# A browser extension called UnTrap "traps" users into subscriptions: YouTube disrupts this small business, and a failed price increase · Web

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/web/web_untrap.app.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
> Stringers answers one question every day: what small product can one or two people build in a few months and actually make money from. Numbers come from 15 databases we collect daily, each with source and date.
> For agents: these verdicts and the underlying databases (verified revenue, App Store / Google Play charts, ad libraries, GitHub, Product Hunt…) are queryable live over MCP — tools today / hot / products / directions / direction / data. Setup: https://github.com/komako-workshop/stringers (the user logs in at stringers.io → "配置 agent" to get a personal URL). Site index: https://stringers.io/llms.txt

> It has no real breakout. Over three years, keyword-driven titles, four store listings, and word of mouth built it to a few hundred thousand users. This rank rise comes from new versions that repeatedly call back to the untrap.app backend. Meanwhile, moving to subscriptions in late September drew a wave of bad reviews.

[Web](https://stringers.io/en/web/index.md) · 11-6 written

UnTrap for YouTube · untrap.app

# A browser extension called UnTrap "traps" users into subscriptions: YouTube disrupts this small business, and a failed price increase

**What it is** A browser extension that uses more than two hundred toggles to turn off Shorts, recommendations, comments, and autoplay on YouTube. Free on Chrome/Firefox/Edge, with a Safari version available as a $4.99 one-time purchase.

**Why it took off** It never really went viral: over three years it built up more than a hundred thousand users through keyword-driven titles, four store listings, and word of mouth. This round's ranking gain came from new versions repeatedly calling the untrap.app backend, while the shift to subscriptions in late September triggered a wave of bad reviews.

**C** **How you could follow this** : do the opposite of what got UnTrap roasted: open source or fully transparent, no AI, old features never move behind a subscription. Free in the browser, one-time $10–20 on Safari/Mac, import UnTrap configs, and reach the deep users who were pushed away by the subscription on communities like r/digitalminimalism.

C grade: the need is real, but the browser side has Unhook, a free leader with a million users, and YouTube itself is tightening things. The only place that charges, Safari one-time purchase, is shrinking even according to UnTrap itself. The users lost to the price hike can work as a funnel, but they can't sustain a product. Whispers in small circles

Global rank 271k · 90 days ago, top 1M+

Ukrainian indie developer Yevhen Tretiakov has spent three years on UnTrap, a YouTube distraction-blocking extension. Over the past two months its website rose more than 2x in global traffic rankings, which looks like growth. It isn't really: users didn't grow much, what grew was traffic from the extension calling back to its own servers. At the same time, it locked three years of free features behind a $3.99-a-month subscription, and its rating fell from 4.6 to 2.8. Below: what it is, where the money came from, what went wrong this time, and whether the gap left by the backlash is worth taking.

### An autoplay you can't turn off

In Oct 2026 20, a Firefox user noticed YouTube was autoplaying the next video again. He checked the extension settings and found the "turn off autoplay" checkbox had been unticked, with a lock icon next to it. He registered a Mozilla account just to leave a bad review: "It says it won't change the Plus settings you already had enabled, and that's not true... I'd pay for an open-source version, or a similar tool with a one-time purchase."

He's not alone. UnTrap's reviews on the Firefox store have had new 1-star reviews almost every day since Sep 26, dozens in a little over a month. The sharpest line is from Oct 21: "An app called untrap that now traps its users in a subscription. The irony is endless."

### What it is

UnTrap for YouTube is a browser extension that switches off the things on YouTube that keep you hooked: Shorts, home feed recommendations, the related-videos sidebar, comments, end-screen recommendation cards. There are 200 to 250 toggles, plus filtering by channel and keyword, and a password lock on the settings. In the second half of 2026 it added AI video summaries, scheduled focus periods, and cross-browser sync.

It's on four stores: Chrome (2023-02 listing, 100k users), Firefox (about 24k daily active users, AMO 11-07), and Edge, all free. The Safari version sells for $4.99 one-time on the App Store, with 524 US ratings averaging 4.05 stars. Its best US Top Paid Productivity rank was #25, and it hit #1 on the Korea Top Paid Productivity chart (App Store, 11-07).

