||youtube.com/shorts/*$uritransform=/shorts\/(.*)/watch\/\$1/`
(Except that it doesn't work if you click on a short from YouTube's interface - it loads with JavaScript which bypasses the redirection.)
``` // ==UserScript== // @name YouTube Shorts → Normal Player // @match ://www.youtube.com/ // @run-at document-start // ==/UserScript==
function redirectShorts() { const match = location.pathname.match(/^\/shorts\/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/); if (match) { location.replace(`/watch?v=${match[1]}`); } }
// Catch initial page load redirectShorts();
// Catch SPA navigation early (fires before page renders) document.addEventListener('yt-navigate-start', redirectShorts);
// Fallback document.addEventListener('yt-navigate-finish', redirectShorts); ```
Been using it for annoyances like Slack pushing you to their desktop app, or fixing links when sites change domains (ahem, Anna’s Archive).
I no longer am even able to see shorts, they don't get suggested to me.
However, this is an extreme nuclear option and also disables the entire 'Home' and for-you type content. You can search and watch videos, but it flips it so it is 100% intention driven. Which means discoverability and browsing is non-existent. You're still able to see your existing subscriptions but that's it.
It's REALLY helped me disconnect from the addictive dopamine of the infinite, short type formats. YMMV
I now much prefer to open Youtube (quasi)tabula rasa. I still have subscriptions set up so I can follow “vetted” accounts, but for other things I now rely on that intentionality.
The one minor bummer is that Youtube won’t remember your spot in a video, say if you’re watching in your phone and want to continue on your desktop (or vice-versa). Not the biggest hassle to manually check the time and sync it up, though.
They were there all along, just less egregiously.
Even PageRank (the secret sauce in the original Google search) is arguably a recommendation engine.
You can just use PCA of some feature then use cosine similarity, this has been known forever.
Dopamine-driven behavior in ourselves is certainly to be watched for.
// ==UserScript==
// @name No Shorts
// @match https://www.youtube.com/shorts/*
// @match https://www.facebook.com/reel/*
// ==/UserScript==
window.document.body.innerHTML = ''
// ==UserScript==
// @name No YT Sidebar and Shorts
// @match https://www.youtube.com/*
// ==/UserScript==
function noYTSidebar () {
const element = document.getElementById('secondary')
if (element === null) {
window.setTimeout(noYTSidebar, 1000)
return
}
element.getElementById('secondary').style.display = 'none'
}
function noYTShorts () {
const elements = document.querySelectorAll('ytd-rich-shelf-renderer')
if (elements.length === 0) {
window.setTimeout(noYTShorts, 1000)
return
}
for (e of document.querySelectorAll('ytd-rich-shelf-renderer')) {
e.style.display = 'none'
}
}
noYTSidebar()
noYTShorts()https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtub...
I also just discovered a way[1] to just get real videos from my youtube RSS feeds, free from shorts. Honestly it's been a joy to not have my RSS reader notify me for a old video republished as vertical.
[1]: https://blog.amen6.com/blog/2025/01/no-shorts-please-hidden-...
.ytd-rich-shelf-renderer { display: none }
1a: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-recom...
1b: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/unhook-remove-youtu...
Shorts are hidden and redirected if you land on one externally by default, and it _was_ also restoring the sort by Upload date filter UI, until YouTube went and killed that in the API ;_;
Still in development, but feedback from the HN crowd is very welcome. The site includes interactive prototypes and screenshots that give a clear picture of what it’s aiming to become.
Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-redux...
> 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.
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.
Do you want $foo?
Yes | Ask again later
"NO MEANS NO!"
I understand why FB/IG do it; I _occasionally_ give in and get sucked into a couple. But that NEVER happens to me with YT.
this is all in the iOS YouTube app, which is the only place I watch YouTube.
- Hide all shorts, everywhere on the site, not just on my PC. uBO filters are amazing, but limited.
- The root page to show my Subscriptions instead of "Your History Is Turned Off..."
- I want links to go directly to the video and fill the window. I'll use the back button to go back where I came from, and native "Full Screen" if I want it to fill my screen.
All of it could be non-default settings available with Premium only.
It also seems to make zero difference :/
> polute
Not at all. It's an organic comment.
I can’t permanently turn off shorts - and this I find personally insulting. It really feels like encountering a drug dealer outside my house every time I come home, always expecting me to cave and try some of that good smack.
But apart from ignoring me when I say I’m not interested in whole genres of ‘fun’ videos, it also resets the streaming quality to the lowest setting every single day and then hides the quality setting deep inside a menu with several fiddly clicks.
And this isn’t for my benefit of course: I can easily stream 4K video to my screens. It’s to shave a few cents off each stream and max the gouging.
It’s so god damn annoying, regardless of how often I choose to ignore channels or don’t suggest feedback.
All they care about is vote time…give me content I want to view!
