‘Vinegar’ Safari Extension Cleans Up YouTube for a Better Video Experience

Image: App Store

In a recently published blog post, Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber spoke very highly of ‘Vinegar’ — a Safari extension that replaces YouTube’s default video player with the HTML video player on both YouTube.com and embedded YouTube videos on other websites.

Gruber, an Apple enthusiast and product commentator, called the extension “crackerjack good work,” recommending that readers buy the app.

Back in the days of YouTube’s Flash player, a Safari extension by the name of ‘YouTube5’ replaced the YouTube player with a simple HTML <video> tag, resulting in videos being played in the HTML video player instead.

Vinegar does the same thing across Safari, but for the current iteration of the YouTube video player. Replacing the YouTube video player with a minimal HTML <video> tag allows you to watch something on YouTube like you would any other HTML video.

This means no YouTube ads, no user tracking, Picture-in-Picture support (otherwise only available to Premium subscribers), and the ability to have YouTube playing in the background.

Vinegar is available on the App Store for $1.99 USD ($2.79 CAD), is compatible with macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, and is currently ranked #4 in ‘Utilities’.

P.S. - Like our news? Support the site with a coffee/beer. Or shop with our Amazon link. We use affiliate links when possible--thank you for supporting independent media.