Dumbify - Customizable text-based YouTube, no thumbnails or distractions icon

Dumbify - Customizable text-based YouTube, no thumbnails or distractions

by Eden Rebello Β· Tools
Manifest V3 Free
View in Chrome Web Store Data as of 21 Oct 2026

Turn YouTube into a calm reading list: no thumbnails, no autoplay, no clutter. 19 themes, layouts, GIF wallpapers, custom fonts.

Users
9
+7 in 30 days
Rating
5.0 / 5
unchanged in 30 days
Ratings
2
+1 in 30 days
Store rank
#208K
#174K among extensions
Version
2.0.0
updated 12 Oct 2026

Users

monthly, 2 months
049Sep 2026Oct 2026Oct 2026
Latest, 21 Oct 2026: 9 usersMove the mouse over the chart for any month

Ratings count

monthly, 2 months
012Sep 2026Oct 2026Oct 2026
Latest, 21 Oct 2026: 2 ratingsMove the mouse over the chart for any month

The Chrome Web Store rounds user counts down to the leading digit, so the user line moves in steps. The ratings count is exact and is the better signal of real adoption.

About Dumbify - Customizable text-based YouTube, no thumbnails or distractions

πŸ“Ί Dumbify turns YouTube into a plain, readable list of text. No thumbnails, no autoplay, no recommendation rabbit holes β€” just titles, channels, and durations you can actually scan. It is not a separate site. Dumbify sits on top of youtube.com, so you stay signed in and your subscriptions, history, watch later, and comments all keep working exactly as before. You just stop getting yelled at by the interface. 😌 πŸ€” WHY YouTube's interface is built to maximize watch time, not to help you find or finish a video. Thumbnails are engineered to grab attention. Autoplay picks what you watch next. The sidebar exists to pull you sideways into something else. Dumbify strips that back to what a feed actually is: a list you scan and choose from. ✨ WHAT YOU GET πŸ“„ Text-first feed β€” titles, channel, views, and upload date across home, search, channel pages, history, subscriptions, and watch later. No thumbnails anywhere. 🎬 Distraction-free watch page β€” the video, its description, and comments. No autoplay, no end-screen suggestions, no "up next" sidebar. 🎯 Focus mode β€” press F for a full-screen player with no interface at all. πŸ’¬ Real interactions, not a read-only mirror β€” subscribe and unsubscribe, like comments, reply, and read replies. πŸ”€ Typography controls β€” 8 font sizes, 8 font families across serif, sans, and mono, light and dark themes, and a custom background. ⌨️ Keyboard-driven β€” Cmd/Ctrl+K to search, F for focus mode. ♾️ Infinite scroll β€” loads more of the real feed as you go. βš™οΈ HOW IT WORKS Dumbify does not scrape the rendered page and does not route anything through a server. It reads the same underlying data YouTube itself renders from, and calls the same API YouTube's own frontend uses for pagination, subscribing, and posting comments. Everything you do goes straight to YouTube with your existing session. There is no middleman account and no separate write path. πŸ”’ PRIVACY Dumbify collects nothing. There is no server, no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting, and no tracking of any kind. Your display preferences are saved locally in your own browser and are never transmitted anywhere. Requests go only to youtube.com. Permissions, and why each is needed: β€’ storage β€” saves your font and theme preferences on your device β€’ scripting β€” reads YouTube's own page data in order to render the simplified view β€’ access to youtube.com β€” Dumbify runs only on YouTube and cannot see any other site πŸ“‹ Full privacy policy: https://edenreb.github.io/dumbify/PRIVACY πŸ’» OPEN SOURCE Dumbify is free and open source under GPL-3.0, with no runtime dependencies and no remote code. Read every line, or build it yourself: https://github.com/edenreb/dumbify Made with ❀️ by Eden Rebello and Gabriel Tan

Growth

WindowUsersChangeRatingsRating
7 daysβˆ’1βˆ’10.0%00.00
30 days+7+350.0%+10.00

Chrome Web Store search rankings

Where Dumbify - Customizable text-based YouTube, no thumbnails or distractions appears when people search the store, with the 30 day change
Search phrasePosition30 days
custom feed#61+6
customize#88+7

Version history

3 versions recorded
2.0.06 Oct 2026
1.1.06 Sep 2026
1.0.03 Sep 2026

Details

Category
Tools
First seen
3 Sep 2026
Size
977 KB
Languages
en
Pricing
Free
Privacy policy
edenrebello.me
Extension ID
lhnjjldhbllcdfdldeacdgalkkofhicf

Permissions and risk

Moderate riskimpact 2, likelihood 3
Permissions
storagescriptingunlimitedStorage
Site access
https://www.youtube.com/*

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