Reviews for DeArrow - Better Titles and Thumbnails on YouTube
DeArrow - Better Titles and Thumbnails on YouTube by Ajay (SponsorBlock)
265 reviews
- Rated 1 out of 5by kenoayko, a year ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Duckrinium, a year ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Bobby, a year agoEDIT: I'm curious why the developer has intentionally decide to get the extension to make changes where no changes are required - especially since it provides a worse user experience with YouTube. They haven't explained the licencing...
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People needlessly change titles and thumbnails for no reason, not to mention they do so incorrectly most of the time.
Eg.
Titles: brand and product names have a specific capitalization set by the brand and product owners but people will change it to something else. People will also randomly capitalize random words in the title.
Thumbnails: thumbnails show exactly what the video is about and they use the correct words to describe it exactly. People will change it to a random thumbnail.
If people can't get the fundamentals right, then why would i trust the extension to actually correct a misleading/clickbait title and thumbnail.
Like SponsorBlock, there is no quality control. Anyone can submit any garbage and everyone else just has to put up with it. There is no method to hide submissions by those who submit garbage.
Furthermore, why does the extension require a paid licence?! People contribute towards the extension for free. Are you seriously planning to do a rug pull on those that add value to the extension.
Sure you're giving out free licences right now, but when will that change?Developer response
posted a year agoResponse to edit:
The defaults are chosen in the way that I, and many others, like to use the extension. They are on the aggressive side, but that's why I made the extension so customizable. There are numerous options to turn down the aggressiveness, and you can configure all of these options per channel to be able to be aggressive with some channels, but less aggressive with others.
People have different opinions on what they like, I personally like all titles auto formatted and having all thumbnails replaced.
About the license, there will always be a free option, and all license keys are unlimited use, so you can use them on new devices and you can even share it with your friends.
I promise to never remove this, and I wouldn't want to do this anyway, as I want as many people to using DeArrow as possible, as that's how crowdsourced extensions works.
The soft-ish paywall acts as an aggressive donation barrier convincing a few people to donate, but still allowing everyone else to use the extension with all it's features just like anyone else. It is not meant to restrict who is using the extension. Only a certain amount of people need to pay to make it work.
Thanks to the paywall system, I am now earning enough money that I will be able to work on SponsorBlock and DeArrow full time when I graduate school in January and I am very much looking forward to that :)
Original Response:
I think you are misunderstanding some parts of the extension. The things you are talking about are not human submissions, but configurable automatic systems enabled by default.
By default, it auto-formats titles if no user submission exists. These are not submitted by users, but an automatic formatting system. You can change how this auto-formatting works in the options and also disable it.
By default, it shows a random screenshot from the videos from thumbnails if there is no human submission. You can also configure this in settings if you don't like that behavior, or disable thumbnail replacements altogether if that's not your thing.
Lastly, it is not possible for me to "rug-pull", as the code is open source under a copy-left license, and the database is publicly downloadable, and several other people are actively mirroring this data.
Hope that makes things clearer :) - Rated 4 out of 5by Fox Bally, a year agoIt's a good extension. Was able to snag the pre-paywall beta on Firefox just in time. However, on my Chrome, i was too late. I requested free access and will wait until next time when i come around to it again. But it does give me more incentive to stay on the all-privacy Firefox, where i went to after Google's announcement of ManifestV3.
Developer response
posted a year agoJust so you know, you can use keys on unlimited devices/browsers. You can view your license key in the options or popup.
But staying on Firefox is a very good option anyway :) - Rated 5 out of 5by Federded, a year ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by FFUSER, a year agoAlthough it says it is free, I don't think it is. I requested for a free license a few days ago. I haven't received any and it still asks for payment.
Developer response
posted a year agoYou may have missed the text on the "request free access" prompt, but originally it was supposed to take 3 weeks. 1.2.16 changes the "request free access" time to 3 days instead as that seems like a more reasonable duration, so once you update, you should get access much quicker. - Rated 1 out of 5by Pat, a year agoDude, I know that being a hobbyist isn't exactly the easiest thing. But asking for payment for an addon that crowdsources youtube title changes really isn't a vibe
- Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 14161687, a year ago
- Rated 2 out of 5by Ultradood, a year ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by z3roa1m, a year agoFound out about this addon after SponsorBlock prompted me about it.
