ShortsKiller: How I Built a Chrome Extension to Remove YouTube Shorts from My Browser

#chromeextension #youtube #productivity #digitalwellbeing

title: "ShortsKiller: How I Built a Chrome Extension to Remove YouTube Shorts from My Browser"
published: true

tags: [chromeextension, youtube, productivity, digitalwellbeing]

YouTube Shorts appear everywhere — homepage, search results, sidebar, channel pages. For users trying to use YouTube intentionally, Shorts can feel like a constant intrusion. I built ShortsKiller to solve this.

What ShortsKiller Does

Removes Shorts from every surface where they appear as algorithmic recommendations:

Homepage — Shorts shelf removed
Search results — Shorts filtered out
Sidebar — No Shorts in recommendations
Channel pages — Shorts tab hidden
Subscription feed — Shorts filtered

The Shorts player (youtube.com/shorts/...) is unaffected — direct navigation still works.

Design Choices

No blocking, just hiding. DOM removal after page load. Simpler and more reliable than request blocking.

No settings. ShortsKiller is on/off. Install and it just works.

Lightweight. Content script is small and fast. No performance impact.

Technical Implementation

Core mechanism: MutationObserver watching for DOM changes on YouTube pages. YouTube uses React-based dynamic rendering, so static CSS rules miss late-loading content. MutationObserver catches elements as they're added.

Selectors target YouTube's component names rather than CSS classes — component names are more stable across updates.

Main maintenance challenge: YouTube frontend updates occasionally break selectors and require extension updates.

User Response

Most downloaded extension in my portfolio. Consistently 5-star reviews. Common feedback: "I didn't realize how often Shorts were appearing until they were gone."