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

(chromewebstore.google.com)
128 points darajava | 2 comments | 01 Apr 25 11:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.417s | 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/

1. 65 ◴[02 Apr 25 19:56 UTC] No.43560833[source]▶
Instant download. Works great. Perhaps on Instagram you can make it save the audio level when the video is muted? If I mute a video then scroll to the next one, the audio still plays. Otherwise, thanks for making this, it's something I've wanted for a long time.
replies(1): >>43561908 #
2. darajava ◴[02 Apr 25 21:35 UTC] No.43561908[source]▶
Oh nice catch, I'll get onto that asap. Edit: This will be fixed in the next update.