Better Player for Youtube

Better Player is a Safari extension for YouTube. It blocks the ads, turns the page into a dark room with the video as the one lit thing in it, and on iPhone takes the video full screen in landscape even when the rotation lock is on.

NO ADS
Ad slots are hidden by a stylesheet before the page first paints, the ones YouTube injects into the feed afterwards are cleared, and a skippable ad in the player has Skip pressed for it as soon as the button appears. An unskippable ad still has to play — nothing here breaks YouTube's playback to get around one.

LANDSCAPE FULL SCREEN, EVEN LOCKED TO PORTRAIT
On iPhone, YouTube serves its phone layout, and Better Player gives you the playback bar — Picture in Picture, back and forward ten seconds, play, full screen — the ad blocking, and a full screen that works with the rotation lock on: tap full screen and the video turns sideways to fill the screen, with its own play, pause and skip buttons, double-tap to skip, and a drag along the edge to scrub. Turn the phone and the video follows.

FOCUS MODE
A dark layer covers the page and the video is lifted through it, centred in the window. Nothing is removed and nothing is rearranged — scroll down and the comments are exactly where YouTube put them. Press the close button in the corner and the lights come back up.

AMBIENT LIGHT
Better Player reads the frame on screen five times a second and paints its colours back out behind the video as a soft glow. A reef throws blue across the page; a field of mushrooms throws yellow-green. It drifts as the scene moves and stops when you pause. How far it spreads and how strong it is are yours to set.

SHORTS
A reel gets the same treatment: lit, with the guide dimmed and the column of buttons beside it out of the way. One switch keeps focus mode to watch pages instead.

CONTROLS WHERE YOUR HANDS ARE
Back and forward ten seconds, play and pause, previous and next, home, Picture in Picture, full screen — laid over the dimmed page, large enough to hit without aiming. Every button can be switched off; keep the two you use.

PRIVACY
Better Player is a Safari extension and nothing else. There is no backend it could send anything to, no analytics inside it, and no sign-in. Your settings stay on your device. Safari asks for permission on youtube.com because restyling that page is the whole job.

FREE
No in-app purchases, no subscription, no ads in the app. One app for iPhone, iPad and Mac.

ELEVEN LANGUAGES
English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified, Traditional and Cantonese), German, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.

WHAT RUNS WHERE
Focus mode, ambient light, centring and Shorts are built on YouTube's desktop site — that is what iPad loads; on iPhone, ask Safari for the desktop site and they come with it.

Better Player for Youtube is also available in the Mac App Store.