alt.hn

2/14/2026 at 5:36:45 PM

uBlock filter list to hide all YouTube Shorts

 https://github.com/i5heu/ublock-hide-yt-shorts/

by i5heu

2/14/2026 at 10:18:13 PM

I’m paying over 40 dollars a month for YouTube but it doesn’t allow me to choose almost anything of what I see, despite trying hard to fine-tune my recommendations.

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.

by phony-account

2/14/2026 at 10:32:41 PM

YT is desperate for me to engage with rage bait news, and I’m not biting.

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.

by testfrequency

2/14/2026 at 10:38:38 PM

If you pay for youtube, you are part of the problem

by mog_dev

2/14/2026 at 7:30:33 PM

I’m sure I’ve clicked “show fewer shorts” every single time it’s shown me shorts. It seems to make zero difference.

by marcosscriven

2/14/2026 at 7:59:23 PM

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.

by hightrix

2/14/2026 at 10:04:22 PM

I feel like they don't use those signals, just time spent...and you spend more time fishing for the 'not interested' button

by SubiculumCode

2/14/2026 at 10:23:23 PM

It's the same in tiktok: there's literally a button that says “I'm not interested in any live videos”, but it keeps inserting livestreams into the feed anyway.

by cwillu

2/14/2026 at 7:56:00 PM

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.

by dijit

2/14/2026 at 10:00:39 PM

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.

by shermantanktop

2/14/2026 at 9:43:01 PM

That’s like the crosswalk button that does nothing. It’s there purely for the placebo effect.

by temporallobe

2/14/2026 at 10:47:46 PM

See also: call elevator to your floor buttons

by bookofjoe

2/14/2026 at 8:07:22 PM

For me, clicking that hides shorts for 30 days and then I need to click it again. So it's a monthly ritual.

by Strom

2/14/2026 at 9:43:21 PM

It used to be that they were gone for a month. Now they're gone for a day. Possibly less.

by mcv

2/14/2026 at 9:42:28 PM

It's like pressing the "close door" button on an elevator.

by NewsaHackO

2/14/2026 at 9:51:18 PM

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.

by fhub

2/14/2026 at 10:03:34 PM 

  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.

by atoav

2/14/2026 at 8:04:30 PM

Short form video is addictive, so they want to push it. It maximizes time on site.

by api

2/14/2026 at 10:04:18 PM

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.

by derektank

2/14/2026 at 10:07:28 PM

they don't want you to realise that you're not watching it much and cancel your subscription

by zem

2/14/2026 at 8:25:10 PM

Clearly that is useless for people who browse YT anonymously, hence the usefulness of the list.

by drnick1

2/14/2026 at 10:08:04 PM

The whole YT front page is an absolute utter clusterfook.

by lofaszvanitt

2/14/2026 at 7:39:46 PM

[flagged]

by halyconWays

2/14/2026 at 7:56:48 PM

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?

by ncr100

2/14/2026 at 8:24:37 PM

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.

by i5heu

2/14/2026 at 7:30:32 PM

Unhook[1] has been my go-to for this. Gives full customization over shorts, recommendations, comments, etc.

1a: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-recom...

1b: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/unhook-remove-youtu...

by liquidise

2/14/2026 at 8:35:05 PM

Sadly, it hasn't been updated since 2024 and is slowly breaking. Haven't found a good replacement yet.

by Vingdoloras

2/14/2026 at 10:29:49 PM

I keep Control Panel for YouTube [1] up to date with the latest YouTube shenanigans. Most recently: restoring the Related sidebar layout with the giant thumbs, if you're not hiding them.

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 ;_;

[1] https://soitis.dev/control-panel-for-youtube

by insin

2/14/2026 at 10:42:35 PM

YouTube killing he sort by upload date made me furious.

I feel like the only fight back is boycotting.

by chrsw

2/14/2026 at 8:37:27 PM

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.

by awfulneutral

2/14/2026 at 10:02:47 PM

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.

