
Show HN: Search YouTube without stopping the video, and make your own playlists - darajava
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-stay/cmgmibjndnhopdjednaoapagmpchagmg
======
roansh
Why does it need permission to Read and Change the data on _all_ of the
websites that a user visits?

There are so many cool extensions but most of them need access to every single
domain - even if its functionality doesn't need it. Which is what keeps me
(and probably a lot many other people) away from installing them.

~~~
shortstuffsushi
I don't think you have the option to say "this app needs Read and Change for
just this one domain," it's pretty much an all or nothing sort of deal. This
one uses it to edit the page on YouTube, so it has to require it for all.

~~~
haukilup
I'm genuinely curious - where did you get this idea from? It's definitely not
the case, so I'm wondering how you arrived at it.

~~~
vehementi
Moreover why would they have so confidently made a comment full of such
misinformation?

~~~
rifung
I don't know where you're from but in my experience when people use "I think"
it implies that they aren't completely sure what they are saying is correct.
It's used similarly to "to the best of my knowledge".

------
splike
On the subject of YouTube related chrome extensions, I created one called
WikiTube a couple of years ago. Its super simple, and just adds relevant
YouTube videos to the top of Wikipedia pages. I'm quite happy with it

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wikitube/aneddidib...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wikitube/aneddidibfifdpbeppmpoackniodpekj?hl=en-
GB)

~~~
rjuyal
This is awesome. By the way is it open sourced as well? Would love to learn
from this.

~~~
cmenke
Yep, look here: [https://github.com/darajava/youtube-
smooth](https://github.com/darajava/youtube-smooth)

~~~
rjuyal
Hey thanks for this but I replied to @splike and was asking about source code
of wikitude.

------
andy_ppp
I mean YouTube UI is a disgrace really, what is it about big companies that
stop them from being able to do design properly (even Apple post Jobs is
starting to experience this).

~~~
virtualized
This is my personal experience as a YouTube user:

\- There are these weirdly looking fixed (Googleish) bars for no other reason
than to steal my screen space.

\- Recommendations are mostly awful (10 things that will shock you!) or videos
I have already watched.

\- The subscription to a whole channel is a dumb concept. I usually care only
about specific series of videos, not the whole channel. Example: New movie
reviews, not the bullshit rambling filler videos. The effect is that I often
unsubscribe from the whole channel even though there is some interesting
content.

\- The video controls cover part of the video for no apparent reason.

\- The volume control slider disappears for no reason when you move the cursor
away from it.

\- There are wrong defaults like showing annotations or autoplay.

\- Annotations are abused so much that you cannot leave them enabled.

\- Obvious missing feature: Next/previous buttons for videos that belong to a
series. Playlists are used as a bad workaround.

\- I can only use YouTube on my Desktops because that's where the ad blocker
works.

\- Obvious missing feature: Donations to content creators.

I don't think this is a big company problem. It is a culture problem. When
your boss has no taste and does not take criticism very well, you end up with
wrecks like Twitter, Google+ or YouTube.

~~~
pjc50
_Recommendations are mostly awful_

Yup, it's amazingly bad. 'Related' videos are mostly OK, but reccomendations
seem to be just a 'related' video based on something you watched ages ago. I
guess most youtube viewers are browsing omnivores and don't really care how
bad the stuff is as long as it makes the time pass.

At least Amazon let you fix their reccomendations.

~~~
delecti
> At least Amazon let you fix their reccomendations

You can on youtube as well. From the homepage, mouse over a recommended video
and the three vertical dots appear. From there you can say "Not interested"
and provide a reason.

~~~
pjc50
That makes a difference, if at all, in only one direction. Amazon at least
used to let you specify "I own it" for books that you own but didn't buy
through them, which greatly improves their book reccomendations.

Amazon will also show you "I'm reccomending X because you bought Y", and let
you say "don't use Y to reccomend me things". Youtube doesn't.

And the three dots don't appear for the one reccomended video that lurks among
the related videos on the right of a video you're watching.

------
nachtigall
Now that Firefox (at least Dev Edition) is almost WebExtensions ready I wonder
if... Does it work in Firefox 48?
[http://arewewebextensionsyet.com/](http://arewewebextensionsyet.com/)

~~~
smoyer
It doesn't appear to ... you can change the "Add to Chrome" button in the
Google Play Store to "Add to Firefox" using the "Chrome Store Foxified" add-on
in Firefox [1]. Now the button on the "YouTube Stay" page let's me add the
add-on to Firefox (temporarily as it's not signed).

