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uBlock Origin tutorial - filter out useless crap from YouTube and find those obscure tornado videos!

TH2002

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Figured I'd put together this little tutorial on how I use uBlock Origin to help me find obscure tornado videos on YouTube. As pretty much anyone knows, these days YouTube is largely a cesspool of useless content, and the search 'feature' pulls up this crap more often than videos relevant to what you actually searched for.

The sad truth is that YouTube WILL eventually become completely useless in general, but until that happens we can make our experience with it a bit less painful.

Note that I have only done this on desktop, I don't know if there is any way to get this working on iOS and Android browsers. Anyways:
1. Install uBlock Origin.
For Chrome and Chromium based browsers: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en
For Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
For Pale Moon and other Goanna based browsers: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock-f....16.4.30/uBlock0_1.16.4.30.firefox-legacy.xpi
Unfortunately, the extension is NOT available for Safari.

As a plus, uBlock Origin will also block the ads that YouTube is completely infested with these days - the site is literally unusable without an ad blocker now. Although, some people tolerate seeing ads on certain sites to financially support them, and if you're one of those people you can click the power button icon in uBlock when browsed to TalkWeather to allow ads here, if you so desire.

2. Head over to letsblock.it, this is where you can create the customized filters for uBlock Origin. The ones I find the most useful are Hide YouTube shorts, Hide YouTube videos by title and Hide YouTube videos by channel, the one I will go into more detail in.

3. This is where the magic happens! The way YouTube channels have their URLs set up is like this: youtube.com/@[channel-name]
For example, we can see that the Associated Press uses @AssociatedPress in its channel URL. To block the channel type AssociatedPress in the 'Channels to filter out' text box. You can click the green plus icon to add as many channels as you want to the blocklist, and letsblock will generate the code for you. When finished, click 'Copy this to your uBlock filters' or simply select all of the code and CTRL+C.

4. Go to your uBlock Origin dashboard (click on the uBlock Origin icon in the upper right corner of your browser, then the icon with the gears on it) and go to the 'My filters' tab. Paste the code you copied into the filter list and click 'Apply changes'.

5. That's it! You can update your filter list as many times as you wish to filter out all the useless crap clogging up your homepage and search results. Regarding the search feature in particular, all videos previously buried by mainstream media outlets and clickbait trash will become much easier to find.

Now, go and find some of that obscure tornado footage!
 

WesL

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Dude, this is great. There is so much crap out there now. Is there a way to share a block list? Personally, I can't wait for the AI-generated Tornados to show up... oh wait.. Twisters is coming out soon ;)

Blown Away Wow GIF by Aminé
 

Sawmaster

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Maybe a 'copy and paste' from a file-sharing site like Google Drive etc?

I don't do deep research on YT but for just-happened events I do use the time-based filters in the menus. I remember the old days when you could use boolean language to find exactly what you were looking for but they've long since nailed that door shut in the name of "progress" :rolleyes:
 

TH2002

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Dude, this is great. There is so much crap out there now. Is there a way to share a block list? Personally, I can't wait for the AI-generated Tornados to show up... oh wait.. Twisters is coming out soon ;)

Blown Away Wow GIF by Aminé
Sure. Here's the one I am using to remove mainstream media outlets, may have missed a couple but I think I got most of them. Update to your liking!

Code:
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(a[href$="CNN"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(a[href$="CNN"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-channel-renderer:has(a[href$="CNN"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(a[href$="ABCNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(a[href$="ABCNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-channel-renderer:has(a[href$="ABCNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(a[href$="CBSEveningNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(a[href$="CBSEveningNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-channel-renderer:has(a[href$="CBSEveningNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(a[href$="FoxNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(a[href$="FoxNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-channel-renderer:has(a[href$="FoxNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(a[href$="AssociatedPress"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(a[href$="AssociatedPress"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-channel-renderer:has(a[href$="AssociatedPress"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(a[href$="CBSMornings"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(a[href$="CBSMornings"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-channel-renderer:has(a[href$="CBSMornings"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(a[href$="WashingtonPost"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(a[href$="WashingtonPost"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-channel-renderer:has(a[href$="WashingtonPost"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(a[href$="nytimes"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(a[href$="nytimes"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-channel-renderer:has(a[href$="nytimes"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(a[href$="VICENews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(a[href$="VICENews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-channel-renderer:has(a[href$="VICENews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(a[href$="NBCNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(a[href$="NBCNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-channel-renderer:has(a[href$="NBCNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(a[href$="CBSNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(a[href$="CBSNews"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-channel-renderer:has(a[href$="CBSNews"])

I made the decision to NOT block local media outlets for now, since they frequently upload actual footage at least.
 
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WesL

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Much appreciation for sharing. I put it in a code format so our formatting won't mess it up.
 
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