Reviews for DeArrow - Better Titles and Thumbnails on YouTube
DeArrow - Better Titles and Thumbnails on YouTube by Ajay (SponsorBlock)
Review by Firefox user 17761284
Rated 1 out of 5
by Firefox user 17761284, 3 years agoEDIT: dev response is wrong, i understand what dearrow is, i read the description of the addon before i paid for it LOL. the problem is that it sucks at doing what it says it does for fundamental reasons.
clickbait = "sensational and unappealing packaging (the titles and thumbnails)" and tons of clickbait thumbnails and titles get through dearrow because this addon requires users of an addon who're allergic to clickbait already to willingly submit themselves to enduring low quality content in order to submit a new relevant title and thumbnail and remove said clickbait with dearrow. it just won't happen and prevents the addon from working as intended
dev, i recommend removing the crowdsourcing element of this addon *or* merely asking for donations instead of outright payment. you can't do both and you can't expect people to pay you to do work for you. a refund is actually kind of a ridiculous thing to offer. you want me to hop in your email to beg for a dollar? get real LOL. when you ask for payment you invite criticism and a refund is not relevant.
original review below --------------------------------------
I paid a dollar for this app expecting to remove the clickbait from my Youtube experience but instead most of the actual clickbait (content farm videos with 1mil+ views) continue to appear unaltered while the titles from any even mildly popular genuine video creator get stripped of all creativity and even narratively spoiled in some cases.
the problem is fundamental due to the fact that this app is crowdsourced and because most of the actual clickbait is from channels that are so low quality that even the users of this app don't want to put in the effort to fix it. meanwhile the videos people actually put effort into get neutered because some geek thought the title wasn't definitionally accurate enough.
that's another thing, why are we paying to crowdsource our work? i only realized i was paying to work after i forked it over so shame on me i guess but it certainly left a slimy taste in my mouth afterwards.
clickbait = "sensational and unappealing packaging (the titles and thumbnails)" and tons of clickbait thumbnails and titles get through dearrow because this addon requires users of an addon who're allergic to clickbait already to willingly submit themselves to enduring low quality content in order to submit a new relevant title and thumbnail and remove said clickbait with dearrow. it just won't happen and prevents the addon from working as intended
dev, i recommend removing the crowdsourcing element of this addon *or* merely asking for donations instead of outright payment. you can't do both and you can't expect people to pay you to do work for you. a refund is actually kind of a ridiculous thing to offer. you want me to hop in your email to beg for a dollar? get real LOL. when you ask for payment you invite criticism and a refund is not relevant.
original review below --------------------------------------
I paid a dollar for this app expecting to remove the clickbait from my Youtube experience but instead most of the actual clickbait (content farm videos with 1mil+ views) continue to appear unaltered while the titles from any even mildly popular genuine video creator get stripped of all creativity and even narratively spoiled in some cases.
the problem is fundamental due to the fact that this app is crowdsourced and because most of the actual clickbait is from channels that are so low quality that even the users of this app don't want to put in the effort to fix it. meanwhile the videos people actually put effort into get neutered because some geek thought the title wasn't definitionally accurate enough.
that's another thing, why are we paying to crowdsource our work? i only realized i was paying to work after i forked it over so shame on me i guess but it certainly left a slimy taste in my mouth afterwards.
Developer response
posted 3 years agoI am happy to fully refund you, send me an email dev@ajay.app
You seem to be looking for something different from what DeArrow is.
DeArrow at the moment is not for filtering and hiding videos that are low quality, but instead of about reducing sensationalism in all videos (the high quality ones too). You seem to be looking for something very different, which is fine.
When I look at my YouTube feed, I see many high quality videos created by great people. The problem is that they are all obscured by sensational and unappealing packaging (the titles and thumbnails).
The goal of DeArrow is to be able to look at that feed of already high quality videos without having to deal with the current sensationalist title/thumbnail trends and know what which of those videos to choose from based on what their actual content is.
I hope that makes the purpose more clear :)
You seem to be looking for something different from what DeArrow is.
DeArrow at the moment is not for filtering and hiding videos that are low quality, but instead of about reducing sensationalism in all videos (the high quality ones too). You seem to be looking for something very different, which is fine.
When I look at my YouTube feed, I see many high quality videos created by great people. The problem is that they are all obscured by sensational and unappealing packaging (the titles and thumbnails).
