Undistractionate YouTube

25 February 2022 – Written by Valentin Huber – in random

One thing I’ve done in the past is use a combination of hacks to hide certain distractions in YouTube to prevent me from falling down rabbit holes. Requirements (this is personal and might be different for you!):

This allows me to watch what I intend to watch (read: subscriptions), search for specific videos and watch videos I get a link for. Remember: I don’t want to block YouTube, I want to block the parts of YouTube that cost me all my precious time.

Working solution for iOS as of Feb 2022

precursor: I don’t use the iOS YouTube app to be able to use an AdBlocker. This only works when using Safari and the YouTube website.

Using HyperWeb, I use a custom AdBlock rule to hide recommendations, and some custom JavaScript to do the redirection. In the app, navigate to “Popular” > “Blocker” > “Local”, and add this link. Under “Popular” > “Custom Scripts” > “Local”, add this link.

There might also be other apps that allow you to do similar things, I know of several other AdBlockers that allow you to provide custom block lists.

This most definitely isn’t the most efficient or best solution. But it works for me.

Further Solutions

The custom AdBlock block list is taken from a GitHub repository of a Mac App Store App. I haven’t tested this, but if you want to try it, feel free.

I’ve created a custom block list to deal with similar issues in Instagram and written about it.