Uploaded January 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Most people know social media is bad for you. With its time-wasting algorithms and selling of your personal data, more people know the downsides than ever before. But what about YouTube? YouTube has all of the downsides of social media, but I just can't bring myself to leave it behind, with all of the great things you can learn on it. But in this video I'll go over how you can remove all of the bad parts of YouTube while keeping the good. I'll show you how you can remove the recommendations, browse your YouTube subscriptions through my favorite RSS reader (Newsboat), and more. Now I can finally make more videos instead of wasting my entire day on YouTube...
Unhook Browser Extension: https://unhook.app/
Newpipe: newpipe.net
Google Takeout: takeout.google.com/takeout/custom/youtube
My Newsboat configuration: github.com/ericmurphyxyz/dotfiles/blob/master/.config/newsboat/config
🌐 My website: https://ericmurphy.xyz
💸 Support the Channel: https://ericmurphy.xyz/donate
🎥 Watch my videos on Odysee: odysee.com/@ericnmurphy
💻 My GitHub: github.com/ericmurphyxyz
0:00 Am I a hypocrite?
0:42 The good parts of YouTube
1:17 How YouTube is like social media
1:57 So how do we fix it?
2:46 Removing distractions
5:17 Removing distractions on your phone with Newpipe
6:32 Using YouTube through an RSS reader
8:30 Getting YouTube RSS feed URLs
9:45 Bulk exporting RSS feed URLs with Google Takeout
10:54 How I use YouTube (without being used)
11:52 Conclusion
Most people know social media is bad for you. With its time-wasting algorithms and selling of your personal data, more people know the downsides than ever before. But what about YouTube? YouTube has all of the downsides of social media, but I just can't bring myself to leave it behind, with all of the great things you can learn on it. But in this video I'll go over how you can remove all of the bad parts of YouTube while keeping the good. I'll show you how you can remove the recommendations, browse your YouTube subscriptions through my favorite RSS reader (Newsboat), and more. Now I can finally make more videos instead of wasting my entire day on YouTube...
Unhook Browser Extension: https://unhook.app/
Newpipe: newpipe.net
Google Takeout: takeout.google.com/takeout/custom/youtube
My Newsboat configuration: github.com/ericmurphyxyz/dotfiles/blob/master/.config/newsboat/config
🌐 My website: https://ericmurphy.xyz
💸 Support the Channel: https://ericmurphy.xyz/donate
🎥 Watch my videos on Odysee: odysee.com/@ericnmurphy
💻 My GitHub: github.com/ericmurphyxyz
0:00 Am I a hypocrite?
0:42 The good parts of YouTube
1:17 How YouTube is like social media
1:57 So how do we fix it?
2:46 Removing distractions
5:17 Removing distractions on your phone with Newpipe
6:32 Using YouTube through an RSS reader
8:30 Getting YouTube RSS feed URLs
9:45 Bulk exporting RSS feed URLs with Google Takeout
10:54 How I use YouTube (without being used)
11:52 Conclusion
