14 DAY TRIAL // If we're taking bets on the more unpopular moves on the internet over the last few years or so, you really can't go wrong with YouTube removing the dislike button. Google has essentially removed the barometer for public opinion on a given video: if you can only see the favorable ratings, then what's the use of ratings in the first place? Some developers have been hard at work to rectify that, which is where Return YouTube Dislike comes into the mix.
The aptly-named solution comes in the form of an unintrusive, set-and-forget extension, available for Firefox and Chromium-based browsers alike. With content consumption on YouTube being generally very high, many would deem such an extension essential, if only for bringing back a feature that we may have taken for granted all this time.
The path to returning YouTube dislikes
Perhaps you're thinking how all of this can even work. After all, Google has hidden dislike counters across the board, restricting viewers from seeing them. As of now, only uploaders can see what they've received on their videos, and fair enough.
The way the extension works is quite clever, but in short, it's all about juggling APIs and improvising. Data from before the YouTube dislike API was shut down has been preserved, and works to provide a baseline for some content on the platform. Where the improvisation comes into play is in the extrapolations made by the extension. It features a database of its own, which it uses to track dislikes, while also comparing them against the total number of viewers on a given video.
How accurate is it?
As many users have come to realize, accuracy may be off the mark every now and then. It's only natural that predicting user behavior and running comparisons against a video's numbers to calculate an approximated dislike count is far from perfect, but it's all we have for now.
Along the same line, it can be inferred that those who utilize this extension are more predisposed to clicking the dislike button on content they do not like, while other users would simply choose to move on to other videos. This is merely guesswork, but it may be possible for the extension to skew toward favoring dislikes over likes when tallying user ratings.
Accuracy-wise, there's also the matter of how frequently the dislikes get updated. Per the developer's sayings, a video's popularity can influence this. In any case, updates occurring every few hours to a few days is a conservative estimate.
Some manner of configurability
Configuration-wise, there are a few options worth discussing. The extension is generally set-and-forget, and it'll start working the moment you enable it and refresh YouTube. There is nothing wrong with this, as it means that any type of user can resume seeing the dislike counter on the content they're watching with very little effort required on their part.
Configuring the extension involves toggling like/dislike submissions, reformatting numbers, as well as styling the like/dislike bar to your liking. As stated earlier, the default configuration should be fine for the majority of users, but if you've got an itch for customization, having these options at your disposal should give you what you need.
The extension should cover the mainstream browser offerings, with Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Opera, and Brave being the supported platforms. If you're using a browser that is not on that list, then you can still implement the extension's UserScript to make it functional on your solution. Either way, there's practically no difference between browsers, so the extension should work and feel the same no matter what you're using.
The Good
Additional customization is never a bad thing, and you get some of it with Return YouTube Dislike. Besides being able to re-format dislike numbers to a number format that looks better to you, there's also the possibility to colorize the thumbs and ratio bar, as well as apply a color theme to the counter for a more different experience.
