shorts were irritating to see, mainly because they were heavily out of tune with the rest of recommendations. But they seem to have tuned them to be more in line with the rest of the videos. Being not that different from the rest of the videos one gets recommended, there is not much point in hiding them? I'm not exactly protecting shorts here. My point is, you can, of course, cut some of the videos from the feed, but the rest would still be affected by the same algorithm. You still don't get to filter anything, really. So what's the point?
If addictiveness really is that much of a factor, I rest my case.
janderson215 54 minutes ago [-]
No, because it’s that much easier to justify watching “just one more” and totally lose the desire to go to sleep or do some other healthy behavior.
If you’re only “irritated” by them for now, that’s just because the algorithm hasn’t gotten you yet. One day, you will be weak and fall prey.
freehorse 54 minutes ago [-]
For me, it is about addictiveness. Otherwise, if they were just "bad recommendations", I would probably just ignore them.
zeta0134 58 minutes ago [-]
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.
nomilk 43 minutes ago [-]
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).
autoexec 2 hours ago [-]
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)
Brian_K_White 2 hours ago [-]
And Roku.
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.
The easy way to do this is to hide them with custom CSS
- Install Stylebot extension for your browser
- make an entry for youtube.com
- enter this css:
.shortsLockupViewModelHost { display: none}
Bam, no more shorts.
Hoodedcrow 2 hours ago [-]
To be fair, Ublock Origin is a lot more common, and the less extensions the better, so or a lot of people this would be the better way.
65 2 hours ago [-]
You can also just use Tamper Monkey (though you need to add a script called Trusted Type Helper in order to inject CSS into YouTube).
I used to use Stylebot but I switched everything over to Tamper Monkey so all my CSS and non CSS related scripts would be in one place.
Tamper Monkey/Grease Monkey scripts are very portable too, I use my scripts in Safari on iOS via the UserScripts extension.
2 hours ago [-]
quaintdev 3 hours ago [-]
Just pause watch history and it will disable shorts recommendation. The only shorts you will see will be from your subscribed channels.
jarvist 3 hours ago [-]
I've always had watch history off, but my searches now return a couple of pages of short form nonsense, before my actual results.
malfist 3 hours ago [-]
YouTube search is just broken. Has been for a long long long time. You get 3-4 relevant results and then it just shows you random unrelated crap.
asdff 11 minutes ago [-]
It is better to use google to search youtube via site:youtube.com operator.
daveguy 3 hours ago [-]
It's not broken from Google's perspective. The results are just optimized for their ad revenue rather than your viewing preference. Even the engagement hooks don't care what your viewing preferences are - just what they've calculated to optimize watch potential * ad revenue.
themafia 2 hours ago [-]
You've got to permanently block 1000s of "popular" channels. Then youtube starts working like it did in 2006 again.
subscribed 2 hours ago [-]
NEVER worked for me. I have always shorts shoved in every possible page, device and results, and I have watch history off since forever.
KellyCriterion 3 hours ago [-]
Is this really working on ALL shorts?
And if I click on the panel "no more shorts", is this setting then applied continuously?
revolvingthrow 2 hours ago [-]
Nothing’s working on ALL shorts, not for long, because google shakes things up semi-frequently to jam shorts down everybody’s throats
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
PaulDavisThe1st 2 hours ago [-]
I have leechblock setup to block:
youtube.com/shorts/*
and that seems to block all viewing of shorts. It doesn't stop their inclusion in playlists/recommendations or on a given channel's page(s). Works for me.
b00ty4breakfast 2 hours ago [-]
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.
inv 38 minutes ago [-]
Canceled YouTube subscription and deleted the app. Don't miss it, surprisingly.
digiown 2 hours ago [-]
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.
Tade0 2 hours ago [-]
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.
digiown 2 hours ago [-]
That's good, but everyone has only a limited amount of social capital to refuse popular things. School teachers, which are essentially agents of the government, often make your children watch Youtube videos, for example.
Blocktube extension does this with just a checkmark
can also hide other things
paulpauper 3 minutes ago [-]
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.
tobiasdorge 1 hours ago [-]
was able to get these added to ublock origin lite, which works in chrome; just paste the content directly into the custom filter settings.
sciencesama 2 hours ago [-]
Wish we could use this as a proxy for phones that connect to internet !
papichulo2023 3 hours ago [-]
Finally, tired of creating this custom filter in all my devices lol. I wish it would all automatically apply the "videos" filter as well.
chaps 2 hours ago [-]
Anyone have any similar uBlock filter lists like this?
platevoltage 35 minutes ago [-]
I really don't mind shorts, but I want to be the one that chooses to watch them.
is there a supply chain attack possible? What if some time later this list gets updated?
i5heu 1 hours ago [-]
I will update it later down the line as YT changes its layout and for bug fixes... but i think this was not what your question.
