YouTube Liberation

Hi Product Hunt! We've all been there before. An innocuous YouTube link — maybe on social media, or shared by a friend. As we click, we tell ourselves: "Just one video to add a morsel of fun, awe, or knowledge to our day, then we'll get right back to work." Far too often, though, it's not just one video. An hour later, you're watching Daniel Negreanu's best poker reads, and you don't even know how to play poker. YouTube is an incredible place, home to lots of amazing resources and entertainment. It's also very well-designed to suck your attention in and keep it there. YouTube Liberation aims to punch back against this, block all the ways that YouTube distracts you without disturbing the core watching experience, so that you can enjoy everything that makes YouTube amazing without dreading the possibility of spiraling uncontrollably in. I first built this extension purely for myself, but it quickly became clear that some of my friends needed it more than me. A pretty sturdy version is on the Chrome Web Store now, so if you think this extension should be useful for you (or a friend), go ahead and try it out! If you have any thoughts or questions, I would love to hear them! Best, Samson Zhang