Hacker Remix

Show HN: I built a cleaner YouTube – no ads, sponsors, or doomscrolling

15 points by Nina_F 1 day ago | 11 comments

Hi HN!

I built SkipCut

it’s like an ad-free, distraction-free YouTube with useful extras: background play, SponsorBlock, dark mode, playlist support, local history, download/share buttons… and it works on any device. No install. No login.

Here’s the best part: It works just by replacing "youtube" with "skipcut" in the video link. You skip all the boring stuff — ads, sponsors, intros, silence, filler and just watch what matters.

Why it’s different: No comments. No suggested videos. No clickbait.

I made this for my kid, I create a playlist and just send a SkipCut link like: https://skipcut.com?list=xyz123 It plays only those videos and stops the doomscrolling.

Just replace youtube with skipcut in the URL of any video Example: https://www.skipcut.com/watch?v=abc123

No signup required

Would love your feedback, ideas, and bug reports!

Try it: https://skipcut.com

Leftium 17 hours ago

I also made an alternate YouTube player with a different feature set (for sharing/reviewing segments of dance videos)

- https://youloop.leftium.com

- https://github.com/Leftium/youloop

Your app gave me some ideas. Here are some ideas your app might use:

- Load video by detecting YouTube ID/URL in clipboard

- Hide YouTube "branding" in paused/thumbnail state. (Mostly to hide "More videos" UI)

- (A-B) looping

- Playback speed controls

- Mute

RobotCaleb 2 minutes ago

Please keep your paws out of my clipboard

ibdf 13 hours ago

This looks really nice, but... you went so far to remove all the annoying things just to add some annoying notifications... you get about 3 of them per video loaded.

Leftium 16 hours ago

A feature I would love to see in a YouTube player: better transcript view

- Single click to open transcript

- Transcript not crammed into tiny window in corner

- Often I use the transcript as a navigation tool when (re)viewing a long video. Especially when I want to share a specific part of a video.

---

And I found a bug in SkipCut when clicking a FAQ:

- If the video was started (then paused) opening a FAQ starts the video (audio).

- Possibly related? often the browser jumps down the page, so the FAQ I clicked is not visible unless I scroll back up. (Or maybe it is scrolling the FAQ to near the top of the viewport? It's disorienting. If intentional, a smooth scroll animation may help.)

OdehAhwal 17 hours ago

That sounds like a dream come true. Seriously, YouTube without ads, sponsors, and that endless scroll trap. I need that in my life. Cool name too. Reach out to me on x (@odehahwal) and let me support your launch on PH or anywhere else. Cheers

Hiikyu 20 hours ago

just tried it out with replacing the youtube.com in url to skipcut.com and it seems like there is a bug where the video doesn't show

keep up the great work!

Nina_F 19 hours ago

thanks for the feedback.

gigatexal 22 hours ago

How does it work?

Nina_F 19 hours ago

It uses an embed player, like how IMDb or any website uses it. When I added YouTube videos to my website, I observed that ads never show there, so I made it and added a sponsor block too. Now, I can watch videos on any device or share links without anyone installing anything.

netsharc 3 hours ago

Some videos don't allow embedding though, for example the Formula 1 channel disallow it for seemingly all their videos: https://skipcut.com/watch?v=QGTErgNcpDM

Leftium 17 hours ago

I also noticed embedded YouTube videos don't seem to play ads. I am planning to make a beat-aware YouTube player, so I was wondering how ads would affect the timing...