Before installing, I’d like to see a few privacy and transparency improvements:

1. The extension requests the cookies permission and includes a getYouTubeCookies() function that reads cookies for youtube.com. Even though this function appears disabled, it’s unclear why this level of access is needed for audio-only playback. Removing the permission or clearly justifying it would improve trust.

2. Relatedly, keeping dormant cookie-access code in the repository raises unnecessary concerns. If it’s not required, it would be better to remove it entirely rather than leaving it commented out.

3. The extension logs various playback and stream details (including audio stream URLs) to the console. While likely intended for debugging, this could expose sensitive data in shared or inspected environments. Reducing or disabling logging in production would be safer.

4. The extension modifies page behavior beyond audio-only playback (e.g., overriding visibility state, auto-clicking “continue watching” dialogs, and bypassing certain YouTube interstitial checks). These behaviors should be clearly documented so users understand exactly what the extension is doing.

Overall, the functionality looks useful, but tightening permissions and improving transparency would make it easier to trust.

Doesn't work

A very good video blocker, it works very well. It helps a lot when I don't want to be distracted by the videos or when I want to give my eyes rest. I listen to videos instead of listening to them so it something listening to podcasts.

I have tried multiple extensions but this was the only one which worked on Youtube for Desktop.

Works great, but it should turn off ambient mode automatically as well when audio-only is toggled on.

I tried some other extensions and they had all kinds of "features", but just didn't work. This is a simple program that just works