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 1 hours ago [-]
That's the benefit of Brave Browser. The YouTube Shorts blocking feature is built into the browser itself and is not from a third party.
danny_codes 3 hours ago [-]
I’ve been using brave on mobile and it seems to work pretty well!
OrvalWintermute 3 hours ago [-]
I love you!
54 minutes ago [-]
_cs2017_ 2 hours ago [-]
is there anything that might work for the YT app on the Android?
larsmaxfield 2 hours ago [-]
I read this as "The default uBlock filter list will change to hide all YouTube Shorts".
Brian_K_White 2 hours ago [-]
Don't know why you're downvoted. It's exactly a 50/50 likely way to parse it.
modzu 3 hours ago [-]
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" :|
asdff 9 minutes ago [-]
Ublock origin for whatever reason never blocks ads before video for me. IDK what is up with my parameters because I know it works for other people.
chickensong 2 hours ago [-]
Still using ublock. Recently there's a delay starting vid sometimes, about 3 sec. I can deal with it.
fc417fc802 2 hours ago [-]
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.
flakes 2 hours ago [-]
Thats interesting. If you’re on Chrome I’d try out Firefox just to see. I haven’t had any issues for a long time.
hahn-kev 2 hours ago [-]
Works fine for me, FF Win11
carlosjobim 3 hours ago [-]
Premium
throwaway613746 60 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
1 hours ago [-]
RicoElectrico 3 hours ago [-]
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.
pigggg 3 hours ago [-]
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.
ssl-3 3 hours ago [-]
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.
danny_codes 3 hours ago [-]
I reject addiction-designs on principle.
2 hours ago [-]
Brian_K_White 2 hours ago [-]
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?
hollerith 2 hours ago [-]
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).
7734128 3 hours ago [-]
It's 99% the interface, cluttered with useless garbage over the video, that I hate.
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.
fc417fc802 2 hours ago [-]
If you do want to watch one for whatever reason you can open it in the standard interface. The video IDs are neutral it's just the URL that determines which interface you get.
Actually I guess a browser extension to redirect to a fixed up URL would resolve the problem entirely.
StrangeSound 3 hours ago [-]
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.
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.
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.
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.
Seriously though, do any of our German / French compatriots here on HN have different experience of corporations, versus the USA's "maximizing profit" purpose, given the "corporate social responsibility" mandate of those countries?
Greed (opportunism) is human and I wonder if that's "better" in the Germany or French corporate-world?
Germany has unions and works council. It is required by law that companies allow works council to exist and if they exist they get certain rights.
> In Germany, they serve two functions. The first is called co-determination, through which works councils elect members of the board of directors of German companies. The second is called participation, and means that works councils must be consulted about specific issues and have the right to make proposals to management. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council#Germany )
Also Germany has good amounts of regulations for certain issues (sometimes too much regulation but oh well).
And Germany has many options to participate in local and regional politics that prevent the worst offenders.
But in the end a company is still a company that is forced to act in a way that maximizes it's profits. I think from my perspective we do not have such wild predator companies like you see them in the US but there are certainly a few very dubious things going on.
Except maybe the gGmbH and Vereine (clubs) which are companies and semi company structures that must act for the common good and without profit interest.
And one funny thing is that in Germany stock companies are required to act to the "best interests of the company" and not the "best interests of the stock holder" - in German law the company includes the worker, the future of the company and social aspects.
1a: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-recom...
1b: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/unhook-remove-youtu...
1: https://dearrow.ajay.app/
> doesn't work for shorts anymore, on Firefox
I do get shorts in search results, but if I click they do not load (the audio plays but no video). For the purposes it fills, that blocks them enough for me.
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.
If addictiveness really is that much of a factor, I rest my case.
If you’re only “irritated” by them for now, that’s just because the algorithm hasn’t gotten you yet. One day, you will be weak and fall prey.
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).
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.
- Install Stylebot extension for your browser
- make an entry for youtube.com
- enter this css: .shortsLockupViewModelHost { display: none}
Bam, no more shorts.
I used to use Stylebot but I switched everything over to Tamper Monkey so all my CSS and non CSS related scripts would be in one place.
Tamper Monkey/Grease Monkey scripts are very portable too, I use my scripts in Safari on iOS via the UserScripts extension.
And if I click on the panel "no more shorts", is this setting then applied continuously?
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
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.
can also hide other things
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.
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" :|
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.
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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.
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?
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.
Actually I guess a browser extension to redirect to a fixed up URL would resolve the problem entirely.
I use YouTube Tweaks which has a lot of different customisation options. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/youtube-tweak...
I mean, you can eat Doritos for dinner, and maybe you can convince yourself it's nutritionally sufficient, but it's still garbage.