I'm running Firefox Developer Edition 48.0a2.

[1] [http://www.ghacks.net/2016/05/23/install-google-chrome-
exten...](http://www.ghacks.net/2016/05/23/install-google-chrome-extensions-
firefox/)

~~~
nachtigall
Thanks for testing! Would be interesting what API method(s) this extension
uses that make it incompatible with Firefox, or if it's just a Firefox bug?
Maybe the OP cares to consider ;) Would love it.

------
downandout
Out of curiosity....since ad injection is bad, what is the most common revenue
model behind very popular extensions? Donations never make much money, and
only ad blockers with enormous install bases can use the extortion model. Does
anyone know how extensions make money if they aren't injecting ads?

~~~
mattbeckman
I have an extension that provides an always updated list in a niche, and the
list items (with detailed info) are directed towards a website of mine with
ads. I don't ask for any obtrusive permissions, and I make cents every day!
lol

------
gozmike
Great extension! I added it to ProductHunt for you:
[https://www.producthunt.com/tech/youtube-
stay](https://www.producthunt.com/tech/youtube-stay)

Good luck!

~~~
gozmike
I really would love to know why this gets downvoted.

I gave the author additional exposure for his work. I've been on HN for years
and this is the first time I've seen something like this.

~~~
teach
I didn't downvote you, but it looks like a spammish comment to me.

Knowing nothing about the situation, it looks like

1\. You work for ProductHunt.

2\. This is a veiled promotion of "your" site.

3\. In any case, the comment adds nothing to the conversation for HN readers.
It's merely a personal message to the OP.

As someone who has _also_ been on Hacker News for years, that's my take.

Edit: You'll notice that other, similar "low-value" top-level comments have
also been downvoted: "Love it! Thanks!" and "good job".

Although such comments are polite to OP, they add nothing but noise for all
the other readers of the thread.

------
crypt1d
What probably annoys me the most about youtube, is that there is no elegant
way to queue the next song easily and without a few second of 'buffer' between
them.

~~~
epa
They used to have instant playlists, where you press a (+) button on a video
and it would add it to your queue - I have no idea why they removed this
feature. That combined with the mess that is 'next video' and relevant videos
has really paved the way for sites like SoundCloud to dominate online music.

------
foobarbecue
I've been wanting to make one that displays times mentioned in comments on the
time bar.

Ideally the interface could be expanded to add annotations to videos and even
graph funniness over time.

Has anyone seen something like this out there yet?

~~~
darajava
Cool idea! I will steal it if you don't do it! :D

~~~
foobarbecue
Hey, wanna team up and do it together!? I got started here:
[https://github.com/foobarbecue/ytime](https://github.com/foobarbecue/ytime)

------
ElijahLynn
Love the new UX, hopefully YouTube contacts you for integration globally!

------
ngzhian
Cool extension! My YouTube session usually happens on my subscriptions page,
so I made this extension for non-stop, no-click viewing (hover to play
video!): [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/quickview-for-
yout...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/quickview-for-
youtube/jfocolikmfgljlbblhgpkcjlpehnapkm)

------
smegel
Magic Actions for YouTube is also worth checking out.

------
globolobo
I was just talking about exactly this like 3 days ago with my one of my
friends, awesome stuff, good job!!

------
n4r9
This is fantastic, it's always been a pain to move between Youtube videos at
social happenings. Out of curiosity, are there any plans to make this a
collaborative feature, perhaps just over the local network by integrating with
Chromecast?

~~~
slmkbh
Well, there always is (slightly nsfwish url)
[http://twoyoutubevideosandamotherfuckingcrossfader.com/](http://twoyoutubevideosandamotherfuckingcrossfader.com/)

~~~
n4r9
Haha. It looks like a lot of fun, but does it allow for making playlists,
collaboratively or otherwise?

~~~
slmkbh
As far as I know, no.

