Four Clicks to a Less Annoying YouTube [Annoyances]

By Adam Pash, LifehackerAugust 20, 2012 at 02:00PM

Four Clicks to a Less Annoying YouTubeYou know what’s awful about YouTube videos? Sure you do! Annotations are awful. Because more often than not, they’re less “annotation” and more “HEYDIDYOULIKETHIS?!!? SUBSCRIBE NOW BUY ON ITUNES!!!!!” Most of you probably click off annotations (and to a lesser degree captions) nearly every time you watch a YouTube video. Do yourself a favor and turn them off for good, right now.

  1. Visit your YouTube Playback Settings page.
  2. Untick Show annotations on videos.
  3. Untick Always show captions.
  4. Click Save.

That was easy, right? Now you won’t have to deal with the almost-always-annoying annotations and the sometimes-unnecessary captions ever again (or at least as long as you’re logged into your YouTube/Google account). You can always turn them back on any time you want, but you’ll no longer need to turn them off nearly every time you watch a video.

As for your other YouTube annoyances? Here’s how to fix those.

The image above is from YouTube user schmoyoho: extremely talented person, confirmed annotation abuser.