The same developer also has SocialFocus (Safari, $4.99), Shorts Blocker for YouTube ($1.99), and a "dumbphone" launcher, a whole set of small digital-wellbeing products. He says this is his full-time job.

### Why the website rank rose: not people, the extension calling home

untrap.app first entered the global website top 20M in Aug 1 (rank #570k) and climbed to #5k by Nov 270. But in Chrome's real-user traffic data it never made the global top 1M, only briefly appearing in the "top 1M" tier in India in July and the UK in September. Unhook, which does the same thing with ten times more users, has held steady around the 500k tier on its site, unhook.app.

The version numbers line up. The Firefox version went a year and a half without updates after Dec 2024 8.3.1, then suddenly jumped to 2026 in June 9.9, shipped 10.4 and 11.0 in August, 12.0 and 12.1 in September, and 12.3 and 12.4 in October (AMO version history). The current Chrome build has lots of requests going back to untrap.app: fetching remote config, several endpoints for AI summaries, account subscriptions, and a tracking event specifically counting "Pro promotion" views. A large share of global rankings is computed from DNS lookups and network traffic, so hundreds of thousands of browsers with the extension repeatedly hitting this domain will push its rank up regardless of whether anyone opens the website (inference, though the evidence is fairly solid).

So UnTrap isn't "blowing up". It's an old extension that has grown slowly for three years and just made a business-model switch. Chrome user counts from September to November stayed in the "100k" tier, so from the outside you can't tell whether it grew or shrank.

### Where the users came from over three years

No paid acquisition. Meta, TikTok, and Google's ad libraries show nothing for it, and searching its name on TikTok and X turns up almost nothing. Its hundreds of thousands of users were gathered little by little:

- **Store search** : The Chrome title is "UnTrap for YouTube — Block Shorts, Remove Recommendations, Detox & Focus", packing in every term users would search for. The store listing is translated into 60 languages. In the store's "Related extensions" section, it's linked with Unhook, FocusTube, and YouTube Detox.

- **A few small launches** : 2023-09 posted a Safari version on Reddit's r/AppHookup, "$1.99 → free"; 2023-10-01 on Product Hunt, 125 votes; 2024-04-20 the author posted "Show HN: YouTube Is Great Again" on Hacker News, 18 points.

- **Others speaking for it** : Lifehacker wrote "This Extension Gets Rid of YouTube's Annoying Clutter" in 2025-05-08, saying "I recommend Untrap". Kyle Cook of the programming channel Web Dev Simplified posted "Stop Wasting Your Time On YouTube" on 2026-04-10, 57k views, with untrap.app and his own config export in the description, not labeled as sponsored; it looks organic. On r/digitalminimalism, r/Stopscrolling, and r/macapps, when someone asks "how do I block only Shorts?", the answer is often UnTrap.

In short: keyword-heavy titles, four stores, multiple languages, and an occasional launch or free promo, with word of mouth doing the rest. It's a playbook one person can run.

### Where the money came from, and why it stopped

The Chrome store doesn't charge extensions for anything, and UnTrap's browser version has always been free, so the money came from Safari. In a long post on its website titled "Why I Introduced UnTrap Pro" from Oct 5, the developer put it plainly: for over three years, one-time purchases on the App Store "were effectively paying for free users on Chrome and other browsers"; later, "one-time purchase revenue dropped noticeably and keeps weakening"; donations and Patreon were tried too, and they were "nowhere near enough".

So in late September they launched Pro: $3.99/month or $35.99/year (annual plans include a 3-day trial), billed through Paddle. What got locked behind it wasn't just the new AI summaries but old features used for three years: hiding home-page shelves, turning off autoplay, some filters. In the post he argued that if the things people value are permanently free and only future features are paid, a subscription doesn't solve the problem.

