Hi, I'm trying to block youtube short videos for my kids. I don't want them to watch any shorts and it looks like the short videos are in shorts webfolder. I know I can block entire youtube.com but I just want to block "youtube.com/shorts" Since youtube is https might be harder but if the instance call can be time out, it might work in theory. I try to look for other solutions like a bark router but nothing is there that can do that. Any help appreciated!
Thanks!
You cannot do this with Pi-hole. Pi-hole is a domain blocker, and works at the domain level only.
The URL is:
https://youtube.com/shorts
The protocol is https
The domain is youtube.com
Everything that follows (/shorts) is the path on the URL, and this is unknown to Pi-hole. A client requests the IP of youtube.com, Pi-hole provides that and the client goes to the URL's served by that domain without any further involvement from Pi-hole.
Got it, thanks for quick response. I was afraid of that. It just sounds so simple but impossible to do. I look at so many produces and nothing can block it.
Note that even if you find something that can block YouTube Shorts at the URL level, a shorts video can be turned into a normal video by editing the URL and replacing the text shorts with the letter v.
Oh, noo, that sucks. Thanks for the info. I'm trying to block those youtube shorts for weeks already and nothing works. Someone from adguard support just got back to me that adding below should work on client side but this would require paid subscription and installing browser extension. My kids can easily find a workaround it by using different browser. I might be just forced to block the entire youtube domain.
"youtube.com#?##contents > .style-scope.ytd-rich-grid-renderer:has(> #content > .style-scope[is-shorts])"
Even then there are alternative YouTube front ends available such as Invidious.
OMG, there is so many of them. I give up! Are there any products out there that would block it? Some sort of proxy or something like that. I know at work I can't get to some websites but they block the entire domains I guess. Thx.
I suppose you could try being the blocker in this case. It might be a bit more work, and possibly get some groans from your kids, but perhaps explain to them why you do not want them viewing the content. Granted it is harder, but it has worked for me in the past, and worked when my parents did the same. They never out and our said do not do X or Y, but let me know they did not approve. It may not have immediately sunk in, but did have an impact.
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