I've used clickbait remover addon for more than a year now. I vastly prefer just a random screenshot as a thumbnail than those custom ones.
this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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Clickbait remover uses YouTube's auto generated ones, which while are seemingly random, are not. They use some algorithm to target faces in exaggerated expressions.
DeArrwow uses actually random ones (and then a user can submit specific timestamps if there is a better one). It's noticeable better on many channels imo
(I made DeArrow)
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Yeah, especially for some creators like veritasium where they play "musical thumbnails" and change it every few days for about a week or so. It's so annoying because I keep thinking it's a different video.
If you label your videos as click bait trash, I'll treat it like click bait trash and not watch it.
I'm not going to install software to correct and support your shit behavior.
For people wondering, the extension is also capable of changing clickbait title into a more descriptive one. You could also have a button toggle on each video to see the original title and thumbnail vs the changed one
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Thing is, I know I won't click the ones on the left. The ones on the right actually look interesting.
... Which means I'll be promoting writing clickbaity titles by clicking on the videos and I'm not sure how I feel about that
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Getting rid of "thumbnail face" is reason enough to use this add-on. Thanks for the recommendation!
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i would use this but some of the channels i watch the most number their thumbnails and dont do clickbait like this. if i could pick and choose per channel somehow it would be more helpful to me. i do agree with the sentiment though!
there's a whitelist!
You can do different settings per channel. So, you can allowlist channels, or even do the reverse, and only change titles/thumbnails on channels you don't like.
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Thank you for the link. It works great! Now I have the perfect YouTube with Ublock Origin + Sponsor Block + Dearrow + Return Youtube Dislike. It's crazy how many extensions you need to add to make YouTube bearable.... it's really time for a good competitor to take its place !
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this is brilliant!! thank you so much for creating this and also for giving us sponsorblock. you're the goat!!
Great idea! You can't really get away from the clickbait thumbnails. As others said even good channels are heavily incentivised to do it.
It is already really difficult to find the stuff that is actually worth watching on YouTube. If you boycotted all clickbait thumbnails you would miss out on some otherwise great creators.
I'd much rather take clickbait thumbnails and baked in ads though as I can get around them with extensions and there is still a worthwhile video behind them.
When creators start doing low effort content like reaction videos, unboxings/product first impressions, or product "showcases" (ads) is when I usually know a channel has outlived its usefulness and stop watching altogether.
Awesome idea and the feedback suggests it works well, too. Any plans to support Firefox on Android?