After some reflection I came to a conclusion that I rarely (if ever) watched anything of value on YouTube, and so the best method to make YouTube less distracting in my case was adding:
I've blocked myself out of YouTube with ColdTurkey. If I want to watch a video, I have to find it on Google Search, copy the link, paste the link into a website that generates a link to an embedded Video, and watch it there.
Clumsy as it gets, but that's how I like it. I can still watch stuff if I really want, but there are almost no recommendations and it's so cumbersome that I won't overdo it.
I've tried total abstinence. It wasn't sustainable for me, sadly.
I'm not a big fan of hiding my traffic from youtube, twitter, medium et al by sending all my traffic to https://farside.link.
I use https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/libredirect/ , which does the same but only in the browser, allows me to use other instances (such as my personal one) and has a button to switch instance if one doesn't work.
Both of these need to 'access [my] data for all websites' - I suppose I'm not really sure what my 'data' amounts to, (it sounds like anything I might input?) but surely they only need the URL, is that really as fine-grained as Firefox allows?
Not too keen on including Wikiless in that extension; as far as I can tell Wikiless is just a read-only GET proxy for Wikipedia.
There also was some weird stuff going on that led to the project getting booted from codeberg if I recall.
The dev has also gotten overly defensive a couple times since the reasoning for doing it with Wikipedia was some "feds in the walls" reasoning rather than any actual privacy issues with Wikipedia.
Is it really that bad? If the extension has a ton of reviews, doesn't it sort of vouch for credibility? And if they say they can't "read or change data on this website"?
>>And if they say they can't "read or change data on this website"?
Extensions need access to those to make changes on webpages you visit. However, you can go to manage extension and limit to specific pages instead of all sites.
The big issue has been trusted, harmless well-liked extensions where the developer gets offered a nice shiny payout, transfers control to WeSellYourData Inc, and now everything feels the same except for the surreptitious tracking of everything you do.
I only use extensions which have the ability to be limited by the browser to certain sites. Then any potential damage is limited.
E.g. I use an ad-blocker to insert JavaScript only on one site: YouTube.com. But I use an anonymous dummy Google account for YouTube. So if anything gets compromised, I don't really care.
> The radical solution to avoid that addicting design is to avoid it entirely, but there is still so much good information in there that it probably doesn’t make sense.
I think you've already lost half the battle at this point. I think that if people actually did go without their favorite internet kick for a few weeks they'd find that they're really not missing much, if anything.
I've done it multiple times, traveling abroad with low data or censored internet, e.g. in China, and can confidently state at least for myself that I can live happily without Youtube / social media for a long time, probably even indefinitely.
When you're traveling you're usually stimulated much more than when sitting at home in a rut, being slightly depressed and unable to decide what to do next. That's when you start missing [your favorite addictive distraction] and give in to the lure of it.
I can spend three weeks on holiday and not even notice that I spend no time on a screen. I might feel repelled, even. Back home after a few days, not so much.
Talking about being stuck in a depressing non-stimulating environment: I've done it in a Chinese quarantine hotel for 2 weeks. You really really don't need Youtube / social media / your other "essential" vices as much as you think.
This is exactly why those things are dangerous. You get used to them and your brain starts needing the distraction and constant empty entertainment.
It's only when you stop using it for a few days/weeks, that you notice how much your brain needs that constant feed of stuff. When you get over that short amount of "withdrawal" and no longer need it as a filler of empty time, you can use that time for more healthy things.
Equating video with social media and internet fix is misleading considering what a great format it is to visualise when teaching something. As mentioned in the blog post, it only takes a few seconds to remove the social media aspect from YouTube. No ads, no recommendations, no comments. Just pure video related to the problem you're trying to solve.
To add, I use some uBlock Origin rules to make the home page blocked or empty. Blocked if you access directly, and empty if you navigate to it from another YT page (since SPA navigation is not blocked with uBO). Then another picker rule to block the recommendations sidebar. This one is a bit more fragile since they can just change the hierarchy and class names.
Readit News
I do want to watch some YouTube videos, so I use the scheduling feature in NextDNS to cutoff YouTube before bedtime.
Dead Comment
Clumsy as it gets, but that's how I like it. I can still watch stuff if I really want, but there are almost no recommendations and it's so cumbersome that I won't overdo it.
I've tried total abstinence. It wasn't sustainable for me, sadly.
You can also play audio-only, which for many largely spoken videos is far more than sufficient.
Enjoy distraction-free, spyware-free and CPU-friendly Youtube, Twitter, Medium, Reddit and Imgur
Warning: like adblock, once you get used to it, you wonder how someone can survive on the web without it.
tip: if for some reason you still need the original version, simply open the link in a private window.
EDIT: the extension itself https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/farside/
I use https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/libredirect/ , which does the same but only in the browser, allows me to use other instances (such as my personal one) and has a button to switch instance if one doesn't work.
There also was some weird stuff going on that led to the project getting booted from codeberg if I recall.
The dev has also gotten overly defensive a couple times since the reasoning for doing it with Wikipedia was some "feds in the walls" reasoning rather than any actual privacy issues with Wikipedia.
It's better to use something like piped that has the following features: https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped#features
Yes and no. You can't be really sure. They might contain vulnerabilities https://portswigger.net/research/ublock-i-exfiltrate-exploit... not necessarily intended. You can read more here https://github.com/beerisgood/Security-link-collection , "Some examples why browser extensions are bad - since at least....."
>>And if they say they can't "read or change data on this website"? Extensions need access to those to make changes on webpages you visit. However, you can go to manage extension and limit to specific pages instead of all sites.
That's why Google is going for Manifest V3.
E.g. I use an ad-blocker to insert JavaScript only on one site: YouTube.com. But I use an anonymous dummy Google account for YouTube. So if anything gets compromised, I don't really care.
> The radical solution to avoid that addicting design is to avoid it entirely, but there is still so much good information in there that it probably doesn’t make sense.
I think you've already lost half the battle at this point. I think that if people actually did go without their favorite internet kick for a few weeks they'd find that they're really not missing much, if anything.
I've done it multiple times, traveling abroad with low data or censored internet, e.g. in China, and can confidently state at least for myself that I can live happily without Youtube / social media for a long time, probably even indefinitely.
When you're traveling you're usually stimulated much more than when sitting at home in a rut, being slightly depressed and unable to decide what to do next. That's when you start missing [your favorite addictive distraction] and give in to the lure of it.
I can spend three weeks on holiday and not even notice that I spend no time on a screen. I might feel repelled, even. Back home after a few days, not so much.
It's only when you stop using it for a few days/weeks, that you notice how much your brain needs that constant feed of stuff. When you get over that short amount of "withdrawal" and no longer need it as a filler of empty time, you can use that time for more healthy things.
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https://invidious.projectsegfau.lt/feed/popular
or any other instance:
https://api.invidious.io/
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/clickbait-rem...
[2] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clickbait-remover-...
||youtube.com^|$doc
youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"]
www.youtube.com##ytd-item-section-renderer.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer.style-scope
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