Top 10 Best YouTube Extensions for Chrome in 2025

Tired of YouTubers spending minutes on sponsor messages, begging for subscriptions, or lengthy intros and outros? SponsorBlock for YouTube - Skip Sponsorships is a game-changer for an uninterrupted viewing experience. This crowdsourced browser extension allows users to submit the start and end times of sponsored segments and other annoying parts of YouTube videos. Once a segment is reported by one user, it's automatically skipped for everyone else using the extension.

This tool isn't just about skipping paid sponsorships. It can also bypass intros, outros, subscription reminders, self-promotions, and even non-music sections in music videos. The beauty of SponsorBlock lies in its community-driven database, which is constantly updated and entirely public. The more people use and contribute to it, the more effective it becomes, saving countless hours for viewers worldwide.

It operates seamlessly in the background, with clear visual indicators on the YouTube progress bar showing which segments have been identified and skipped. You retain full control, with options to unskip segments or customize which types of segments are automatically skipped. For anyone who values their time and wants a more streamlined YouTube experience, SponsorBlock is an essential addition to their Chrome browser.

Many YouTube users were dismayed when the platform decided to hide public dislike counts. Return YouTube Dislike is a popular extension that aims to restore this lost functionality. It brings back the dislike count to YouTube videos, offering viewers a more complete picture of community sentiment before investing their time in watching.

This extension works by leveraging a combination of archived dislike data from before YouTube's API change and new dislike data submitted by users of the extension. While it might not be perfectly accurate for every single video, especially newer or less popular ones, it provides a remarkably good estimate for a vast majority of content. The more users who install and use the extension, the more precise its dislike data becomes, as it relies on collective user input to keep ratings up-to-date.

For those who relied on dislike counts to gauge video quality, identify clickbait, or find helpful tutorials, Return YouTube Dislike is an invaluable tool. It seamlessly integrates into the YouTube interface, displaying the dislike count right where it used to be. It's a simple yet powerful extension that gives power back to the users.

Enhancer for YouTube™ is a comprehensive toolkit designed to supercharge your YouTube experience with a plethora of customizable features. This extension is for users who want granular control over video playback, appearance, and overall functionality on YouTube, making every viewing session smoother and more tailored to individual preferences.

From adjusting playback speed with fine precision (0.07x to 16x) using mouse wheel or keyboard shortcuts, to boosting volume and bass for clearer sound, Enhancer for YouTube™ covers a wide range of audio-visual enhancements. It allows users to set default playback quality, control autoplay features, and even disable high frame rate formats if desired. The enhanced dark mode with over 50 variants and custom theme options ensures a comfortable viewing experience in any lighting condition.

Beyond playback, it offers features like a cinema mode to dim surroundings, an expanded player, a mini-player for multitasking, and a pop-up player. You can block distractions like end screens and recommendations, manage YouTube Shorts, take high-quality screenshots, and set custom keyboard shortcuts. For a truly personalized and powerful YouTube experience, this extension is a top contender.

In an age of digital distractions, Unhook - Remove YouTube Recommended & Shorts offers a sanctuary for focused viewing. This extension is designed to eliminate common YouTube distractions like the recommended videos sidebar, the addictive Shorts feed, end-screen suggestions, comments, and the homepage feed. It's perfect for students, researchers, or anyone who wants to use YouTube intentionally without falling into a rabbit hole of suggested content.

Unhook provides a high degree of customization, allowing users to toggle specific elements on or off. Want to watch a tutorial without seeing a barrage of unrelated videos in the sidebar? Unhook can do that. Need to avoid the allure of Shorts while browsing your subscriptions? It's got you covered. You can also hide the trending tab, turn off autoplay, disable annotations, and even hide video info like the like/dislike bar or channel details.

By decluttering the YouTube interface, Unhook helps users reclaim their attention and use the platform more productively. It's a powerful tool for minimizing distractions and fostering a more mindful YouTube experience, also compatible with mobile YouTube via Firefox on Android.

Navigating YouTube can often feel like wading through a sea of advertisements. Adblock for YouTube™ provides a straightforward solution by aiming to remove all types of ads from the platform. This includes pre-roll ads that play before your video, mid-roll ads that interrupt content, banner ads, and overlay ads, allowing for a cleaner and uninterrupted viewing experience.

Beyond just improving the flow of content, this ad blocker can also contribute to faster page loading times on YouTube, as your browser doesn't need to load ad content. This can be particularly beneficial on slower internet connections. Furthermore, by blocking ads, the extension can offer an additional layer of security, as some ads can be vectors for malware or unwanted tracking scripts.

Adblock for YouTube™ is designed for ease of use; once installed, it begins working automatically without requiring complex configuration. For users whose primary goal is to eliminate ads specifically on YouTube, this extension offers a focused approach to achieving a more streamlined and enjoyable video-watching session.

