YouTube Clickbait-Buster
Check whether it's worth watching a video before actually clicking on it by peeking it's visual or verbal content, description, comments, viewing the thumbnail in full-size and displaying the full title. Works on both YouTube's desktop and mobile layouts, and is also compatible with dark theme.
About
Sometimes you see a video in your recommendations with an interesting title or eye-catching thumbnail and clicks on it, just to find out the content wasn't what you were expecting or it was a clickbait. This userscript enables you to take a closer look on the video content before actually clicking on it.
To do that, you just need to click on the recommended video's menu (the three dots button) and choose the option you want. It works on pretty much all pages.
Peek video content
When you peek the video content, the script shows you the video's storyboard, which is a series of snapshots from the video in different moments from the beginning to the end.
You can click the timestamps to open the video directly in the part you are interested in. Also, if you don't like scrolling too much, you can change in the script the number of columns to your preference, so you can view more frames at once. Just note that it's limited by your device's screen size.
Peek audio transcription
While the "Peek video content" feature enables you to check the visual content of the video, the "Peek audio transcription" feature enables you to check the verbal content. This is most useful for videos that are just someone talking about something, or videos that you don't know exactly what it is about and you just need to peek the first few spoken sentences where the presenter explains it.
You can click the timestamps to open the video directly in the part you are interested in. You also have the option of choosing a language to which the transcript should be translated, and in the script settings you can set a preferred language which the transcript should always be in.
Peek description
Some videos add a summary of the video content in the description, and others elaborate a little more on what the video is about, which is an alternative for confirming the video's subject.
Peek comments
The "Peek comments" feature makes you able to check what the viewers think of the video in a minimalist interface.
Peeking the comments is useful for cases when there's something clearly incorrect in the video and at least someone in the comments points that out, or when you're not really interested in the video, but only in what people say about the subject. This can also be used as an alternative method for confirming what the video is about or its content.
Peek channel
When you peek a channel a small viewport is opened so you can take a look on the video's channel content and even watch videos without leaving the page.
This is useful to make sure whether you can hide the whole channel from your recommendations, or just to take a look on the channel's other videos.
View high-res thumbnail
You can also view the video cover (thumbnail) in the highest resolution available. It's limited to your screen size, but you can open the image in a new tab to view it in full size.
Full titles
Additionally, the script also makes all titles be displayed in full, without any trimming or ellipsis.
This userscript was tested and works in Kiwi Browser with Tampermonkey on Android, and in Firefox on PC. Other browsers that support installing script-managers will likely also work, although not tested.
License
- You can view the code, download copies to your devices, install, run, use the features and uninstall this software.
- You can modify your copy as you like.
- Feel free to refer to this userscript, just make sure to include a link to its GitHub homepage or to it's GreasyFork page.
- You cannot do any other action not allowed in this license.
