You Can Finally Turn Off End Screens on YouTube, but There’s a Catch.
Did you know you can configure Google to filter out junk? Follow these steps to improve your search results, including adding my work on Lifehacker as a preferred source .
End screens on YouTube are useful for creators, but often irritate viewers. They allow creators to insert links to other content in the final moments of a video. The problem, however, is that these links appear as large screen elements that obscure the video you’re watching. While many videos are nearly over by this point, some continue, and you might miss the last 5-20 seconds due to the end screen.
YouTube now offers the option to hide these screens, albeit with a significant caveat. The company announced the change on Wednesday , announcing that users will now see a “Hide” button on videos that include an end screen. The “Hide” button will be located in the upper-right corner of the player. Clicking it dismisses the end screen and returns to watching. If desired, the end screen can be restored by clicking the “Show” button.
While this sounds like a step in the right direction, this setting doesn’t apply to all videos you watch on YouTube. Instead, it applies only to the individual video in question. This means you’ll have to close the end screen every time you watch a video that has one. It’s a strange decision: you have to wait to hide the end screen when you see it, meaning you’ll only have 5 to 20 seconds of your video left anyway. You might even want to rewind the video if you don’t hit the Hide button in time. I’d appreciate this option at least at the beginning of videos, but I’d even more like to be able to close end screens altogether. You only need to quickly browse The Verge’s comments section on this topic to see that I’m not alone.
YouTube says it made this decision based on feedback from users who want to “minimize distractions while watching videos” and “focus on the content they’re watching.” The company is also removing the “Subscribe” button that appears when hovering over a video’s watermark, as there’s already a subscribe button below the player.