cleantube.net

What It Is

CleanTube is a desktop browser extension for YouTube, operated by US Support LLC. It is positioned not as an ad blocker, but as a content filtering and blocking tool: users can hide videos, comments, Shorts, live chat messages, and notifications by user, channel, or keyword/phrase. The official site emphasizes that the extension runs locally, requires no account, and does not send blocklists to external servers.

Core Features and Technical Details

CleanTube offers three basic types of blocking targets: users, channels, and keywords/phrases. It covers five content areas: video recommendations and search results, comments, YouTube Shorts titles, live chat, and notifications. The workflow is fairly complete, including one-click block icons next to thumbnails or usernames, right-click menus, and manual entry via a popup. Advanced users can also use * and ? wildcards, as well as regular expressions in the /pattern/flags format, making it suitable for bulk filtering of patterned content such as reaction videos, pranks, and clickbait.

In terms of browser support, it targets the Chromium ecosystem and supports Chrome 88+, Edge 88+, Brave, Opera 74+, and Vivaldi 3.6+, using Manifest V3. Mobile browsers and the YouTube App are not supported, which is an important limitation. The documentation is also fairly substantial for a lightweight extension: the official site not only lists features, but also explains live chat iframes, MutationObserver, selector adaptation, wildcards, and regex examples.

Pricing, Privacy, and Licensing

Pricing is very straightforward: the official site says it is permanently free, with no subscription, premium features, or hidden fees. On privacy, the text clearly states that it does not collect personal data, track users, or perform analytics, and that data is stored on the local device. However, the terms of service also state that the product is provided “as is,” with no guarantee of continuous availability or that filtering will continue to work after future YouTube redesigns. Its open-source status is not disclosed, and the terms prohibit modification, reverse engineering, and redistribution, so it can essentially be regarded as closed-source licensed software.

Pros, Cons, and Who It’s For

Its strengths are that it is easy to get started with, has powerful rule capabilities, and covers a wide range of YouTube areas. It is especially suitable for users who are frequently distracted by YouTube recommendations, comment sections, or live chat. Its drawbacks are the lack of built-in import/export for blocklists, the inability to filter Shorts by channel, and its limitation to desktop Chromium browsers. It is a good fit for heavy YouTube users, people who want a cleaner content experience, and individual users who need to filter specific topics or creators. It is not suitable for scenarios requiring team-based rule management, mobile filtering, or commercial deployment.

Access from China and Alternatives

The crawled text does not provide information about access from mainland China, Chrome Web Store availability, or payment, so its accessibility from China is unknown. If it cannot be installed or if broader blocking capabilities are needed, alternatives such as uBlock Origin, SponsorBlock, Unhook, and BlockTube may be worth considering. Some of these tools focus more on ads, sponsored segments, or hiding page elements, so their feature priorities are not exactly the same as CleanTube’s.