Clear Video – Make YouTube Less Of a Time Sink

Strip down YouTube until only what you want is left – the videos. Cleanr Video is a simple extension for Chrome, Firefox and Safari that removes everything – and I mean everything – from YouTube beyond what you absolutely need. Comments, recommended videos, ads – all gone, and in their place white space. If minimalism sounds good, this is one to check out.

Google loves – and I mean loves – changing the YouTube layout. Over the last couple of years it’s gone from focusing on helping everyone discover the same videos, to helping everyone see the latest videos from their subscriptions, to the current incarnation – showing you videos it thinks you’ll appreciate for reasons mere mortals cannot discern. If you’re sick of the cycle – or just want to avoid the rabbit hole of recommended videos and comments – Cleanr Video can help clean up YouTube for you.

From Minimalist for Everything to services that de-clutter the web for readers, we’ve outlined more than a few ways to make the web a less busy place. Cleanr Video is just one more.

How Cleanr Video Works

So, just how much does Cleanr Video strip down? Rather than tell you, I’ll show you. Here’s how the page for a YouTube video looks normally.

…and here’s how it looks with Cleanr Videos installed:

As you can see, everything but the video itself is stripped away, leaving you with a video to watch and nothing more. When you’re done watching, you’ll simply get to whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing – no clicking related videos and no scrolling through comments. This could help you stay focused.

The home page for YouTube is similarly cleaned up. Instead of seeing this hot mess…

…you’ll see this…

Click the “See More” button to show the videos that usually show up on the YouTube home page – and nothing else. If you’re looking for simplicity, you found it.

One Problem…

If you’re like me, you love your YouTube subscriptions. You found the YouTube homepage useful, until recent changes stopped showing the latest videos from your subscriptions and started showing…something. I’m still not sure what this seemingly random assortment of videos is supposed to be, but I know I’m not a fan. It’s why I’ve been habitually clicking the “My Subscriptions” link every time I open YouTube.

Which brings me to my problem – Cleanr Videos hides the “My Subscriptions” link. At first I was panicking, but then I did what I should have done a long time ago – I added a link to the Subscriptions page on my browser toolbar. The link, in case you didn’t know, is:

http://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions

Why YouTube doesn’t offer a setting for making that page the default I’ll never know. Maybe Cleanr Videos should redirect users, though, because I don’t think anyone actually wants to use YouTube’s default homepage.

Download Cleanr Video

Sick of reading about Cleanr Video, and ready to download it? Head to Clea.nr. The process should be simple for Firefox and Safari users. Chrome users, however, have to do some extra work. This video explains how to install the extensionFor those who hate video tutorials – you need to download the .CRX file from Clea.nr. Then, head to the “Extensions” menu in Chrome (hit the settings icon to the right of your extension icons, then Tools > Extensions). Open the folder to which you downloaded the CRX file using your operating system’s file browser, then drag the CRX to the Chrome window where the Extensions menu is open. The extension is now installed.

This used to be a simpler process, but a (relatively) recent update to Chrome made it harder to install extensions not from the Chrome Web Store.

Conclusion

This app not only makes YouTube look great – it can also help you to be productive. YouTube can be a huge time sink. Watching videos online when you’re supposed to be working is bad enough, but a quick video viewing can quickly turn into a spree if you follow a long enough line of “Recommended Videos“. Removing this temptation just might be Cleanr Video’s best feature, but blocking comments isn’t a bad thing either.

Do you have any other cool minimalist browser extensions to share? Please, do so in the comments below. Those of us who haven’t blocked all online comments will be happy to read them.