Amazing! I can finally redownload the youtube app instead of using a userscript in my mobile browser

Hasn't rolled out everywhere yet, for the record.

Nice! I wonder if it has anything to do with the lawsuit where the verdict was that meta and google designed addictive products.

Now hopefully we'll see it in YouTube music as well.

>YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts

No it doesn't. If you were hoping it would mean you don't see shorts when you visit the Youtube home page, that's not what this is. I just tried the thing mentioned in the article-- set my Shorts time limit to 0 minutes. What it does is make it so if you click a short from somewhere the short plays, but then if you try to swipe to the next one it hits you with the "You reached your short limit". If you then return to the home page you still see Shorts.

finally.

Now make it easy to block a channel like you used to too. Before you could just go to the channel, click on some menu to block one entirely, now the hoops one has to go through to hide a channel are insane, I do not understand these companies, it's like they want to force me to watch some crap I have no interest in...

Glad, these companies are starting to get held legally responsible for the content they serve in civil courts...

Just use uBlock origin and this filter: https://github.com/i5heu/ublock-hide-yt-shorts

I removed the YT app from my phone because of all the addicting/simulating UX and hooking content. It was eating up my quiet/thinking time, and led to brainfog and brainrot. And then, the blame is being put on me as the user who has self control issues. I found that very twisted. Some responsiblity is mine, sure. But having an army of PMs and engineers whose only job is to keep users on the platform, longer and more "engaged", is a loosing battle for one person to fight.

Maybe the app can be given a retry if they have gotten away from the hooking/baiting at the product level.

IG/Tiktok already exist out there and I stay away from them. YT was a platform for me to learn and engage deeply. Shorts just ruined that experience for me.

Youtube (excuse me??? powered by Google?) has ruined their search for years and I'm convinced the Shorts don't help it

Nobody likes them, or Mixes. Stop it

It would be so cruel had the feature been only made available on premium accounts. But good it’s not (I guess so).

I think it's funny that nearly all videos on Youtube used to be short. Then Youtube pressured creators to make longer and longer content for ad revenue purposes.

Now they're forcing creators to pump out shorts.

I use the "Unhook" Firefox extension to customize the YouTube page. You can hide shorts, comments, recommendations, the home page feed, and more.

https://unhook.app/

We wish. But it's not true.

Approximately one in every hundred shorts consist of something good that isn't also in a video somewhere. Is there a script to force shorts to be presented in the same way as videos, so that the recommendation algorithm can be forced to appropriately and natively mix in the one or two shorts that I'd appreciate seeing with the video recommendations?

Before I quit YouTube, this was my setup.

Brave Shields[1] - Adblock

SponsorBlock[2] - Crowd-sourced skip sponsored segments

DeArrow[3] - Make thumbnails not clickbait

UnTrap[4] - Remove shorts and make UI amazing.

Return Youtube Dislike[5]

I deleted my Google account and now occasionally use Invidious with LibRedirect[6] to watch YT videos. Importing subscriptions into Invidious was a helpful stepping stone.

[1] https://brave.com [2] https://sponsor.ajay.app [3] https://dearrow.ajay.app [4] https://untrap.app [5] https://www.returnyoutubedislike.com [6] https://libredirect.github.io/

I find short form content really addictive. It’s so easy for me to lose half an hour to it, and at the end just feel like I’ve wasted my time.

Lacking better options I’ve turned on parental controls on my phone to block YouTube, and installed an extension to remove shorts from the site on my laptop.

I wish sites provided more real options.

If they were actually serious, they would add an option in the Family Link app to set time limit for shorts for children.

I just wish I could pretend shorts were regular videos that happened to have a weird aspect ratio. There are extensions that switch the player automatically (and you can do it by editing the url) but that doesn't change how they appear in the subscriptions feed (i.e. an annoying carousel that hides all the information you need to decide whether you want to click or not)

I’ve never once told YouTube I wanted Playables and declined, yet tracked every time I was asked for over a year:

March 19, 2025 - 8:31 PM

April 9 - 4:09 PM

April 24 - 8 AM

May 9 - 5:33 PM

May 20 - 2:07 PM

June 8 - 5:10 PM

July 9 - 6:59 PM

August 9 - 5:14 PM

September 8 - 8:45 PM

November 9 - 8:47 PM

December 9 - 8:48 PM

Jan 8, 2026 - 9:28 PM

Feb 7 — 11:11 PM

March 10 - 9:18 PM

April 10 - 1:10 AM

I’ve also noticed “Auto play next video” once a year or so automatically enabled. Shorts also come up regardless of dismissal though less so than Playables.

I think there used to be a ublock filter to hide ytshorts but I haven't used youtube in a while at this so I can't be sure I'm not imagining it.

This is obviously not helpful if you use a smartTV or the app, in which case I would recommend using one of the third party apps like newpipe or whatever the smarttv 3p app is called

I wouldn't have a a problem with shorts, in fact I definitely want to watch any videos from people I'm subscribed to be it short or otherwise. But core features are missing from shorts, like it doesnt even say what channel each short is from. So I've had a ublock filter for them forever.

Right. Just like they let you turn off those stupid games that keep popping up no matter how many times you tell them you're not interested.

What I want to get rid of is all the "Mix" videos. I never look at them, I have zero interest in watching a stream of stuff chained together by an algorithm or whatever. But, unlike single videos, under the three dots there's no option "Not interested" or "Don't recommend". I can't get rid of them.

Instagram needs to do this for Reels, too. I got quite addicted to these short-form videos during the pandemic and after I finished college things went immediately downhill once a lot of my mental activity could be somewhat "deferred". I could make up for the productivity hit by crunching but my life would be better without them. I remove things from my phone or put services into Pi-Hole but eventually I capitulate. Something about having the option to remove the most addicting parts of a service but not cutting yourself off completely has more success.

The only reason they would do this is because some kind of research determined it would yield higher revenue.

Upvoting because Shorts are terrible. Flagging because the submission title - which is 100% faithful to the friendly article - is a complete lie!

Plug: I added a bunch of features to Control Panel for YouTube [1] which let you either hide Shorts completely, everywhere (which is the default) or take more control of how you use them if you do (e.g. redirecting to the normal video player)

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

Also annoying is how if you hover your mouse over a thumbnail on the homepage, it autoplays and then counts as part of your history.