How To Turn Off The Lights On Youtube

Do you apply the Plow Off the Lights extension for your Chrome browser? No? Accept you even heard of it? What's that – yous think it'due south an former and outdated tool that became irrelevant with the launch of Youtube'southward Night Mode? Well, and then did I. When the extension's developer reached out and asked us to give it some other look after all these years, I was initially hesitant. I didn't sympathize how this could exist useful to our readers now that Dark mode is coming to Chrome OS and already exists across many websites.

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However, later on installing information technology and poking around a bit, I was surprised to find several features that speedily changed my opinion of it. This impressive tool no longer but dims the webpage behind your Youtube videos like it used to – let's meet what it's capable of nowadays and how yous may be able to make use of it on your Chromebook!

To boot things off, I want to country upfront that this is not a sponsored review – In fact, upon visiting the Plow Off the Lights Chrome Extension webpage, I was immediately met with several reviews that stated it was past its prime number, and that people were uninstalling it. Truth be told, I almost didn't give this a shot. The final time I used information technology was many, many years ago – think at the outset of Chrome'south reign as a browser.

Its official description doesn't lend it much credence either – Accept a wait at how it advertises itself. Immediately, anyone who is familiar with popular, electric current tech trends may immediately exist turned abroad by the uncomplicated hope therein and instead, volition simply turn on Youtube's dark fashion as 'Incognito' suggests above.

Plough Off the Lights is a lightweight and useful add-in designed for a more comfortable watching experience. It works for all known video sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Hulu, Metacafe, YouKu, etc. Not merely this but these extensions are compatible with Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Maxthon and Yandex web browsers.
Chrome Web Store

Interestingly, upon installing it in 2021, I was met with a surprising face up full of innovation and improvements that far outshine its name and description. A webpage launched post-install that had a fully animated and interactive welcome guide that walks you through everything information technology's at present capable of. Aye, you can toggle it on at the pinnacle-right of your browser's extensions card to 'Plow off the lights' and dim the area surrounding a Youtube video, and yes, it works for tons of other websites too like Vimeo, Dailymotion, Netflix (does anyone need this for Netflix?) Hulu, and more. Nonetheless, while Youtube and Netflix natively have a nighttime mode nowadays, this actually dims the webpage on any website with HTML5 video, making information technology much more than useful than the review in a higher place suggested.

Moreover, you tin can change the opacity and colour of the surrounding area behind said video, and even dim the folio upon clicking 'Play' and "undim" it when you click 'Suspension'. Honestly, this gives whatsoever video a picture theater-like feel that Youtube simply does non give. Needless to say, I like it. What's really caught my attending though, is its other features.

Ane in particular that I didn't really expect to observe with the extension was a comprehensive and fairly well-idea-out nighttime style for all websites. Instead of having to toggle a cheesy dark theme at the top of your browser, Turn Off the Lights places a clean toggle at the bottom-left of every website, and flicking it gives i of the best dark modes I've seen on whatever extension to engagement.

What's more, is that this is completely customizable – downward to the power to cull its colors and which websites information technology activates on. In fact, there are loads of settings as you can see below, and they're all presented in a clean and modern style. I'd long thought this extension had been left in the dust, merely information technology's certainly adapted and changed with the times based on the needs of its users.

For Youtube, at that place are highly advanced toggles to determine what appears from the webpage through your theater style, such as the similar push, playlists, suggestions, and more, an selection to automatically toggle the quality of videos (this seems to bypass Youtube'due south new decision to automatically downgrade of my quality based on my internet), and even automatically setting the video player size to large right equally it loads up.

Alright, mind to this – two of the almost innovative features that took me past surprise were the ability to dim a webpage while you lot're playing a video by using your camera and performing the mitt gestures yous run across below. Yep, you're reading that correct – you can dim the lights by pretending to shut a window or pull the curtains closed with 'Photographic camera Motion' – isn't that insane? Oh, you can also employ your microphone and say things like 'Hey browser, turn off the lights', or 'Hey browser, play video'.

While I yet tin can't become over how cool these features are, I realize that many people may not want to requite an extension access to their camera and microphone for unproblematic tasks like this, and so it does have some hurdles to overcome. The other hurdle, as previously mentioned is its marketing strategy. Overall, I think Turn Off the Lights is a bully extension with a great name, but information technology set up in stone what users expect of it a long time agone thanks to its immense popularity, and must now overcome that.

The developers accept gone all out with features like showing how many watt-hours (Wh) of energy you've saved past 'Turning off the lights' also as other analytics, the ability to change the video'due south book with just your mouse wheel, dynamic backgrounds, and even an odd, even so interesting 'Atmosphere Lighting' which takes the video that's playing and blurs its colors outward to create an extended theatrical effect (I really dislike this).

Despite all of that, no 1 of these features is what makes the extension worth trying out. Instead, I believe that the dev's dedication to continually innovating and iterating on something that began as a uncomplicated extension to dim the spider web folio has evolved into an impressive and feature-packed browser toolkit for entertainment, and that alone is worth an install in 2021.

Atmostphere Lighting is innovative, but odd

If you're looking for a lightweight extension that does any one of the same things and nothing more, Turn Off the Lights may non be for you. Then again, all of its additional settings and features are hidden away, and then you could only use what you lot want and ignore the remainder. However, if you're looking to spice up your video watching and web browsing feel on your Chromebook or elsewhere, I call back y'all may be fairly impressed with the consummate overhaul of the product that has so lovingly received what seem to be endless hours of blood, sweat, and tears considering Plough Off the Lights no longer only flicks a light switch like information technology used to.

Turn Off the Lights on the Chrome Web Store