Also, in the evenings, my timeline gets weirdly paranoid phobia centric, like deep insecurities people live with that are triggering and keep you up late. It’s so obvious YT is doing this to try and bait me into watching these deeply emotional and personal content, and again, ignoring it and providing feedback seems to do nothing to my feed. I hate it.
If I click on something I thought I would want to watch and it is the kind of video I do not want recommended to me I immediately delete it from my watch history, block the channel, and some times block that profile from viewing my youtube channel.
~2 years ago I never had to delete anything from my watch history and my feed/recommendations were ok, now I have to if I do not want my feed/recommendations to occasionally be flooded with something I do not want.
It is my opinion their algorithms are tuned to push this kind of engagement no matter what.
You should see me or my wife sometimes scrolling down this nine miles long single column list on the Roku to find a particular channel. It's in there, it just could be anywhere in there...
They didn't happen to post any new videos lately so they aren't on the main subscriptions page of latest videos, you have to go to the menu on the left to the list of all subscribed channels and just arrow down forever, back up, down again... Why in the ever loving world isn't that list at least alphabetical?
edit: has the added benefit that there are different feeds for All/Videos/Shorts/Live/Specific Playlists, so this is another way to avoid shorts
Of course there are other ways to support creators such as donating and buying swag. I do that too.
Anon usage + uBlock and VPN, is a dead man walking
Also HN commenters: “I don’t want to pay for goods and services”
- Gabe Newell
Before a video is even over, they have to plaster the video window with MORE VIDEOS. "Here try this, what about this other thing, here have you considered this?"
My mind is always "I haven't even digested this one video and you're already PUSHING MORE!"
When my kids are over my shoulder on YouTube I'm constantly zooming in w/ Mac zoom to obscure the other videos, the other spam, etc.
Just learn to absorb and soak in one thing. And digest it for a moment.
It's all so obnoxious and it's now the norm.
FWIW, I only ever login in a fresh private window.
Specifically, I am almost always going to YT with the intention of watching something specific. It could be because I need to solve a problem (eg installing a smoke detector). I also for some reason use it to play music despite having Spotify. I honestly don't know why.
But I almost never go to YT to look for something to watch. I do sometimes watch a related video after I'm done but this wouldn't happen more than 10-15% of the time. I think I'm in the minority here as people seem to go on YT and just keep chaining videos.
But I find YT's interface to be a confusing mess of "me too" products that are half-assed and various likely fiefdoms that force UX onto things that don't make sense.
For example, YT's Live streams are, well, ass. The player is terrible. The UX is terrible. And you still have that right panel showing related videos. But watching Live videos is a vastly different UX than watching VODs. So why is it there? I suspect because whatever team owns that recommendation panel has a lot of power. And it probably drives metrics still so it's still there.
And bringing this back to YT Shorts. Ugh, I too would like to never see them. It's a "me too" Tiktok. And it's worse. Tiktok's UI/UX is just a step above Shorts (and Reels). And I spend 98% of my Tiktok time on my fyp.
But yes the "please watch another video" UI is everywhere. The end of a video, your home page, the right panel and in-video prompts/
But all of that shit should disappear the moment I start paying for it out of pocket. Like, I'm already paying, getting me to watch more videos costs them more money that it would to leave me the fuck alone!
High challenge = CS papers explained
Medium challenge = bridge engineering videos
Low challenge = some guy playing video games for you on YouTube
If they remove this, I will surely be done with YouTube. I was so desperate to disable shorts and ready to be done with the app, but then I learned that disabling watch history pretty much perfectly allows me to use the app how I want to.
This should be illegal..
Grrr.
I was willing to watch ads. But then Google introduced NEVER-ENDING ads, when the program is interrupted frequently and will never return unless you herd it along periodically by clicking Skip. Screw you, Google. I'm cooking, with my hands covered with who knows what, and now I can't watch the program.
Sorry - these companies have proven they're malicious even while you're paying them
(Except possibly Gmail. Facebook Verified is apparently a crock of shit, but Gmail MIGHT give you some account support more than people who don't pay)
> Click More next to the video title.
> Select Don't recommend channel .
[1]: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6342839?hl=en
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(#text.ytd-channel-name:is([title*="add ai slop channel name here"], [title*="more ai slop here"]))
freetube is another option that works on desktop and it lets you block a channel by name by adding it in the "distraction free" section of the settings. if youre on android theres also a version of freetube in the f-droid store that works ok enough, even thought the freetube UI is not really designed for mobile
obviously this only gets you so far. at some point there could be more slop than non-slop so it wont be possible to block them all, but so far im finding this useful for the few repeat offenders that keep showing up in the search results*
Google needs to get its shit together and give users power tools. YT hasn't improved materially for many years now. I hope they can snap out of whatever governance dysfunction they're in. Not sure whether increasing financial pressure (above what must, no doubt, build up on its own) is the right answer here. It will probably only lead to more enshittification, and a long, slow death and I'm pretty saddened by that thought.