For those who love to listen to a favorite song on repeat, practice a tutorial section, or simply enjoy a particular video clip over and over, Looper for YouTube is an incredibly handy extension. It adds a dedicated loop button directly beneath the YouTube player, allowing you to replay videos automatically with a single click.

This extension offers more than just a simple infinite loop. Users can customize its features, such as setting a default auto-loop for every video, specifying the number of times a video should loop, and even looping only a specific portion or range of a video. This fine-grained control is perfect for musicians learning a riff, students studying a particular lecture segment, or anyone who needs to focus on a specific part of a video.

Looper for YouTube integrates seamlessly with the YouTube interface, including matching the latest Material You design. It also offers keyboard shortcuts (e.g., 'P' to start loop) and URL parameters for even quicker loop activation. When the loop button is pressed, playlist autoplay is conveniently disabled, ensuring your chosen video continues to repeat without interruption.

In our fast-paced world, sifting through long YouTube videos for key information can be time-consuming. YouTube Summary with ChatGPT & Claude is a powerful Chrome extension that leverages AI to provide concise summaries of YouTube videos, web articles, and even PDFs. This tool is perfect for students, researchers, and anyone looking to quickly grasp the main points of online content.

Upon opening a YouTube video, the extension can generate a summary, often with timestamps, allowing you to jump directly to relevant sections. It also provides access to the video transcript, which can be easily copied. The summaries are powered by advanced AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, Mistral AI, and Gemini, ensuring high-quality and coherent output.

The benefits are clear: significant time savings, increased productivity, and improved learning efficiency. You can customize the length of the summaries and even the AI prompt used for generation. The extension supports multiple languages, making it a versatile tool for a global audience. If you want to learn more in less time, this AI-powered summarizer is a fantastic asset.

YouTube Shorts, while popular with some, can be a significant source of distraction for others who prefer long-form content or want to avoid the endless scroll. The Youtube-shorts block extension offers a solution by allowing users to manage how Shorts are handled in their YouTube experience. Its primary function is to redirect Shorts videos to play on the regular YouTube video page, giving them a standard player interface.

This extension provides several features to customize your interaction with Shorts. You can choose to automatically redirect all Shorts to the normal video player, which offers better playback controls and a less addictive interface. Additionally, it offers options to hide the "Shorts" tab from the YouTube navigation menu and to hide Shorts videos from appearing in your feeds and search results. By default, the "Hide shorts video" feature is enabled, which many users will appreciate.

For users who find the dedicated Shorts player on PC to be poorly optimized or simply wish to integrate Shorts into their standard YouTube viewing habits (or remove them altogether), this extension provides the necessary tools. It aims to improve the user experience for those who aren't fans of the TikTok-style Shorts interface on desktop.

For YouTube content creators serious about growing their channel, vidIQ Vision for YouTube is an indispensable analytics and optimization tool. This extension provides a wealth of data and insights directly within the YouTube interface, helping creators understand what makes videos successful and how to improve their own content strategy.

vidIQ offers a suite of powerful features, including the 'vidIQ Score,' which ranks videos based on their likelihood of being promoted. The 'Channel Audit' tool gives creators a quick overview of their channel's performance, highlighting what's working and what needs attention. 'Video Velocity' tracks how quickly views are accelerating in real-time, helping to identify viral trends. The 'Competitors Tool' provides insights into what other channels in your niche are doing to succeed.

With features like average watch time data, social media engagement tracking, and keyword research tools (in paid versions), vidIQ empowers creators to make data-driven decisions to get more views and subscribers. While it has free features, upgrading unlocks more powerful historical data and optimization capabilities like keyword recommendations for tags, titles, and descriptions.

Another powerhouse for YouTube creators, TubeBuddy for YouTube™ integrates directly into YouTube Studio, offering a comprehensive suite of over 50 tools designed for channel optimization and growth. It's trusted by millions of creators, from solo vloggers to enterprise-level brands, to help them increase views and subscribers.

TubeBuddy's features cover a wide spectrum of creator needs. It offers tools for generating engaging titles and thumbnails, including A/B testing capabilities to optimize click-through rates. Its YouTube SEO optimization tools help creators find relevant keywords to improve their video's discoverability in search. For editing and production, TubeBuddy simplifies tasks with bulk processing tools, allowing edits across multiple videos, creating card templates, and scheduling end screens.

Competitor analysis tools allow creators to compare tags and strategies used by successful channels in their niche. The data analytics dashboard provides real-time insights into viewer demographics, watch time, and traffic sources. Like vidIQ, TubeBuddy offers free features with more advanced capabilities available through paid plans (Pro, Legend, Enterprise), catering to creators at different stages of their YouTube journey.