The process of "enshittification" has fully reached YouTube. It works worse and worse, its performance leaves much to be desired, and personalization options are almost nonexistent. Luckily, extensions come to the user's rescue by blocking, removing, or modifying different aspects of its interface, and one of the newest is Control Panel for YouTube. With a couple of clicks, we can hide Shorts, change thumbnail size, set the number of videos on screen, disable autoplay, hide comments, and much more.
Frustration, irritation… and above all, disappointment. YouTube could be much better than it is, but Google only wants one thing: to "optimize" the adoption of YouTube Premium. What's left for the rest of the users? Essentially, a "second-class" experience, inflexible, with irrelevant features, and the impossibility of making advanced adjustments. Fortunately, there are still extensions that allow us to modify the desktop interface, and one of the newest is Control Panel for YouTube.
How to Optimize YouTube's Interface with Control Panel for YouTube
When we click on the extension icon, Control Panel for YouTube opens a long menu, packed with options. We can hide Shorts, suggested sections, mixes, scheduled videos ("upcoming"), live streams, and entire channels. It also allows us to disable the main page (it sends us to Subscriptions if we're logged in), autoplay, end-screen content, end cards, and auto-playback (which often has a mind of its own and reactivates by itself).
Control Panel for YouTube offers parameters to create a more compact interface, among which the size of thumbnails stands out, the grid configuration (this applies to the main page and Subscriptions), and the possibility of removing certain elements like the "Most recent" bar, and titles in the sidebar. There's a lot to experiment with here, and all changes are applied in real time. If something doesn't respond, a touch of F5 should be more than enough.
In summary, Control Panel for YouTube is a simpler extension compared to others with similar functions, but it does a good job, and helps us improve our YouTube experience with minimal effort. To finish, the extension works on the main browsers, and also on mobile alternatives like Safari, Firefox, and Kiwi Browser.
Official site and downloads: Click here
