ytbychannelBrowser extension

Click a video on YouTube, get the channel in the URL

The paste box works, but it asks you to copy a link every single time. Install the extension and the click itself does it: the video opens on ytbychannel.com, at an address your filter can write one rule about.

Add it to your browser — it’s freeFree · no account · nothing collected · Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera and any other Chromium browser

Use Edge, not Chrome. Pluckeye does not get along well with Chrome, and the symptom is a filter that looks like it is not working. Edge is the recommended pairing: it takes the same extensions from the same store, and Pluckeye filters it properly.

youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQbecomesytbychannel.com/RickAstleyYT/dQw4w9WgXcQ

What the extension does to every video link you click, and nothing else.

Why this exists

YouTube’s URLs never say whose video it is, so “allow this one channel” is not a rule you can write. This site fixes that by giving every video a second address with the channel in the path. The extension fixes the last annoying part: having to fetch that address by hand.

Without it, watching something means noticing the link, copying it, switching tab, pasting it, waiting. Five steps, every time, and four of them are exactly the kind of friction that ends with you deciding it is easier to just unblock YouTube. With it, you click the thumbnail like anyone else and land somewhere your filter already understands.

It is a convenience, not a filter

The extension decides where a click lands. It does not block anything, and it cannot: it is one click to disable in the toolbar, and that is by design. Pluckeye — or whatever filter you use — is what actually enforces the decision. The two are made to sit side by side.

What it touches, and what it leaves alone

Both of the extension’s mechanisms are deliberately narrow. Only a URL that names exactly one video is ever redirected — everything else on YouTube is untouched, and so is the rest of the web.

Redirected

watch?v= links, including ones carrying a playlist
youtu.be share links
Shorts, live URLs and embeds
m.youtube.com, and music.youtube.com if you switch it on
Timestamps, which are carried across

Left completely alone

Search and the subscriptions feed
Channel pages, playlists and clips
History, Watch Later, comments
YouTube Studio
Every YouTube embed on every other site

Installing it

Two minutes, and the last step is the one you were going to do anyway.

Add it from the Chrome Web Store
Open the ytbychannel listing and press the add button. Any Chromium browser installs from there — Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera, Vivaldi. Use Edge if you are filtering with Pluckeye, which does not get along well with Chrome.
Click a video on YouTube
The video opens at ytbychannel.com with the channel in the path. Search, subscriptions and channel pages carry on working as they always did.
Allow the channels you want
Copy the channel segment out of the address bar and add one allow rule for it in your filter. Every video that channel posts is covered from then on.

Open the Chrome Web Store listing

It needs Chromium 102 or newer, which is any browser updated since mid-2022. If your filter is what blocks the store itself, add an allow rule for chromewebstore.google.com long enough to press the button, then take it away again — removing an allow rule is instant.

The settings

Everything lives in the popup, and every switch takes effect on the next click. The defaults are what most people want; the two worth a thought are the last two.

Where the video opens

A new tab in front is the default. A new tab behind is for queueing things up without losing your place, and this tab is the closest to normal YouTube — you click, and the page you are on becomes the video.

YouTube tab opens it too

Off by default. Turn it on and the tab you clicked from follows the video as well, so YouTube’s comments and sidebar are still there next to the copy that actually plays. Only useful if your filter leaves YouTube’s page text alone.

Catch links from anywhere

On by default, and the setting that does the most work. A YouTube link someone sends you, one you open from another app, one you type into the address bar — all of them land on ytbychannel rather than on a block screen. This is the half a click-catcher cannot do, because the click never happens in a YouTube tab.

music.youtube.com

Off by default. Music is a player rather than a catalogue of pages, so with the switch on every song you click opens a tab. Turn it on if that is the trade you want.

Two more ways in

Both of these work whether or not the master switch is on, because asking for one particular video by hand is not something worth switching off.

Right-click any YouTube link → Open in ytbychannel. This is the only thing that covers “open link in new tab” from the context menu, which page JavaScript cannot intercept at all.
Press Alt+Y to send the video in the current tab across. Rebind it at edge://extensions/shortcuts — or chrome://extensions/shortcuts, depending on the browser — if it clashes with something.

