Unhook
Hacker ApprovedRanked 5 of 70 browser extensions by recommenders
Hides YouTube Shorts, recommendations, comments and home feed, leaving subscriptions and search. Caveat: it hasn't been updated in years and some options are broken.
Hides YouTube Shorts, recommendations, comments and home feed, leaving subscriptions and search. Caveat: it hasn't been updated in years and some options are broken.
53 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 48
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 91%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 48 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 9.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Hides Shorts and recommendations
“There is a plugin called Unhook. It allows to remove shorts, recommendation feed, or even set subscriptions as your default page.”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “No Socials November” “does a very good job of hiding various parts of YouTube (including Shorts) that you don't want to see/access”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children” “You can hide shorts, comments, recommendations, the home page feed, and more.”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts” - Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “Vienam Bans Unskippable Ads, Requires Skip Button to Appear After 5 Seconds”
- Comment from 5 May 2026 in “Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent”
- Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “uBlock filter list to hide all YouTube Shorts”
- Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “TikTok's 'Addictive Design' Found to Be Illegal in Europe”
- Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month”
- Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “Television is 100 years old today”
Leaves only subscriptions and search
“At this point, my YouTube experience is just the channels I subscribe to, and the video player. It reduced my usage to almost zero.”
Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Grandparents are glued to their phones, families are worried [video]” “I use the excellent Unhook (with Ublock Origin) which turns the YT home page into a search box and little else”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “It's getting harder to focus every day” “No suggestions, no shorts, and no comments. Just the videos from creators I subscribed to.”
Comment from 28 Dec 2025 in “A new research shows that 21-33% of YouTube's feed may consist of AI slop” - Comment from 14 May 2026 in “Meta won't let you block its AI account on Threads”
- Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence”
- Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “YouTube now world's largest media company, topping Disney”
Toggle each YouTube section separately
“Unhook lets you independently toggle visibility of the home feed, the rec sidebar”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “uBlock filter list to hide all YouTube Shorts” “You can select which parts of YouTube you want to remove (e. g. Shorts).”
Comment from 5 May 2026 in “Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent” “lets you disable features on YT (granular though the default is good)”
Comment from 12 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: Would it be useful to have a slop button in addition to flag?” - Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “uBlock filter list to hide all YouTube Shorts”
- Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “No Socials November”
Cuts down time spent
“At this point, my YouTube experience is just the channels I subscribe to, and the video player. It reduced my usage to almost zero.”
Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Grandparents are glued to their phones, families are worried [video]” “Really effective, I kindof can't believe how much time I spent getting suckered into watching video essays”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds” “Both work flawlessly, and reduced my YouTube usage to almost zero.”
Comment from 28 May 2026 in “YouTube to automatically label AI-generated videos”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
No recent updates; some options broken
“Unhook hasn't been updated in years and doesn't work for shorts anymore”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “uBlock filter list to hide all YouTube Shorts” “it hasn't been updated since 2024 and is slowly breaking”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “uBlock filter list to hide all YouTube Shorts” “Some of the Unhook options are broken nowadays I think.”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “uBlock filter list to hide all YouTube Shorts” - Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “uBlock filter list to hide all YouTube Shorts”
- Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “uBlock filter list to hide all YouTube Shorts”
Other browser extensions people recommend
The four most recommended other browser extensions, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SponsorBlock | 137 | 4 | 97% | 13 | — | Approved |
| Firefox Multi-Account Containers | 76 | 13 | 85% | 10 | 7.5 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| NoScript | 61 | 11 | 85% | 12 | 10 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| Claude in Chrome | 53 | 42 | 56% | 9 | — | — |
| UnhookThis page | 48 | 5 | 91% | 11 | — | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 62 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“You can use Firefox plugin "Unhook remove youtube recommended and shorts"”
“does a very good job of hiding various parts of YouTube (including Shorts) that you don't want to see/access”
“There's a nice extension called unhook which blocks a ton of the YouTube trash”
“My YouTube start page is empty, I have to actively seek out videos I want to watch.”
“I use the excellent Unhook (with Ublock Origin) which turns the YT home page into a search box and little else”
“now I'm back on it mildly with dearrow, sponsorblock, unhook and no account”
“My actual YouTube feed is pretty good since I use the Unhook chrome extension”
“lets you disable features on YT (granular though the default is good)”
“Really effective, I kindof can't believe how much time I spent getting suckered into watching video essays”
“Both work flawlessly, and reduced my YouTube usage to almost zero.”
“disabling all algorithmic recommendations such as the Home feed, sidebar/endscreen recommendations etc.”
“the unhook extension is great to block everything other than search and playing vids”
“You can select which parts of YouTube you want to remove (e. g. Shorts).”
“while using uBlock/sponsorblock/unhook and grayjay on mobile”
“You can hide shorts, comments, recommendations, the home page feed, and more.”
“it can turn YT into search box + video player”
“At this point, my YouTube experience is just the channels I subscribe to, and the video player. It reduced my usage to almost zero.”
“Unhook does look abandoned.”
“it doesn't change or force me to learn new ways to use YouTube”
“For anyone whose Unhook has stopped working”
“Unhook lets you independently toggle visibility of the home feed, the rec sidebar”
“unhook.app does a better job of hiding the actual elements on YouTube”
“Some of the Unhook options are broken nowadays I think.”
“the unhook addon that others also recommended and is great”
“Unhook hasn't been updated in years and doesn't work for shorts anymore”
“it hasn't been updated since 2024 and is slowly breaking”
“Gives full customization over shorts, recommendations, comments, etc.”
“you can use the "Unhook" extension to turn off Shorts”
“There's other options to break this kind of cognitive pattern”
“Unhook for removing suggestions/comments/etc from Youtube”
“I also got the extension unhook on my desktop/laptop, and now my youtube experience is more reminiscent of the early 2010s”
“Allows me to hide all kinds of distractions on social media and YouTube”
“hide shorts/trending (unhook or blocktube)”
“You can disable all 'related videos'/feeds/home page on Youtube with Unhook”
“using plugins like Unhook to hide YouTube recommendations by default”
“No suggestions, no shorts, and no comments. Just the videos from creators I subscribed to.”
“The one less tech savvy that are the more susceptible to fall for this.”
“I've used plugins like unhook in the past which do exactly this and it's nice.”
“seems pretty good at disabling parts of the UI to hide things”
“There is a plugin called Unhook. It allows to remove shorts, recommendation feed, or even set subscriptions as your default page.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.