Probably an unpopular opinion, but I instead installed an extension to force shorts to play as normal videos. Some channels have shorts worth watching (imo), but this prevents endless scrolling through short after short, I have to intentionally choose to watch them by clicking on the specific thumbnail, every time.

I find it a decent compromise.

"BuT mAnIfEsT v3 wIlL pRoTeCt UsErS fRoM mAlIcIoUs ExTeNsIoNs."

youtube shorts deflector?

You can just uBlock the thing on the front page.

If your browser recently tried killing uBlock - switch.

A Chrome extension titled “Hide YouTube Shorts,” used by 100,000 people, was recently discovered to secretly collect users' browser activity, raising serious concerns about user privacy on Google Chrome Web Store.

I like how the recommended remediation to this malicious extension is to install an extension for monitoring extensions.

Serious question though: is "can connect to network" a permission on Chrome apps? What about Mozilla? It seems like this, more than anything, is what needs to be locked down for all apps (beyond just browser extensions). Like on my MacBook for example, I have to give apps explicit permission to access folders like Documents. But I'm pretty sure they can all access the Internet without restriction, right? That seems crazy to me.

phew it's not unhook