this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024

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Privacy

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Youtube is now unusable without a frontend (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I have an extension that can individually disable all the most useless/addicting components of the Youtube site, such as shorts and whatnot. On the search page, I have turned on:

hide Shorts

hide For You

hide Trending

hide 'People Also Searched For'

hide Search Categories

hide Promoted Videos

hide Promoted Websites

hide Suggested Products

Do you know what Youtube has started doing? They are now inserting engagement slop DIRECTLY into the search results, as seen in the image above. It's literally a short, yet it's inserted like a video so you're forced to see it. The only possible way to remove it is by using a privacy frontend, as even on incognito mode, Youtube will look at the three videos you've watched and start inserting shit based off that.

Louis Rossman is right, they all have rapist mentalities... "just let me stick it in"

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (12 children)

You guys still using youtube?

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 8 months ago

What I have noticed is that if you add “before:2025” (or any other future date) it doesn’t show the unrelated stuff.

[+] [email protected] -13 points 8 months ago (6 children)

I've used Vanced, ReVanced, Newpipe, LibreTube etc. for years and finally just gave up with the neverending third part app hassle, got YouTube Premium and disabled watch history. Sure it's costly, but at least everything works, there are no ads and shorts don't work without watch history. Win some, lose some ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Good for you, but this is the wrong sub for you then.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (3 children)

You sparked my interest, in which way YouTube premium is better than newpipe ?( I'm using the sponsor block version) I mean you won't convince me to give my money to such evil company but I'm curious about what convinced you ...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Some people just don't like the hassle. In my opinion, having had premium and used revanced with sponsorblock, revanced is better.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Yeah I understand it's a personal point of view for me setting up my card and remember to pay is way worse hassle, on the other hand also installing newpipe and learning a new interface it's not that easy ...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

I was a YouTube premium family account owner. Paid for myself, my partner and three friends accounts (think it was five slots?)

The recent price hike was too much, so I've been using frontends as of late.

The YouTube premium experience is seamless, much faster than the frontends but at the same time your getting shit shoveled down your throat at every chance.

I've had lots of issues with libretube servers as of late. Pipe pipe is better but overall since I dropped my sub I've been watching far less on YouTube as a whole.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Upvoted for BoC

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

I remembered there was a thing that came out not too long ago that proved that silicon valley executives literally don't know what consent is.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

also be sure to disable cookies on youtube, it gets rid of weird suggestions and usually only suggests videos related to the current one

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Uh, yeah. Use , give search term, go to tab or corresponding functionality.

Why would you use youtube's internal search anyway? It's age-old knowledge that such platforms use algorithms to "engage" (manipulate) you.

[–] [email protected] 116 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

Louis Rossman is my Alex Jones. He's angry, compelling, and talking about something that makes him seen like a conspiracy theorist to normies. Unlike Jones, though, he's usually right (if not always, I haven't fact checked everything he's ever said). It's extremely cathartic to see someone use such extreme rhetoric to talk about privacy and software ownership and right to repair; e.g. it's not "advertiser's entitlement," it's "rapist mentality."

Ironically, youtube's inability to completely differentiate between people at the same IP has accidentally gotten my non-techie roommate into him too. I never shared his videos with her, never said anything about him, and one day I hear his voice as she browses the web. I'm so proud of her.

My least favorite thing about the "engagement friendly" slop in youtube's search results is that it takes up HALF of the results. Because clearly what I expect from SEARCHING for something is to dredge up a bunch of shit that ranges from tangentially related to completely unrelated.

For example, I too just searched a song. Let's see how that went:

7 results
4 "people also watched" videos
5 results
2 "More from [band name]" videos
2 results
3 "people also searched for" suggestions
2 results
3 "For you" vids (IS IT THE FUVKING SEARCH RESULTS I ASKED FOR???? BECAUSE IF NOT, IT'S NOT REALLY "FOR ME," IS IT?)
2 Results
3 "From related searches"
2 results

That's 20 results to 15 irrelevant pieces of ADHD triggering visual clutter. Luckily the results were actually relevant, unlike whatever you're getting.

To all the commenters saying "I have X, I don't have this problem": I have adblock, I don't have this problem, YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT:

YOUTUBE SEARCH IS BROKEN BY DEFAULT. The largest video sharing site on the internet is BROKEN BY DEFAULT. It shouldn't require extra software to function properly when functioning properly requires less work on the server's side

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Great band though, you've got good taste

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Agree

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