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Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

scrollguard.app

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Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#181

Post by herewulf »

keerthiko wrote: post #166
madamelic wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also not some "oopsie". It's almost certainly not news but these sites want these 'one more' behaviors. Years ago, I designed a minimalist YouTube player that removed video suggestions and autoplays but used their player, didn't evade ads, etc. I got banned by Google because they disallow any alternative site for YouTube, only embeds are allowed. Pretty sure I am still banned on all Google APIs too.

You should never expect to have rights to anyone's server API endpoints, esp outside of their TOS, which is basically what trying to build your own front-end independent of youtube.com is. However, with most browsers, you have all the rights to build extensions that hide divs and change styling and add new elements with data that's already loaded (as long as you're not calling API endpoints that aren't called by the…

Of course, now there are pages that detect if their elements or code are being manipulated by the browser (i.e.: Ad blocker detectors).

Thankfully, it's rare because people using ad blockers is apparently rare on the whole.

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#182

Post by herewulf »

mieubrisse wrote: post #150
madamelic wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also not some "oopsie". It's almost certainly not news but these sites want these 'one more' behaviors. Years ago, I designed a minimalist YouTube player that removed video suggestions and autoplays but used their player, didn't evade ads, etc. I got banned by Google because they disallow any alternative site for YouTube, only embeds are allowed. Pretty sure I am still banned on all Google APIs too.

In case you want that same functionality now, I use the following three extensions to tame Youtube dark patterns: - https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/df-utube-distractio... - https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/clickbait-remover-f... - https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/blocktube/bbeaicapb...

The irony of taming YouTube with Chrome.

I'm happy to see that BlockTube is available for Firefox at least. Thank you for sharing (all the recommendations).

Sent from my Firefox for Android.

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#183

Post by SchemaLoad »

lm28469 wrote: post #103
coffeecoders wrote: post #63

This is one of those things that should be unnecessary if we all had perfect self-control, but the reality is these apps are engineered explicitly to bypass that. It feels a bit silly to need guardrails for something as trivial as scrolling. Shameless personal plug: I wrote about it here. https://nabraj.com/blog/swipe-scroll-repeat-addiction/

> This is one of those things that should be unnecessary if we all had perfect self-control, It's like food, easier to have self control not to buy candies in the supermarket than to have self control at home when you know you have candies in the pantry. I haven't felt the need to watch a reel since I uninstalled IG, before that I ended up scrolling here and there, not much but enough to regret the lost time at the e…

Youtube is more problematic. I have it installed for music but you have to actively remember to not get sucked in to shorts. Feeling like legally they should be forced to split out shorts from the main app.

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#184

Post by akomtu »

Reels and Shorts derive their power from the fact that we pay higher attention to motion than to colors or shape. Blinking colors attract attention for the same reason. This observation makes it easy to neuter them: reduce framerate from 120 fps to 1 fps unless a touch is detected. This way scrolling will keep working as usual and videos can be watched if you keep pressing the screen, but the unwanted guests that abuse our attention will be left in the dust with 1 fps. Great for battery life too.

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#185

Post by madamelic »

dcsan wrote: post #163
madamelic wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also not some "oopsie". It's almost certainly not news but these sites want these 'one more' behaviors. Years ago, I designed a minimalist YouTube player that removed video suggestions and autoplays but used their player, didn't evade ads, etc. I got banned by Google because they disallow any alternative site for YouTube, only embeds are allowed. Pretty sure I am still banned on all Google APIs too.

Were you using their embedded player or some other method to play the raw streams? The embed links back to YT which is a major part of why they provide it for off-platform playback. But if they somehow singled you out for overuse of the embed that seems rather arbitrary

Yep! I was using their embedded player. I thought I was doing everything right but didn't read the ToS because in my mind, ToS is just blocking silly things like "please don't use our product to build nuclear weapons", not "please don't use our product to play videos on another site".

Struck me as very anti-user and BigCorpo.

It was the project that solidified never building on someone else's 'lawn' again.

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#186

Post by dijit »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #183
lm28469 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is one of those things that should be unnecessary if we all had perfect self-control, It's like food, easier to have self control not to buy candies in the supermarket than to have self control at home when you know you have candies in the pantry. I haven't felt the need to watch a reel since I uninstalled IG, before that I ended up scrolling here and there, not much but enough to regret the lost time at the e…

Youtube is more problematic. I have it installed for music but you have to actively remember to not get sucked in to shorts. Feeling like legally they should be forced to split out shorts from the main app.

I constantly find myself telling youtube that I'm not interested in shorts.

However on the App there's no way to do this.

The whole situation is so user-hostile that I'm actively seeking to move somewhere else.

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#187

Post by coffeecoders »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #183
lm28469 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is one of those things that should be unnecessary if we all had perfect self-control, It's like food, easier to have self control not to buy candies in the supermarket than to have self control at home when you know you have candies in the pantry. I haven't felt the need to watch a reel since I uninstalled IG, before that I ended up scrolling here and there, not much but enough to regret the lost time at the e…

Youtube is more problematic. I have it installed for music but you have to actively remember to not get sucked in to shorts. Feeling like legally they should be forced to split out shorts from the main app.

There is Youtube music (a separate app) just for that!

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#189

Post by [deleted] »

coffeecoders wrote: post #63

This is one of those things that should be unnecessary if we all had perfect self-control, but the reality is these apps are engineered explicitly to bypass that. It feels a bit silly to need guardrails for something as trivial as scrolling. Shameless personal plug: I wrote about it here. https://nabraj.com/blog/swipe-scroll-repeat-addiction/

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#190

Post by latexr »

coffeecoders wrote: post #63

This is one of those things that should be unnecessary if we all had perfect self-control, but the reality is these apps are engineered explicitly to bypass that. It feels a bit silly to need guardrails for something as trivial as scrolling. Shameless personal plug: I wrote about it here. https://nabraj.com/blog/swipe-scroll-repeat-addiction/

> This is one of those things that should be unnecessary if we all had perfect self-control

Or if the platform owners had a minimum of scruples or empathy for their fellow human beings, instead of being disgusting money-hungry goblins concerned solely with their own personal wealth.

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