Show HN: A Chrome extension to give you back control over short-form videos
51 comments
·April 1, 2025varenc
I have a simple bookmarklet does does something similar:
javascript:(function(){document.querySelectorAll("video").forEach(((e,o)=>{console.log(`VideoFixer: Processing <video> #${o+1}:`,e),e.style.position="relative",e.style.zIndex="999999",e.controls=!0,e.style.pointerEvents="auto";const t=[],i=[];["disablePictureInPicture","disableRemotePlayback"].forEach((o=>{e.hasAttribute(o)&&(t.push(o),e.removeAttribute(o))})),e.hasAttribute("controlsList")&&(i.push(...e.getAttribute("controlsList").split(/\\s+/)),e.removeAttribute("controlsList")),t.length&&console.log(`VideoFixer: Removed attributes: ${t.join(", ")}`),i.length&&console.log(`VideoFixer: Removed controlsList restrictions: ${i.join(", ")}`),t.length||i.length||console.log("VideoFixer: No restrictions found to remove.")})),console.log("VideoFixer: All videos processed.");}());
darajava
Ah that's a good idea! Similar effect to this but I guess packaging it in a chrome extension lends itself to "set it and forget it". I also have some customization options.
xeromal
I've tried to send bookmarklets to my family and they never "get" them. An extension like this is perfect. Thanks for your work!
rendaw
It's also a security risk though, as in someone could take it over and push a bad update at any time... I have a few extensions installed but I'm terrified of adding more, even though there are parts of my browsing experience that could be significantly improved.
I really wish there were a middle ground, like an external extension manager where you could opt into updates, with reproducible builds, changelogs, etc.
darajava
You could add it from source which is pretty easy to do but you lose chrome’s syncing feature.
Having said that I haven’t developed a chrome extension in years. They are so strict now. I know they can’t manually inspect each line but I do hope it helps solve the problem of extensions going rogue.
coldtrait
This is great. I just asked ChatGPT to convert it into a script that I could use with Violentmonkey.
omoikane
For youtube shorts, replacing the "shorts" in URL with "watch" will give you the usual interface, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GqkmtcirwYA -> https://www.youtube.com/watch/GqkmtcirwYA
But actually I see that seek bar is already available in youtube shorts. Maybe it's a recent change?
darajava
YouTube shorts does have its own progress bar, but it's proprietary and kept out of view and so it doesn't allow the user to tell the length of the video at a glance.
Sohcahtoa82
I've noticed the seek bar is available in MOST but not ALL shorts. I always thought it might be an option by the video owner.
darajava
I'd say it's more likely youtube A/B testing to see if they can increase engagement with that bar disabled.
cma
Tiktok used to do it based on length, is it something like that? I've noticed having it on desktop more often than mobile on YouTube shorts, maybe never on mobile browsers.
NelsonMinar
It's horrible that the web has come to this, a need for a browser hack to restore the UI that some website hacked off.
montag
Product designers are going to experiment...Vote with your feet. Don't use horrible products. The only thing worse would be EU mandated progress bars
mrgoldenbrown
I would love to vote with my feet. How do I watch YouTube or Instagram content with VLC, or some other user friendly video player?
aspenmayer
Look into LibRedirect and the projects it uses and also things like youtube-dl/yt-dlp.
https://libredirect.github.io/
https://libredirect.codeberg.page/
> A web extension that redirects YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok and other websites to alternative privacy-friendly frontends.
https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-ends
https://github.com/digitalblossom/alternative-frontends
jraph
mpv understands URLs to these websites and uses yt-dlp to download them.
On KDE, I assigned an action to open some URLs with mpv, which means I can play then from the clipboard manager or the copy menu that is displayed when copying if it's enabled.
ryandrake
At least users can [for now] do this on the web! Try fixing poor UI on a locked-down native mobile app.
uptown
An answer to my wishes ... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43398696 thank you!
darajava
You're welcome! I knew I couldn't be the only one.
Aissen
I wrote a set of uBo rules to do the same on TikTok. Not sure if they still work, but might as well publish it:
tiktok.com##sharing-main-video-el:watch-attr(controlslist):remove-attr(controlslist)
It seems a bit flakey on mobile, but it was a nice addition to the other enhancements. I haven't been able to make the mobile web as useful as the desktop web version, but didn't want to spend too much time on it either.
Zak
That looks pretty useful. A Firefox release would be most appreciated.
darajava
Working on it, I have a lot on atm but I'll reply to comments in this thread requesting FF once I have it out.
ensignavenger
Thanks for releasing it! Whats the chance of this getting shipped to Firefox users? A future improvement might be to add the ability to change the playback speed :)
darajava
Nice idea. Playback rate should be pretty easy to implement!
I've never done a Firefox extension before but I could definitely give it a go.
megadata
And perhaps allow 3x playback speed. It's too fast for me to understand speech on most videos but not all. But some videos are so long winded that it can be tremendously helpful.
darajava
You actually can control playback speed! You can find this on the bottom right of the videos. It doesn't go to 3x though and you can't access it on youtube unless it's in fullscreen for some reason. Will try to figure that out.
robgibbons
Thanks for this. I've thought about building this exact thing ever since this vicious trend began.
darajava
My pleasure! It was fun to build and didn't take too much time to do the individual platforms. So, if it breaks for one then patching it up should be pretty quick. Please leave a review if it's helpful to you.
4jck
is there a way to "save" a volume for instagram/youtube? i swear their volume is boosted to 200% volume
darajava
Just finished that feature. Volume saving is available now on youtube and insta if you update.
megadata
I haven't tried this out but if it works it's one the biggest bang for the buck I've seen on HN. Thanks!
xnx
Nice. Does this do more than the "Show Video Controls by Default" extension? https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/show-video-controls...
darajava
Yeah - that extension seems to just update <video> elements to have the showcontrols attribute if they're missing. Doing that isn't enough for insta, youtube etc because you need to mess with their propriatary html.
Hi HN! I built this little extension to prevent, in my opinion, the most offensive anti-pattern used by tech companies. That is removing the seek bar in short-form videos.
The "seek bar" is the bar at the bottom of a video that progresses as you play the video, and that you can click on or drag to skip around. Why companies ever thought it was a good idea to get rid of this I don't know, but I find it infuriating, so I decided to add it back for myself and thought others might like it too.
ReelControl adds a progress bar and seeking capabilities to videos on Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and Facebook Reels.
I do sometimes enjoy watching short-form content and I've found that with this extension enabled I can be more mindful about it and get sucked in way less. I'm also on my phone less because I tend to favor the web versions of these platforms now.
Open source--PRs and issues welcome! https://github.com/darajava/seek-anywhere/