In general, I like AI features and use AI daily to build prototypes, but this feature looks so stupid to me and feels so wrong. I have no problem with it being an option, but by default I just want to watch the videos with their original soundtracks. But instead YT decides that I should watch the videos with some mediocre AI translation...
Maybe I could disable it using an account, but I still prefer not to have one when it's not necessary.
I only watch Youtube via browser now for both adblocking and my own custom userscripts, both on my laptop and my phone. A couple creators I watch mostly do shorts so I tolerate them but I wrote a userscript that changes all /shorts/<videoid> URLs into normal /watch?v=<videoid> to lessen the temptation to doomscroll.
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.
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.
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
I actually stopped paying for premium to make YouTube less appealing.
It could be as simple as 2 buttons and a percentage bar right under the video, on the right, close to the dislike button that does nothing lol.
They do provide their own "lists", you do not have access to it :) That is the beauty of it, you cannot, neither can big techs so it lasts longer. So far, Brave filter is the only one able to block Shorts and a lot of crappy from YT. No filter will do that, or will get blocked very soon until a new one is released.
Everything is public, won't last!
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" :|
Is frustrating I have no control over it s as a paying user, same with hiding the blue checkmark
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).
I appreciate your comment though! Thanks :)
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.
can also hide other things
- Install Stylebot extension for your browser
- make an entry for youtube.com
- enter this css: .shortsLockupViewModelHost { display: none}
Bam, no more shorts.
Repo: https://github.com/openstyles/stylus
Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpe...
Firefox extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/styl-us/
I dont see youtube shorts, have no login to instagram or tiktok, and stopped using facebook years ago; only social media i frequent is twitter -- and once i view a video in the feed, it hijacks my attention by auto scrolling to a new video.
I burned a couple of evenings this way -- and I need to be more careful about this.
Blocktube is a godsend; it adds a context menu for blocking videos/channels, and you can block vids/channels/comments based on a regex or keywords (e.g. transparently remove every 'minecraft' or 'roblox' vid, or remove every comment with 'Telegram' in it). It even removes vids before the DOM rendering, so blocked vids don't show up as empty title cards or blank spaces.
Unhook lets you independently toggle visibility of the home feed, the rec sidebar, endscreen recs, comments, shorts, and the unrelated BS they ad to search results. (The latest YT update lets endscreen recs slip through again; be sure to add youtube.com##.html5-video-player.ended-mode .ytp-fullscreen-grid to your ublock filter to get rid of them again.)
Surprisingly YouTube still generates a feed for every channel's video page, so I just add channels to my RSS reader for updates instead of bothering with the increasingly flaky subscriptions page. (If they ever break this or yt-dlp I'm not even going to bother with YT in the future.)
Remember when Google exec Prabhakar Raghavan (the man who previously ran Yahoo search into the ground) made Google Search worse so they could serve more ads?
This is the YouTube philosophy; make the platform worse to drive 'engagement', completely ignoring the second and third order effects of their 'optimizations'. Want to search by upload date? Sorry, we removed that! Have some slop! Want to look for a video? Here's a bunch of unrelated bullshit instead - have you tried some slop? Also, have some ads.
The experience for creators is even worse. The recommendation algorithm and monetization policies change every month and YT conveniently gets to collect all the ad money if you've been demonitized. They're shoving a bajillion AI tools down creator's throats and even editing videos after they've been uploaded.
In the end, YouTube caters to advertisers. You're just the product.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a bot shoving slop in a human's face -- forever.
1. https://caleb-vincent.io/post/2025-10-01_youtube-filters/#ju...
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.
I would like one of these to block the community posts as well. I'm getting really tired of seeing screencaps of Twitter engagement bait from 8 years ago. There's one account that just won't go away, even now that I'm reporting it for spam when it comes up.
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.
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.
I mean, you can eat Doritos for dinner, and maybe you can convince yourself it's nutritionally sufficient, but it's still garbage.
I use YouTube Tweaks which has a lot of different customisation options. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/youtube-tweak...
Every Reddit mod post is cancer for example. So is every pinned post and automod. 99% of email. Any story about farting or buttholes or diarrhea or any other child joke about how you were unable to be in control of your butthole. I don’t want to hear it and every single day there it is. Any pro-terrorism post from jihadist groups like maga, posts from other nations pretending to be Americans, posts asking people to explain a loaded joke they understand but are trying to get more views on or spread the topic about. Any ai video any video about crypto any fake news.
There’s a lot of room for improvement. Even just detecting things like if a news article doesn’t actually contain information. It seems like we have a ton of areas we could be filtering out cancer a lot better.
I'm liking Apple's "Hide Distracting Items…" feature in Safari. Now if only everyone's audits could be shared, a consensus arrived at, then others could be spared having to spend time hiding-distracting-items themselves.
A kind of HTML shadow banning?
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.