1: https://dearrow.ajay.app/

by zanehelton

2/14/2026 at 8:46:43 PM

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.

by freehorse

2/14/2026 at 8:55:21 PM

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..

by stefan_

2/14/2026 at 9:32:54 PM

You should check out dearrow as well. Gets rid of clickbait titles and thumbnails

by malfist

2/14/2026 at 8:28:05 PM

I clicked comments to say the same thing. Can recommend

by henning

2/14/2026 at 8:51:38 PM

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.

by freehorse

2/14/2026 at 9:07:59 PM

I wrote this little quick and dirty userscript for myself sometime back:

  // ==UserScript==
  // @name No Shorts
  // @match https://www.youtube.com/shorts/*
  // @match https://www.facebook.com/reel/*
  // ==/UserScript==
  window.document.body.innerHTML = ''
This isn't as comprehensive as the uBlock filter but it has worked pretty well for me so far.

by susam

2/14/2026 at 9:56:56 PM

I can confirm this works great, you are back to a mid 2010s kind of homescreen without any of the modern cellphone format crap.

by drnick1

2/14/2026 at 10:43:38 PM

Shorts seem good to me, but only when watched at 3x

by nmaleki

2/14/2026 at 9:47:31 PM

I use Brave to watch YouTube. I was pleasantly surprised that they had so many YouTube related features, blocking shorts is one of them.

by jbjbjbjb

2/14/2026 at 10:13:33 PM

Same. One I want though is for it to remember to not auto-preview videos. YouTube refuses to remember this setting.

by jahnu

2/14/2026 at 9:35:00 PM

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).

by nomilk

2/14/2026 at 7:53:42 PM

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)

by autoexec

2/14/2026 at 8:23:19 PM

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.

by Brian_K_White

2/14/2026 at 7:53:01 PM

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.

by iainctduncan

2/14/2026 at 8:00:23 PM

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.

by Hoodedcrow

2/14/2026 at 8:43:06 PM

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.

by 65

2/14/2026 at 10:17:00 PM

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.

by eek2121

2/14/2026 at 7:30:37 PM

Is this really working on ALL shorts?

And if I click on the panel "no more shorts", is this setting then applied continuously?

by KellyCriterion

2/14/2026 at 8:01:34 PM

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

by revolvingthrow

2/14/2026 at 8:32:43 PM

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.

by PaulDavisThe1st

2/14/2026 at 10:06:04 PM

Just take the next step and stop going to youtube entirely, and pull the video from the url.

by asdff

2/14/2026 at 8:15:02 PM

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.

by b00ty4breakfast

2/14/2026 at 8:20:59 PM

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.

by digiown

2/14/2026 at 8:35:46 PM

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.

by Tade0

2/14/2026 at 8:42:05 PM

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.

by digiown

2/14/2026 at 8:50:04 PM

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.

by n4bz0r

2/14/2026 at 8:57:23 PM

> 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.

by freehorse

2/14/2026 at 9:09:39 PM

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.

by n4bz0r

2/14/2026 at 9:23:52 PM

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.

by janderson215

2/14/2026 at 10:28:17 PM

> One day, you will be weak and fall prey.

I really dislike statements like this. It's not cocaine.

by Dylan16807

2/14/2026 at 9:24:36 PM

For me, it is about addictiveness. Otherwise, if they were just "bad recommendations", I would probably just ignore them.

by freehorse

2/14/2026 at 9:20:32 PM

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.

by zeta0134

2/14/2026 at 9:03:45 PM

Blocktube extension does this with just a checkmark

can also hide other things

by ErrorNoBrain

2/14/2026 at 9:39:46 PM

Canceled YouTube subscription and deleted the app. Don't miss it, surprisingly.

by inv

2/14/2026 at 7:22:08 PM

Just pause watch history and it will disable shorts recommendation. The only shorts you will see will be from your subscribed channels.

by quaintdev

2/14/2026 at 7:24:47 PM

I've always had watch history off, but my searches now return a couple of pages of short form nonsense, before my actual results.

by jarvist

2/14/2026 at 7:28:35 PM

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.

by malfist

2/14/2026 at 10:07:01 PM

It is better to use google to search youtube via site:youtube.com operator.

