Thanks for sharing your concerns about the user ID and YouTube activity.

"with persistent user IDs that track all of your YT browsing activity." - this is factually wrong, it only tracks your likes and dislikes, which is obvious for an extension made to track your likes and dislikes. And it only uses a random id that is not attached to anything else.

The extension is actually recommended by Mozilla, so they do not consider it harmful or dangerous.

RYD hasn’t changed how it handles your data. What changed is how Mozilla labels these permissions - not what the extension does with your data.

RYD only uses the data needed to display dislikes and count votes.

Its site permissions cover YouTube and its own API at returnyoutubedislikeapi.com. RYD doesn’t read other websites, and these site permissions cannot be used to access them.

Here’s what those permissions mean:

Personally identifiable information - RYD’s randomly generated, anonymous user ID, used to count votes. This isn’t your Google or YouTube account.

Browsing activity - opening the next YouTube video, so the extension can send its video ID and fetch the new dislike count.

Website content - things like the visible like count, which helps calculate dislike estimates.

Website activity - clicking Like or Dislike.

Again, this is about YouTube activity. The extension isn’t watching everything you do across the internet - it simply can’t do that with these site permissions.

Those new labels can sound scary, but they don’t let the extension access any more websites.

RYD is open source, so you can see how it works: https://github.com/Anarios/return-youtube-dislike

I’m sorry the permission labels left you feeling this way.

The extension is actually recommended by Mozilla, so they do not consider it harmful or dangerous.

RYD hasn’t changed how it handles your data. What changed is how Mozilla labels these permissions - not what the extension does with your data.

The extension only uses the data it needs to show dislikes and count votes.

Its site permissions cover YouTube and its own API at returnyoutubedislikeapi.com. RYD doesn’t read other websites, and these site permissions cannot be used to access them.

Here’s what those permissions mean:

Personally identifiable information - RYD’s randomly generated, anonymous user ID, used to count votes. This isn’t your Google or YouTube account.

Browsing activity - opening the next YouTube video, so the extension can send its video ID and fetch the new dislike count.

Website content - things like the visible like count, which helps calculate dislike estimates.

Website activity - clicking Like or Dislike.

Again, this is about YouTube activity. The extension isn’t watching everything you do across the internet - it simply can’t do that with these site permissions.

The new labels sound scary, but they don’t give the extension access to more websites.

RYD is open source, so you can see how it works: https://github.com/Anarios/return-youtube-dislike

Thanks for explaining your concerns about the permissions.

The extension is actually recommended by Mozilla, so they do not consider it harmful or dangerous.

RYD hasn’t changed how it handles your data. What changed is how Mozilla labels these permissions - not what the extension does with your data.

RYD only uses the data needed to display dislikes and count votes.

Its site permissions cover YouTube and its own API at returnyoutubedislikeapi.com. RYD doesn’t read other websites, and these site permissions cannot be used to access them.

Here’s what those permissions mean:

Personally identifiable information - RYD’s randomly generated, anonymous user ID, used to count votes. This isn’t your Google or YouTube account.

Browsing activity - opening the next YouTube video, so the extension can send its video ID and fetch the new dislike count.

Website content - things such as the visible like count, used to help calculate dislike estimates.

Website activity - clicking Like or Dislike.

Again, this is about YouTube activity. The extension isn’t watching everything you do across the internet - it simply can’t do that with these site permissions.

Those new labels can sound scary, but they don’t let the extension access any more websites.

RYD is open source, so you can see how it works: https://github.com/Anarios/return-youtube-dislike

Thanks for sharing your concerns about the premium features.

The extension is actually recommended by Mozilla, so they do not consider it harmful or dangerous.

The message about new features is shown only once during the lifetime of the extension, and it’s timed to appear after a browser restart - hopefully the least disruptive moment.

Handling YouTube-scale traffic and storing dozens of terabytes of like/dislike data on a school-lunch budget ain’t that easy. The funding from these features is what keeps RYD’s servers running.

And as for the permissions:

RYD hasn’t changed how it handles your data. What changed is how Mozilla labels these permissions - not what the extension does with your data.

The extension only uses the data it needs to show dislikes and count votes.

Its site permissions cover YouTube and its own API at returnyoutubedislikeapi.com. RYD doesn’t read other websites, and these site permissions cannot be used to access them.

Here’s what those permissions mean:

Personally identifiable information - RYD’s randomly generated, anonymous user ID, used to count votes. This isn’t your Google or YouTube account.

Browsing activity - opening the next YouTube video, so the extension can send its video ID and fetch the new dislike count.

Website content - things like the visible like count, which helps calculate dislike estimates.

Website activity - clicking Like or Dislike.

Again, this is about YouTube activity. The extension isn’t watching everything you do across the internet - it simply can’t do that with these site permissions.

The new labels sound scary, but they don’t give the extension access to more websites.

RYD is open source, so you can see how it works: https://github.com/Anarios/return-youtube-dislike

you can keep the old version, or you can check "disable vote submission" in settings. (counting your like\dislike votes is the evil "personal data transfer" that I do.
But it's optional.

"ridiculous monetization" is 1 changelog message on browser restart in 5 years. You can close and never see again. I understand that it is annoying - and I sincerely wish this wasn't needed. But the price of running the extension exceeded the donations that it was receiving - so I decided to add a new optional feature - that some people might find useful - and these people will cover the costs for the rest of us. Hopefully.

Regarding CCs - I received 2 more similar reports, but so far I couldn't reproduce or fix it. Working on it.

They did, about 4 years ago, we have to keep our own "parallel" servers to YouTube.

Premium features pay for the servers.

Thanks for the kind words - glad it’s working well for you!

RYD hasn’t changed how it handles your data. Mozilla changed the way it labels these permissions - what the extension does with your data is the same.

The extension uses only the data needed to show dislikes and count votes.

Its site permissions cover YouTube and its own API at returnyoutubedislikeapi.com. RYD doesn’t read other websites, and these site permissions cannot be used to access them.

Here’s what those permissions mean:

Personally identifiable information - RYD’s randomly generated, anonymous user ID, used to count votes. This isn’t your Google or YouTube account.

Browsing activity - opening the next YouTube video, so the extension can send its video ID and fetch the new dislike count.

Website content - things like the visible like count, which helps calculate dislike estimates.

Website activity - clicking Like or Dislike.

Again, this is about YouTube activity. The extension isn’t watching everything you do across the internet - it simply can’t do that with these site permissions.

The new labels can sound scary, but they don’t allow the extension to access more websites.

RYD is open source, so you can see how it works: https://github.com/Anarios/return-youtube-dislike

..would probably require knowing my location” - it doesn’t. The extension does not request location permission.

The analytics are aggregated. For example, it may record that “6 users from the US disliked this video,” but it does not know that one of those users is you or who you are.

For voting, the extension sends the video ID, a randomly generated user ID used to count votes, and the vote itself (+1 or -1). It does not ask for your name, email, address, or other identifying information.

And if you’re still uncomfortable with vote submission, the option to disable it has existed since the early days of the extension. When vote submission is disabled - you don't send anything at all (but your dislikes don't count - so it's up to you)