Frequently asked questions

Yes, completely free. No account, no sign-up, no subscription required.

Open the Unbinge popup → Distraction Settings → toggle Shorts off. Education Mode also blocks Shorts. On Kids and Teens it blocks the home feed and search as well so unapproved thumbnails are not listed. Step-by-step: YouTube without Shorts.

Open the popup → Distraction Settings. You can independently toggle off recommendations, comments, end-screen cards, trending, the homepage feed, autoplay, and notifications.

Browser extensions work on desktop Chrome and Edge. On mobile, YouTube Kids is the safest option.

On every profile it checks watch pages, channel pages, /embed/ (including youtube-nocookie iframes on classroom sites and slides), and /live/ against the whitelist. Kids and Teens also cannot open Home, Search, Shorts, history, playlists, or similar browse pages. Adult/Parent can still use Home and Search; unapproved videos still will not play. Subscriptions is allowed so a learner can open the page; playing a video is still whitelist-checked. Account and sign-in pages stay available.

Kids and Teens profiles require a parent PIN (set at first-run setup) to turn off Education Mode, switch to Adult/Parent, approve or delete local channels, or turn off distraction blocking. Changing the PIN always requires the current PIN. If someone installs Unbinge and chooses Adult/Parent, there is no PIN — use Adult only on a parent’s browser. The extension can still be removed from Chrome settings; for stricter control, use a supervised Chrome profile or managed browser policies.

When you choose Kids or Teens, Unbinge asks for a 4–8 digit PIN. Sensitive settings stay locked until a parent taps Unlock and enters that PIN. Setting a PIN does not unlock the session. Changing the PIN always needs the current PIN, even if settings are already unlocked. Unlock lasts until the browser is closed. Adult/Parent profiles can change every setting without a PIN. Choose Adult on your own browser, and Kids or Teens on the child’s browser.

Anyone can suggest a channel or video from the global review page without installing Unbinge. If you already have the extension, you can also submit from the popup. Our team manually reviews each request for age-appropriateness and educational value before adding it to the global list.

If you have the extension, paste the YouTube link in the "Add channel" field inside the popup. It's approved locally on your device instantly, and automatically submitted for global review. Without the extension, use the global review page. If approved, it gets a 🔵 blue badge visible to all users.

A 🔵 badge on a channel means it has been manually verified by our team as safe and educational.

No. The extension stores all settings locally on the device. Channel requests only send the channel URL — no names, emails, or identifiers. See our privacy policy.

Manual sync has a 6-hour cooldown. The button shows a countdown timer until it's available again. The whitelist also auto-syncs once a week.

Right-click the Unbinge icon in your toolbar → Remove from Chrome/Edge/Firefox. We'd love to hear why — visit our leaving page to leave optional feedback.

No. Unbinge is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by YouTube, Google, or Alphabet.