by asdff

2/14/2026 at 7:31:26 PM

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.

by daveguy

2/14/2026 at 7:58:07 PM

You've got to permanently block 1000s of "popular" channels. Then youtube starts working like it did in 2006 again.

by themafia

2/14/2026 at 8:14:49 PM

NEVER worked for me. I have always shorts shoved in every possible page, device and results, and I have watch history off since forever.

by subscribed

2/14/2026 at 10:16:51 PM

I have so many freakin' rules in ublock just to make youtube's UI acceptable

by everyone

2/14/2026 at 8:41:26 PM

Wish we could use this as a proxy for phones that connect to internet !

by sciencesama

2/14/2026 at 7:14:37 PM

Finally, tired of creating this custom filter in all my devices lol. I wish it would all automatically apply the "videos" filter as well.

by papichulo2023

2/14/2026 at 9:02:26 PM

was able to get these added to ublock origin lite, which works in chrome; just paste the content directly into the custom filter settings.

by tobiasdorge

2/14/2026 at 8:27:45 PM

Anyone have any similar uBlock filter lists like this?

by chaps

2/14/2026 at 10:26:24 PM

I'm also looking for a blocklist for X/Twitter that can remove the "who to follow", News sections, etc.

by thoughtjunkie

2/14/2026 at 7:45:53 PM

I’ve been using brave on mobile and it seems to work pretty well!

by danny_codes

2/14/2026 at 7:30:55 PM

I love you!

by OrvalWintermute

2/14/2026 at 8:45:44 PM

is there a supply chain attack possible? What if some time later this list gets updated?

by bkjlblh

2/14/2026 at 8:52:32 PM

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.

by i5heu

2/14/2026 at 9:04:51 PM

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.

by charcircuit

2/14/2026 at 9:43:34 PM

I really don't mind shorts, but I want to be the one that chooses to watch them.

by platevoltage

2/14/2026 at 8:35:24 PM

is there anything that might work for the YT app on the Android?

by _cs2017_

2/14/2026 at 8:14:23 PM

I read this as "The default uBlock filter list will change to hide all YouTube Shorts".

by larsmaxfield

2/14/2026 at 8:25:12 PM

Don't know why you're downvoted. It's exactly a 50/50 likely way to parse it.

by Brian_K_White

2/14/2026 at 7:37:58 PM

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" :|

by modzu

2/14/2026 at 10:09:05 PM

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.

by asdff

2/14/2026 at 7:52:14 PM

Still using ublock. Recently there's a delay starting vid sometimes, about 3 sec. I can deal with it.

by chickensong

2/14/2026 at 8:08:26 PM

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.

by fc417fc802

2/14/2026 at 7:50:51 PM

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.

by flakes

2/14/2026 at 7:50:05 PM

Works fine for me, FF Win11

by hahn-kev

2/14/2026 at 7:43:51 PM

Premium

by carlosjobim

2/14/2026 at 10:15:25 PM

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.

by paulpauper

2/14/2026 at 9:18:21 PM

[dead]

by throwaway613746

2/14/2026 at 7:15:35 PM

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.

by RicoElectrico

2/14/2026 at 7:47:29 PM

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.

by pigggg

2/14/2026 at 7:36:08 PM

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.

by ssl-3

2/14/2026 at 7:46:47 PM

I reject addiction-designs on principle.

by danny_codes

2/14/2026 at 8:38:33 PM

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?

by Brian_K_White

2/14/2026 at 8:03:04 PM

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).

by hollerith

2/14/2026 at 7:21:18 PM

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.

by 7734128

2/14/2026 at 8:10:44 PM

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.

by fc417fc802

2/14/2026 at 7:23:28 PM

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.

I use YouTube Tweaks which has a lot of different customisation options. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/youtube-tweak...

by StrangeSound

2/14/2026 at 8:00:03 PM

It's a cesspool of ripped off videos, AI generated slop, and people doing a really jazzy reading of a wikipedia article.

I mean, you can eat Doritos for dinner, and maybe you can convince yourself it's nutritionally sufficient, but it's still garbage.

by themafia