TheQuartering [5/9/2023]
A few months ago, YouTube decided to hide the number of dislikes on a video. The Google-owned online video sharing service was apparently testing the removal of dislike count since May last year.
And following the removal of the dislike count in November of 2021, many YouTube users started leaving a 1-star Play Store rating, which Google allegedly removed.
Unsurprisingly, users resorted to third-party extensions like Return YouTube Dislike that enabled them to see the number of dislikes using YouTube’s API.
But Google shut the door on that workaround a couple of weeks later by updating their API allowing only content creators to access those stats.
And now, it looks like one of these third-party add-ons has been disabled. According to recent user reports, a recent Chrome update automatically disabled the Return YouTube Dislike extension.
Users are now wondering if there is a way to enable it again.
As it turns out, this is because of the extension now asking browsers to give access to Return YouTube Dislike’s own website. The issue seems to be reportedly affecting Firefox users as well.
Users can safely grant the permissions asked by the extension and use it once again.
We hope Google listens to its userbase and enables the dislike counter sometime in the near future. Or at least let them use the API that allows them to do so.