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Category: YouTube

YouTube

[YouTube] Android App Gestures

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I don’t remember exactly when and how I found all this out, but I have noticed that many people don’t know many features/gestures.

  • If you double tap with one finger on the left or right of the screen, you can skip 10 seconds (I guess most people know this). If you tap more often, it can skip multiples of 10 seconds.
  • If you double tap with two fingers, you can skip to the next chapter (if the video has chapter marks).
  • If you simply tab and hold with one finger, you can fast forwards with 2x speed.
  • If you are watching a video, you can simply swipe up to view the video in full screen (will turn video into landscape mode) or swipe down to exit full screen mode.
  • In full screen mode, pinch with two fingers to zoom in or out. Then pan = move to that corner you want to look closer.
  • When searching for a specific scene, press and hold on the progress bar and then slightly swipe upwards. You get a larger progress bar, which contains preview images for the respective timestamps, and through which you can easily scroll.

And there are probably others that I don’t know about…

YouTube

[YouTube] Combine Metube & SponsorBlock

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I have been using MeTube for some time to occasionally download YouTube videos. Now I’ve been looking for a way to combine MeTube with SponsorBlock to get rid of the ads when downloading a file. And it turned out to be possible. You can either use SponsorBlock to add a chapter for an ad segment, or you can use it to remove the ad or any other segment using the remove_sponsor_segments parameter. Currently, it is not possible to do both things (create segment chapters + remove segments). Here the solution to remove ads while downloading:

Create the following JSON File:

{
  "postprocessors": [
    {
      "api": "https://sponsor.ajay.app/",
      "categories": [
        "intro",
        "outro",
        "poi_highlight",
        "selfpromo",
        "sponsor",
        "interaction" 
      ],
      "key": "SponsorBlock",
      "when": "after_filter"
    },
    {
      "force_keyframes": false,
      "key": "ModifyChapters",
      "remove_chapters_patterns": [],
      "remove_ranges": [],
      ""remove_sponsor_segments": ["sponsor","interaction","selfpromo"],
      "sponsorblock_chapter_title": "'[SponsorBlock]: ''%(category_names)l'"
    },
    {
      "add_chapters": true,
      "add_infojson": "none",
      "add_metadata": false,
      "key": "FFmpegMetadata"
    }
  ]
}

The relevant parts here are the categories:

  • intro — video intro segments
  • outro — video endings or credits
  • sponsor — sponsored ads/segments to skip
  • selfpromo — creator self-promotion clips
  • interaction — calls to action (like “subscribe” asks)
  • poi_highlight — important highlights or notable moments (Points of Interest)

And the remove_sponsor_segments parameter. Here you can provide all sections you want to have removed during a download.

The last step is to mount the JSON File into the Container:

version: '3'

services:
  metube:
    image: alexta69/metube
    ports:
      - "8081:8081"
    volumes:
      - ./downloads:/downloads
      - ./ytdl_options.json:/config/ytdl_options.json:ro # the first part must be the path/place of your new created json file
    environment:
      - YTDL_OPTIONS_FILE=/config/ytdl_options.json

To add video links to MeTube you can also use this handy Browser Add-on: MeTube Downloader

YouTube

[YouTube] Ad-free consumption and other helpful add-ons

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When I was at a friend’s house the other day and a YouTube playlist was playing on the TV, I was really shocked. After every video, there were one or two ads (and some of them even in between). I was not aware how extremely many ads you get when using YouTube without an ad blocker. Therefore, a small collection of apps, add-ons and links that help to make YouTube a bit more enjoyable:

Browser

AndroidTV / FireTV

Android

HTPC

DNS Blocking (i.e. with PiHole)

Update 15.01.2024: When using YouTube in a Browser in combination with uBlock, you likely receive the following message right now: “Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”. The only working solutions to prevent this message and to continue watching ad-free is disabling uBlock on YouTube and use this Script with Tampermonkey (at least for me).

Update 25.01.2025: I found Chrome Mask very helpful, as I continue to experience problems when using uBlock in combination with Firefox on YouTube.


Update 23.07.2025: To stop the super annoying AI translations, you can use the browser Add-on YouTube No Translation (GitHub).
When using ReVanced, you can force the App to use the original Audio. Got to the ReVanced Settings:
– Miscellaneous → Spoof Video Streams → Standard-Client → iOS TV
– Video → Force original audio → turn on