Using it with Pluckeye

The extension changes nothing about the rules. It just means you reach the URL they are written about without any typing.

# nothing plays, anywhere
pluck + block youtube.com video/
pluck + block ytbychannel.com video/
 
# except the channels you decided on
pluck + allow https://ytbychannel.com/RickAstleyYT
 
# and every future decision waits four hours
pluck delay 4h

Click a video from a channel you have not allowed and you get the ytbychannel page with the title, the channel name and a blocked player. That is the useful moment: the address bar is now showing you the exact rule to add, and the delay decides whether you still want it in four hours’ time.

The full whitelisting guide, with audio-only, scheduled access and troubleshooting →

Two things worth doing in the right order

Install the extension before you set a long delay. If you are on the classic base configuration the store has to be reachable for as long as it takes to press the button, and allowing something new is exactly the change a delay makes you wait for.

And do it in Edge. Pluckeye does not filter Chrome reliably, so a setup that looks correct on paper can behave as though none of the rules exist — worth ruling out first if a blocked video plays anyway.

What it collects

Nothing.

That is not a policy so much as an architecture. The extension never looks a video up: the id is already sitting in the link that was clicked, and the site works the channel out server-side. So it makes no network requests of its own, needs no API key, has no account, and has nothing to send anywhere even if it wanted to.

storage — the six settings, synced with your own browser profile.
contextMenus — one right-click item, shown only on YouTube links.
declarativeNetRequestWithHostAccess — the redirect rules. They are static and declarative, so the extension never sees the contents of a request.
Host access to the YouTube domains and to ytbychannel.com — a redirect needs permission for both ends of it.

There is no tabs permission, no remote code, and no analytics. The site itself keeps one number per video, a hit count, and nothing that identifies who watched it.

Questions

Does the extension block anything?

No. It decides where a click lands, nothing more, and anyone can switch it off in one click from the toolbar. The blocking is your filter’s job — Pluckeye, or anything else that can allow a URL prefix. The extension exists so the URL your filter sees is one it can actually write a rule about.

Does it break search, playlists or my subscriptions feed?

No. Only URLs that name exactly one video are touched. Search results, channel pages, playlists, clips, the subscriptions feed, history, YouTube Studio and every YouTube embed on the rest of the web behave exactly as they always have.

Do I still need ytbychannel.com?

That is where the video plays, so yes — the extension is the way in, not a replacement. You can also keep pasting links into the box on the home page whenever you are on a machine without the extension installed.

Which browser should I use this with?

Edge, if you are filtering with Pluckeye. Pluckeye does not get along well with Chrome, and the symptom is a filter that appears not to be working at all. Edge installs the same extension from the same listing and Pluckeye filters it properly, so it is the pairing to reach for.

Does it work on Edge, Brave, Arc or Opera?

Yes. They all install extensions from the Chrome Web Store, and the extension uses nothing beyond standard Manifest V3. Any Chromium browser released since mid-2022 will run it.

Is there a Firefox or Safari version?

Not yet — it is a Chromium extension, so it needs a Chromium browser. Until that changes, the paste box on ytbychannel.com works everywhere, and so does the /watch?v= URL: swapping youtube.com for ytbychannel.com in the address bar lands you on the same page the extension would have opened.

What about YouTube Music?

There is a switch for music.youtube.com, and it starts off. Music is a player rather than a catalogue of pages, so with the switch on every song you click opens a tab. Turn it on if that is what you want; the right-click item and the keyboard shortcut work on a song either way.

What data does the extension collect?

None. It makes no network requests of its own — the video id is already in the link that was clicked, and the channel is worked out by the site — so there is nothing to send anywhere. The six settings live in your own browser profile. No account, no analytics, no remote code.

Does it cost anything?

No. The extension and the site are both free, and neither asks you to sign up.

Get it, then set it up

The extension is the easy half. The rules underneath it are what make the decision stick.

Add it to your browser — it’s free