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Show HN: A Chrome extension to give you back control over short-form videos

(chromewebstore.google.com)
128 points darajava | 1 comments | 01 Apr 25 11:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.277s | source

Hi HN! I built this little extension to prevent, in my opinion, the most offensive anti-pattern used by tech companies. That is removing the seek bar in short-form videos.

The "seek bar" is the bar at the bottom of a video that progresses as you play the video, and that you can click on or drag to skip around. Why companies ever thought it was a good idea to get rid of this I don't know, but I find it infuriating, so I decided to add it back for myself and thought others might like it too.

ReelControl adds a progress bar and seeking capabilities to videos on Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and Facebook Reels.

I do sometimes enjoy watching short-form content and I've found that with this extension enabled I can be more mindful about it and get sucked in way less. I'm also on my phone less because I tend to favor the web versions of these platforms now.

Open source--PRs and issues welcome! https://github.com/darajava/seek-anywhere/

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joshdavham ◴[02 Apr 25 18:12 UTC] No.43559581[source]▶
Thanks for sharing! Also, would you mind adding a license to your gh repo?
replies(1): >>43559673 #
darajava ◴[02 Apr 25 18:19 UTC] No.43559673[source]▶
No problem. Yes, I never thought of that! What is the practical benefit of having a license here and which one should I choose?
replies(3): >>43559743 #>>43559745 #>>43559767 #
1. freedomben ◴[02 Apr 25 18:27 UTC] No.43559767[source]▶
Without a license, legaly nobody can do anything with the code. The license is essentially the way that you communicate what you will allow people to do with it.

For a project like this, I would strongly recommend an MIT license. That will essentially allow people to use the code and modify it, contribute back to it, and otherwise distribute their changes.