Show HN: Two uBlock Origin rules to improve your Twitch experience

#1

Post by Kyrio » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

It might come down to taste, but I feel like a lot of the "features" Twitch has been adding have cluttered the interface while offering little of value for someone like me who just watches streams occasionally and isn't closely involved in community events.

But most importantly, I'm bothered by the non-dismissable popups that now appear over the video feed. They seem to be for extensions, but what features they provide evades me.

These two uBlock Origin rules (which you can add in the My Filters tab) will remove the main two modals that can pop up over the video:

  www.twitch.tv##.extensions-dock-card
  ext-twitch.tv##.prime-extension-root

Additionally, you may want to get back a chat frame without a leaderboard header:

  www.twitch.tv##.channel-leaderboard

Twitch generates random class names, possibly to prevent your blocking some elements, so I tried to find the topmost classes. I hope that's useful to some.

Re: Show HN: Two uBlock Origin rules to improve your Twitch experience

#2

Post by scottlilly » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

I added this, to get rid of the carousel of channels they're currently promoting.

twitch.tv##.front-page-carousel

Re: Show HN: Two uBlock Origin rules to improve your Twitch experience

#3

Post by austhrow743 » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

If you just want to watch videos you can also stream straight to a video player.

I think there’s also an application designed to let you find your streams to do so without visiting the twitch website although I haven’t used that.

Re: Show HN: Two uBlock Origin rules to improve your Twitch experience

#4

Post by remram » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:48 AM UTC

scottlilly wrote: post #2

I added this, to get rid of the carousel of channels they're currently promoting. twitch.tv##.front-page-carousel

The one with auto-playing videos? Nice. Now Firefox blocks the auto-playing sound, but for a while this really was maddening.

Re: Show HN: Two uBlock Origin rules to improve your Twitch experience

#5

Post by mikewhy » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 3:10 AM UTC

> Twitch generates random class names, possibly to prevent your blocking some elements, so I tried to find the topmost classes.

I don't use Twitch, so I'm not sure what these rules are blocking, but if there's any bit of consistent text in the elements these are targeting, you can do something like

    twitch.tv##div:has-text(Text To Block):xpath(../..)

There may be ways around this, ie here's the lengths Facebook go to write the word "Sponsored":

Re: Show HN: Two uBlock Origin rules to improve your Twitch experience

#6

Post by wlesieutre » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 3:57 AM UTC

mikewhy wrote: post #5

> Twitch generates random class names, possibly to prevent your blocking some elements, so I tried to find the topmost classes. I don't use Twitch, so I'm not sure what these rules are blocking, but if there's any bit of consistent text in the elements these are targeting, you can do something like twitch.tv##div:has-text(Text To Block):xpath(../..) There may be ways around this, ie here's the lengths Facebook go to…

I bet screen readers love that

Re: Show HN: Two uBlock Origin rules to improve your Twitch experience

#7

Post by aaomidi » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #6

mikewhy wrote: post #5

> Twitch generates random class names, possibly to prevent your blocking some elements, so I tried to find the topmost classes. I don't use Twitch, so I'm not sure what these rules are blocking, but if there's any bit of consistent text in the elements these are targeting, you can do something like twitch.tv##div:has-text(Text To Block):xpath(../..) There may be ways around this, ie here's the lengths Facebook go to…

I bet screen readers love that

Hmm if it's actually impacting screen readers this is an ADA violation probably.

Re: Show HN: Two uBlock Origin rules to improve your Twitch experience

#8

Post by qwerpy » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 5:32 AM UTC

mikewhy wrote: post #5

> Twitch generates random class names, possibly to prevent your blocking some elements, so I tried to find the topmost classes. I don't use Twitch, so I'm not sure what these rules are blocking, but if there's any bit of consistent text in the elements these are targeting, you can do something like twitch.tv##div:has-text(Text To Block):xpath(../..) There may be ways around this, ie here's the lengths Facebook go to…

Last time I took a peek at it, they were changing up the order of the letters in “Sponsored” in the HTML and using some front end shenanigans to reposition the letters to spell out the word. Pretty devious, but I do wish we were spending mankind’s geniuses on this kind of thing.

Re: Show HN: Two uBlock Origin rules to improve your Twitch experience

#9

Post by chii » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 8:12 AM UTC

There's an extension called https://betterttv.com/ which fixes these (you can turn off these drops and popups via the settings), and add plenty more to twitch. If you're not a casual twitch viewer, the extension is a must imho.

Re: Show HN: Two uBlock Origin rules to improve your Twitch experience

#10

Post by mikewhy » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

aaomidi wrote: post #7

wlesieutre wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet screen readers love that

Hmm if it's actually impacting screen readers this is an ADA violation probably.

Looking back at my adblock rules[1], FB used to use `aria-label=Sponsored`. Seems they stopped doing that, most likely because it was crazy simple to target and remove.

[1]: https://github.com/mikew/adblock-rules/blob/ed8f0b0511d66c44...