A great addition to the """Youtube Fix""" bundle (RYD and SponsorBlock).
Seriously, browsing Youtube is so much nicer with this installed, no longer being fished into watching useless commentary videos/drama.
P.S: I completely wiped my previous install (got a remote access trojan that i couldn't delete, thought the extension would remember me from my youtube account details), huge thanks for the key 🫡)
P.P.S also paywalling an open-source extension isn't such a good (and an effective) idea, but i get that making stuff for free out of pure enthusiasm can only go so far.Developer response
posted a year agoYou can copy the license key from a previous install, or email me to get a code if you didn't know to or forgot
Use this FcxeV-ea448 - Rated 1 out of 5by Xaymar, a year agoSuddenly asked for payment after months of being free. No thanks.
Developer response
posted a year agoIt is only supposed to be for new users. If you already used it, you are not meant to pay. If this did happen, if yo could click copy debug info and send me the info to dev @ajay.app that could help me try to figure out why that would happen.
For now, please use FsMBU-348de to get back in - Rated 4 out of 5by Cirnos, a year agoExtremely useful piece of software, I wish you could see the original thumbnail/title by just hovering over the button for a user-determined amount of time
Developer response
posted a year agoGood idea, I made an issue for this https://github.com/ajayyy/DeArrow/issues/140 - Rated 5 out of 5by Sytha, a year agoHow did I only just discover this extension?!
From the creator of the amazing SponsorBlock extension comes another extension that will undoubtedly become nearly indispensable as well!
At the moment, not many videos appear "fixed" on my subscriptions page, but just like SponsorBlock, it will improve as the userbase grows!
Regarding the "paywall" (I suppose those who complained about it missed the "Request Free Access" button, lol), I was more than happy to contribute more than the suggested $1. The author clearly deserves it 🙌Developer response
posted a year agoThanks :)
I've already started to see my viewing niche fill up and I think a more and more diverse will appear over time like with SponsorBlock to expand it - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18025858, a year ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 16559494, a year ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by natsume, a year agoCrowdsourced softwares but having backend paywalled? Hope someone (such as Invidious team) to fork this and make it for free or at least have some kind of payment and validation that is actually anonymous (and not PayPal/VISA/MasterCard/...). Also sending a unique key that can be associated with the API calls even for once just for validation is not very good, if I remove that portion of code, the extensions' features may not work due to my extension is validated by the server.
Also a license key for those who don't want to pay: FoLI3-b678aDeveloper response
posted a year agoIt's only validated once when you click redeem. You are free to remove the code. It is not linked to your userID or any submissions. The only use of the stored license key is for you to be able to view it at a later time in the popup and options. - Rated 5 out of 5by John Doe, a year ago**Remember to donate whenever you can, to the developers but also contributors to the database**
if you use Firefox, you can bypass the licensing by doing:
Uninstall Dearrow completely to wipe the extension data, then install it again, don't interact with the extension at all (don't start any free trial or anything)
Go to: about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox
Click on `Inspect` next to the Dearrow extension
On the devtools window for the extension, go to the Console tab, then write at the bottom: chrome.storage.sync.set({activated: true, licenseKey: "remember-to-donate"})
This will modify the extension data so that the extension believes you were activated by the server with the `remember-to-donate` license key
Tested working on version 1.2.10 - Rated 2 out of 5by Jcuhfehl, a year ago"Open source" but the backend is paywalled. Paywalling any crowdsourced web service is plain unacceptable.
Edit: turns out my privacy concerns were unfounded, as the paywall is completely client side. It can therefore also be edited out with a single line of code.Developer response
posted a year agoAs noted on the payment page at the bottom, the license key is used in one request to the server to validate it, but is then never sent to the server again. Your userID and submissions are never sent with your license key so they cannot be linked.
The extension is also not fully paywalled. You can still request free access using the button at the bottom of the page, and I hope many people take this option! I don't want everyone to pay - Rated 1 out of 5by rhubarbz, a year ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18023370, a year ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by A Strange Cat, a year ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 12985635, a year agoUPDATE: Works now.
Doesn't work. Titles and thumbnails aren't being changed. There are no edit buttons. YouTube is completely unaffected by this add-on.Developer response
posted a year agoI determined the issue. It appears on Firefox 105 and lower. 1.2.9 includes a fix - Rated 5 out of 5by Cranky, a year ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by nocnoc, a year ago