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“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” – Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

Fresh Reads from the Science 'o sphere!

Friday, January 07, 2011

How To Avoid The Featured Video On YouTube

For quite a while now, the YouTube.com main page has been showing a "Featured Video" section on the top right part of the page.

This feature appears every time you visit YouTube.com, whether you are logged in or not, and often displays videos that are completely irrelevant to your interests.

Unfortunately, it cannot be removed like the customizable modules on the left side of the page. It also cannot be minimized or even shifted downwards.

Apparently there are many YouTube users who dislike this "Featured Video" section on their YouTube homepage.

If you google "how to remove featured videos on youtube", you'll get a whopping 777,000,000 results!

Just to get an idea of why some users are unhappy, here are some of their comments on the YouTube help forum:


"I agree completely. I used to love watching featured videos when they were good, but now, all they feature now is stupid makeup and gossip videos I don't even want to see"

"I know , i hate those Featured Videos , they got nothing interesting on it, not only that, i have blocked some of the users on my account and still they keep showing up on the feature list, i don't want to see them at all, i don't like their videos , i don't want to know about them , and i wish i could remove them from my list forever and never see them again. but they keep showing up. Youtube pls ."

"I hate the featured videos. But what I hate more is the fact that youtube does not give us the option of disabling them. Who cares if they pay to have them on there? Some of these featured videos are just garbage that equate to visual polution. Let us turn it off!!! Well I guess there's always Vimeo; hmmm, maybe I'll give them a try."



As mentioned by some other commenters, one method of preventing the Featured Video from appearing is to use the Mozilla Firefox browser and install ad blocker addons.

However, there is a simpler method to avoid seeing Featured Videos - by avoiding the YouTube.com page altogether!

Here at Fresh Brainz we have worked out how to do this:


First, you'll need to delete the "http://youtube.com/" autocomplete entry from your Web browser.

Eg. For IE8, just type "youtube" in the address bar and a dropdown box will appear below with the "http://youtube.com/" suggestion. Use arrow keys to highlight this line and press delete (or click the red "X") to remove the entry.

Next...


1. If you have a YouTube account

Enter "http://www.youtube.com/my_subscriptions" in the address bar.

If you are logged in to your YouTube account, you will reach your Subscriptions page, which is full of videos that you like.

If you are not yet logged in, you will get a login page to key in your username and password, before you get directed to your Subscriptions page.

Either way, you will not encounter any Featured Videos.

Once you are in your Subscriptions page, you can use the top search bar to navigate throughout YouTube.

"http://www.youtube.com/my_subscriptions" is now your new YouTube homepage.


2. If you don't have a YouTube account

Enter "http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=" in the address bar.

You will reach an empty search page that says "No video results for “”".

There are no videos on this page and certainly no Featured Videos.

Just use the top search bar to navigate throughout YouTube.

"http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=" is now your new YouTube homepage.

Of course, this method also works if you have a YouTube account.


Easy, isn't it?