The goal of DeArrow is to be able to look at that feed of already high quality videos without having to deal with the current sensationalist title/thumbnail trends and know what which of those videos to choose from based on what their actual content is.
I hope that makes the purpose more clear :)
389 reviews
- Rated 3 out of 5by a real guy honest, 6 days agoLove the idea but literally not a single video on my page had any submitted titles for it. My advice is to use AI to summarise the video into a title and put that in your database rather than relying on ONLY crowdsourcing.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Ythan, 13 days ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 20013628, 20 days agoNo activation button available, only trial for 6 hours. So every 6 hours i have to reactivate it, essentially replacing one annoyance with another.
Yea, I'm never paying for this, would've considered it if it just flat out said it's a paid extension, which it is. - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18901250, 24 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by yogi, a month ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by SleepyLatte, a month agoOpen source and community driven but give me money. Intresting concept, so the money you make, do you give it to people who actually keep this garabge running? Oh no you dont, because you totally did all of the work! Like no one else on this planet was willing to do it for free, just another cancer
Developer response
posted a month agoThis extension has a soft-paywall, you can use it for free by clicking "I can't/don't want to pay"
The code is released under the GPL license for anyone to use as see fit
Just like with SponsorBlock, the entire database of submisisons is published at https://sponsor.ajay.app/database under a creative commons license - Rated 1 out of 5by dysfun, a month agoapparently wants to force me to activate it before it'll work at all, except the activation button is just flat out missing. waste of time.
Developer response
posted a month agoThe button shouldn't be missing, but if you are having trouble, you can send me an email: dev@ajay.app - Rated 5 out of 5by chefski, 2 months ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by ss, 2 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 19682243, 2 months ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Alpherio, 2 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by mark100, 2 months agoOne of the best YouTube extensions out there.
It's up there with Sponsor block and UBlock Origin.
It's very time saving, especially when browsing through your recommendations page (it makes your digest more productive.)
Most of these big tech channel videos are frequently summarized into a small sentence.
I've found it most useful for tech videos (as most custom titles lie here)
The feature where it shows a random screenshot of the video in the thumbnail is amazing, it helps me preview videos that are obviously AI generated.
I love this extension, and I suggest others to contribute to the project by:
buying the product - it's only $1 !!!
donating to the developer.
source thumbnails and titles yourself to help expand the project!
share it with your friends.
the only problem I have with it, is that it isn't popular enough, making custom titles quite rare in normal feeds. - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18414040, 3 months ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by reachus_peachus, 3 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by l0lill0, 3 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Eti, 3 months ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by CS-FF, 3 months agoThe remove emojis feature is not working for me. There is an original title that isn't replaced and the emojis are there despite having the option checked.
Developer response
posted 3 months agoCan you verify if you are on the latest version of the extension? (2.3.6) - Rated 5 out of 5by Chris Hayes, 3 months agoGenuinely improves my YouTube experience.
Yesterday for some reason it stopped working and was making Firefox hang, so I disabled it. I forgot I did that and was wondering why YouTube suddenly felt a lot more click-bait-y than usual.
I love that thumbnails actually represent how the video looks, and that I no longer see video titles that tell me absolutely nothing about the video.
My $1 has been well worth it. - Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 17842467, 4 months agoI don't understand installing it and subsequently leaving a negative review for the fact that it does what it says, or for the $1 dollar payment that you *don't have to pay.* That said, this is often broken and may not always be as useful as you'd think (people like to inject their opinions into the new titles for example; this is often fixed eventually but it's kinda irritating when bad titles stay up). You can just go through the settings to limit or remove title changes, though.
Edit: Re-read what I said, this is a pretty neutral review -- unchanged by your response.Developer response
posted 3 months agoIf it's still not working for you, try making sure it's not asking for extra permissions. You can go to about:addons, and click the gear icon and click "Check for updates". If there is a popup in the top right asking for permissions to access dearrow.ajay.app (the DeArrow homepage), click "Update" - Rated 5 out of 5by Penny, 4 months agoBig fan of this extension, occasionally youtube will make changes and break it, but it is always back working pretty quickly
- Rated 5 out of 5by Aaron, 4 months ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 19858893, 4 months ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Fledrox, 4 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by DrWhoFan13, 4 months ago