It pretty much does what it says in the URL :)

------
Splendor
Thanks for sharing this. I'm excited to try this out because I use the YouTube
iOS app with Chromecast exclusively because of how easy it is to create ad-hoc
playlists and queue up items while you're watching.

------
learnaholic
How about making the HTML5 video element a hovering dialog which always stays
in view and you can continue to search and browse youtube the way you want.
Pretty much analogous to the YouTube Android app?

~~~
darajava
There are already extensions which do the same. I didn't want to put too many
features in the one program. I like to keep it simple :)

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/floating-for-
youtu...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/floating-for-
youtube/jjphmlaoffndcnecccgemfdaaoighkel)

~~~
learnaholic
It isn't exactly the same what I had in mind. But anyway, good job.

------
trevpost
I still find Youtube is the best way to listen to music while sitting around
having drinks with friends. This is perfect for when everyone has a next song
they want to play. Thank you!

~~~
darajava
You're most welcome :)

------
kafeltz
I think we should create an extension to fix that `search` behavior and using
placeholder html5 attribute. Every time I focus on that the text moves. =D

------
kschiffer
Very nice, love it! BTW is there any plugin that hides videos with over a
certain amount of views? (I know I'm so edgy, right)

~~~
erelde
What is your rationale behind that ? (curious)

~~~
kschiffer
My general distaste for popular culture, I guess… Seriously though: there are
of course exceptions, but my experience is that videos with 2+ million views
aren't for me, as well as all the videos and channels featured by youtube
itself, which usually fall into this category. When I see those, I won't watch
them, so might as well just filter them out. Especially true for music. Just a
personal preference, really.

~~~
elbear
Maybe you have become biased by the number of views. You could try, as an
experiment, to write a script that hides the number of views as well as likes
and dislikes. Then keep track of the videos you liked and disliked and then
check how many views they have.

~~~
okal
I do something similar with a custom stylesheet for Twitter. It hides follower
count, and since I use it almost exclusively on desktop, it works quite well
at helping me avoid being biased for/against a potential follow because of
their numbers.

------
jharohit
This is a perfect use case mate! love it

------
kneel
I like the functionality but that big red 'add to playlist' button is really
ugly.

~~~
darajava
Soz.

------
vasili111
I think YouTube should hire you.

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vityaz_
Nice, this is something that has been driving me mad. Always liked how
bandcamp or soundcloud kept playing the music in the background while
browsing. Not the exact same, but seeing as how YT requires the videos to
always be visible when played I guess it's as good as it can get.

~~~
RGamma
For me the site requires a video to be visible once, so it starts to play.
Playlists, once started, play indefinitely in the background regardless.

------
ddxv
Ah, this is wonderful! As someone who often browses music on youtube, I've
always wanted this feature. Thank you!

------
personjerry
Careful, you might accidentally get hired by Google

~~~
neotek
More like you might accidentally have Google decide your extension doesn't
align with their business requirements and arbitrarily force you out of the
Chrome store (after, incidentally, having made it nearly impossible for non-
technical users to install extensions outside of Google's walled garden.)

[http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/07/21/how-youtube-
killed-...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/07/21/how-youtube-killed-an-
extension-with-300000-users/)

~~~
ycosynot
This is why I had foolishly started my own browser. It is scary to think that
the computing experience is limited and defined by one company and its
practical monopoly. There should be something which is like Chromium, but more
Chromium than Chromium, and enforced by law, and which other browsers plug
into, or derive from, so they can't force the world into one standard
experience, if it makes sense. (and same thing for Facebook, there should be a
fundamental social network which has an API for others to plug into). I don't
know if it's a failure of democracy, or if it's better that way. (also, the
extension is nice). Anyway, eventually we'll make extensions through the layer
on top, by graphical analysis, and then no one can prevent it.

~~~
personjerry
Are you saying that web standards should go further and there should actually
be a open-source web standards library?

~~~
ycosynot
Yes, open-source by law, but only the very basics. It'd seem fine to me if
they implemented it closed-source on top, as long as it has the expected
functionality.

------
rakshithbekal
Can you make one similar for edge?

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SimonSelg
Love it! Thanks!

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lfottaviano
nice features, thank so much!

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agounaris
love it!

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ato42
good job

