In recent years, YouTube has become a major bedrock of spoilers for all kinds of media, to the point where it’s almost impossible to avoid them. These can crop anywhere from the home page, while searching for videos, and even while watching videos through a sidebar of recommended videos.
This is thanks to the platform’s recommended video algorithm shoving nearly kind of video, regardless of spoilers, for a particular piece of media, whether it’s a video game, or movie, or a TV show, even if you barely watched any videos on the subject.
Case in point — in the last couple of weeks, YouTube showed major story spoilers for the final boss of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, even though I only watched a few videos for work purposes, and I was watching a completely unrelated video at the time.
I unfortunately haven’t had the time to play Clair Obscur despite it selling a million copies and the overwhelmingly positive reviews it’s getting (including our 4.5 review of the game), due to work and intentionally waiting to see if any more balance changes or nerfs will be added.
But thanks to YouTube shoving final boss spoilers in my face, one of the best Xbox games and best PC games of 2025 is now tainted for me, and I’ll wait a long time for the memories to fade before I can play Clair Obscur unsullied.
Enraged by this, I scoured the internet for a way to block YouTube’s recommended videos, so I don’t have to worry about spoilers again for any more upcoming Xbox titles/upcoming PC titles.
Some sources say I should delete my YouTube watch history to reset the algorithm so it removes the recommended videos from my feed, but that felt like a temporary solution.
I wanted a permanent way to safeguard myself from spoilers on YouTube, and I thankfully found it in the form of Unhook.
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Unhook is a free web browser extension available for Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox that gives you the ability to remove recommended videos and other distracting elements like Autoplay and the Comments Section on YouTube.
I’ve been testing with this browser extension for a few days, and it works with gusto. No longer will I have to worry about spoilers on YouTube because Unhook removes recommended videos from the home page and from the sidebar while watching videos.
It’s also very customizable, so you can have Unhook block out one feature or several on YouTube to suit your viewing preferences. The full list of Unhook’s options includes:
- Hide Homepage Feed.
- Hide Video Sidebar.
- – Hide Recommended (Related Videos).
- – Hide Live Chat.
- – Hide Playlist.
- Hide YouTube Shorts.
- Hide End Screen Videowall.
- Hide End Screen Cards.
- Hide Comments.
- – Hide Profile Photos.
- Hide Mix Radio Playlists.
- Hide Merch, Tickets, Offers.
- Hide Video Info.
- – Hide Video Buttons Bar (share, likes, dislikes).
- – Hide Channel (profile + subscribe button).
- – Hide Video Description.
- Hide Top Header.
- – Hide Notification Bell.
- Hide Irrelevant Search Results (“Related to your search”, “Latest from”, “Searches related to”, “People also search for”, etc.).
- Hide Explore and Trending.
- Hide More from YouTube.
- Hide and Redirect Subscriptions.
- Disable Autoplay.
- Disable Annotations.
So if you’re sick of tiptoeing around YouTube to avoid spoilers for your favorite pieces of media, than I highly recommend getting your hands on Unhook. It is available for free on Microsoft Edge’s add-on store, Chrome’s Web Store, and Firefox’s Add-ons Store.
Unhook is also compatible with mobile YouTube (m.youtube.com) through Firefox on Android, and it works on video embeds, too.
