Best browser extensions for YouTube

SponsorBlock rests on a simple idea: people who watch a video can mark where the sponsor read starts and ends, and everyone else's player skips it. Volunteers submit segments from inside the extension, other users vote on them, and the extension jumps past the good ones. It is made by Ajay Ramachandran, and the code and the whole segment database are public.

Sponsors are the headline, but the extension also skips other categories, such as intros, outros and reminders to subscribe, and can jump straight to the highlight of a video. The project describes its server lookups as a privacy-preserving query system, and the extension supports Invidious as well as YouTube.

The weak spot is coverage. A small channel's upload may have no segments yet, and the crowd can be wrong. On Safari you pay for a separate app. The project suggests running it alongside YouTube Premium and uBlock Origin, since it only skips segments baked into videos. For almost anyone who watches sponsored content, this is the first YouTube extension to install.

In late 2021 YouTube hid public dislike counts and removed them from its API. Return YouTube Dislike puts a number back. It is free, open source and has millions of users. Its main use is as a quality filter: a poor ratio on a how-to video is a useful warning.

The number is not YouTube's own. The project says its backend combines archived dislike data from before the change with votes cast by extension users, and for newer videos scales the ratio of those votes to YouTube's public like count. Its Chrome listing says popular videos get better estimates than obscure ones. Recent versions add RYD comments for videos where YouTube comments are off. Counts remain free, but some optional features need a paid Patreon tier or eligible GitHub access.

Privacy is the trade-off. To fetch a count the extension sends the video ID to the project's server, along with your IP address, which the project says it stores only as a hash. A random ID is created the first time you vote. Its Chrome rating, 2.5 from 19,900 ratings, is low next to the other picks here. Treat the figure as a hint, not a verdict. It is available for Chrome and Firefox, not Safari.

DeArrow is the clickbait filter from the creator of SponsorBlock. Titles in capital letters, arrows, shocked faces and vague teasers are replaced with something closer to what the video contains. The project says its goal is accurate titles and less sensationalism.

It works the same way SponsorBlock does. Users submit alternative titles, and thumbnails that are screenshots from a chosen timestamp, and others vote. Where nobody has submitted anything, DeArrow applies your chosen fallback: it can reformat the original title and use a frame from a random point in the video that is not a sponsor segment, or it can keep the original thumbnail. A Show original button lets you check what was changed.

The extension is free to use. Its payment page asks for a one-time $1 licence key to fund development, and a button lets you carry on without paying. Safari runs as a separate paid app. It has fewer users than SponsorBlock, so some videos have no submissions and fall back to the automatic formatting. If you want a calmer home page, this is the tool for it, and SponsorBlock pairs well.

Enhancer for YouTube is one of the oldest tools of its kind, from an independent developer who publishes as Max RF. It has over a million installs on Chrome and about 600,000 on Firefox, where Mozilla marks it Recommended. The pitch is straightforward: YouTube's player has few settings, so this adds them.

The core is playback. You can set a default speed and change it with the mouse wheel, from 0.07x to 16x, lock a preferred quality, boost volume and bass, and turn off 60fps formats. It adds cinema mode, a wide and mini player, a pop-up player, video filters, screenshots, custom themes and keyboard shortcuts. It can also hide end screens, comments, chat, Shorts and recommendations.

Two cautions. It is closed source under a proprietary licence, so unlike the three crowdsourced tools above you rely on the developer's word. Its history has a rough patch: in October 2023 the developer withdrew the Firefox listing, saying YouTube's changes had broken it, and it is listed again with a 2026 update. We found no paid tier or in-app purchase on its store listings. It suits people who watch a lot of YouTube and want the player tuned to their taste.

Improve YouTube!, also called ImprovedTube, is a volunteer project run by a group called code-charity, which says it has been making YouTube extensions since 2012. It is free, the code is public on GitHub and its Chrome listing is Featured. Think of it as a very large settings page for YouTube.

The options cover playback, layout and content. You can fix the playback speed, lock video quality, disable autoplay and up-next, auto-pause when you leave the tab, and use auto picture-in-picture. For layout, it can hide distractions, resize the player, show the description and transcript and set sidebar behaviour. It also adds keyboard shortcuts and video filters. It runs locally, and its privacy policy says it does not log what you watch, though the Chrome version counts feature use anonymously with Google Analytics.

There are a few things to know. The code is public but sits under a custom licence that mixes AGPL for contributions with the project's own terms, so we do not count it as standard open source. The large option list takes time to explore. It suits people who like to tweak, and it is the best free alternative to Enhancer for YouTube.

Control Panel for YouTube is the answer to a specific frustration: YouTube keeps adding things nobody asked for. This extension, by Jonny Buchanan, adds the missing switches. It is a long list of toggles, mostly for removing things.

The list is the point. It can hide Shorts or redirect them to the normal player, hide AI summaries, Premium upsells, information panels, comments, related videos and watched videos. It can hide channels you never want to see, disable autoplay and the home feed, and includes options that undo recent design changes, such as the new player controls. The developer adds options when YouTube rolls out something new. Its Firefox listing is Recommended, and the latest Chrome release was 17 October 2026.

It is not open source: the code is public on GitHub, but the Firefox licence is All Rights Reserved. The Safari version is a paid app, while Chrome, Firefox and Edge are free. Some options note that they will stop working when YouTube removes the old interface. It does not change playback speed or audio, so pair it with Enhancer or Improve YouTube if you want those. Choose this if your problem is clutter.

Unhook makes YouTube a tool again. You can still search and watch what you came for, but the feed that pulls you onward is gone. From a small popup you can hide the home feed, related videos, Shorts, end-screen suggestions, comments, the trending tab, live chat and playlists, and turn off autoplay and annotations.

Each option is its own switch, so you decide how bare YouTube should look. It works on desktop, on mobile YouTube through Firefox for Android, and on embedded videos. Unhook is free, and the Chrome store label says the developer does not collect or use your data. On Firefox it asks for access to YouTube only, not to all websites.

The privacy policy says the extension keeps data in local browser storage and transmits nothing, while the website uses Google Analytics. The code is closed, so we cannot check that claim against source. We could not confirm a Safari version. Updates are slower than for some picks here, and because YouTube changes its page often, a few settings may break until an update lands. If you want feeds removed on other sites too, pair it with News Feed Eradicator.