Users didn't go along. Chrome's rating started September at 4.6 (658 reviews), dropped to 13 4.3, reached 2.8 the next day, bottomed at 17 in October at 2.5, and sat at 7 2.8 in November (857 reviews). Three complaints kept repeating in the bad reviews:

- **Want a one-time purchase, not a subscription** : "I'd happily pay you $20 once, no problem. But a subscription? Really?" (Firefox, 11-05) "Most users are students and young workers; if there was a one-time option I'd have paid long ago." (10-28)

- **More expensive than YouTube Premium** : "In my region it costs almost twice as much as YouTube Premium." (10-26)

- **No AI** : "People who look for extensions to strip out brain-rot content don't want AI summaries of videos." (11-05) "It's clogged with AI features." (10-27)

Some people just named where they're going: "Switch to Unhook" (10-04), and "I hope someone reverse-engineers a free version" (10-17).

### Who it's competing with

| Product | Where | Scale | How UnTrap differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unhook | Chrome / Firefox / Edge | Chrome, 1M users, 4.9 stars (4,629 reviews) | The category leader, around since 2018; fewer toggles, fully free; **no Safari version** |
| A string of small extensions that only block Shorts | Chrome | 100K to 400K users | Does one thing only |
| Clean YouTube | Chrome | 30k users, 4.9 rating | Closest positioning, free, still updated in 11-04; most likely to take the churned users |
| FocusTube, YouTube Detox, DF Tube, etc. | Chrome | Under 20k | Same title formula, all small |
| Control Panel for YouTube | iOS / Mac Safari, $3.99, open source | US 9 ratings | The most direct rival on Safari; r/macapps ranks it ahead of UnTrap |
| ScreenZen, SocialLite | iOS App | 53k / 17k ratings | Controls the YouTube app itself, not the website |
| YouTube itself | full range | — | Since April 2026, Shorts daily time limits can be set to 0, with break reminders. Recommendations and comments can be turned off too, but it still won't give you the option. |

The browser side is already crowded: the free, best-reviewed Unhook has 1M users, more than a dozen extensions block Shorts, and the platform itself is eating the most basic needs. UnTrap holds its ground next to Unhook because of two things, "the most toggles" and "works on Safari", not because it got there first.

### How big the gap left by the backlash is

Two gaps are visible, and neither is big.

First, **deep users pushed away by the subscription who would pay once** . "One-time $20 I'll pay" appears several times in the reviews. But how many of these people there are can't be measured from outside: Chrome only shows the 100k tier, Firefox has 24k daily users, and of those, only a fraction probably care about the dozens of advanced toggles (inference). And their other option is the free Unhook and Clean YouTube.

Second, **Safari** . Unhook doesn't do Safari, so people who watch YouTube in Safari on iPhone and Mac have few choices, and that is where UnTrap's three years of revenue came from. But the developer himself says that revenue is "dropping noticeably and still weakening"; Control Panel for YouTube already holds that spot with $3.99 plus open source. Someone who has lived off this for three years says it can't hold, so a newcomer will struggle to make a living here.

### If it were you

**C** . Worth learning from, not a great bet to follow. The need is real, but the browser side has a free million-user leader, the platform is tightening things, and the only paying channel, Safari, is shrinking even by UnTrap's own account. UnTrap's missteps leave you a group of angry users, but not a market that can support someone.

**Who it suits** : solo developers who already write extensions and want to practice the "free reach plus paid on one platform" play, or people who already have a digital-wellbeing product and want another funnel. Treat it as a portfolio piece and traffic source, not a main business.

**Who it doesn't suit** : anyone hoping to make a full-time living from this one extension (UnTrap has been at it three years, across four stores, with hundreds of thousands of users; the verdict is that one-time sales can't sustain it and subscriptions get you roasted); anyone trying to compete with Unhook on "free" in Chrome (you won't get its 1M users or its 4.9 rating).

**How to do it** : if you do it, do the opposite of what got UnTrap roasted. Be open source or at least transparent, and stay away from AI summaries. Pick the dozens of toggles deep users actually use (turn off autoplay, hide home-page shelves, end-screen recommendation cards, channel filtering), and fix breakage faster than it does; some reviewers say it "often lags behind YouTube's redesigns". Keep the browser version free, charge a one-time $10–20 on Safari / Mac, and commit that old features will never move behind a subscription. Import UnTrap's config files so switching takes one step.

**How to get users** : go where the people from UnTrap's bad reviews hang out: r/digitalminimalism, r/Stopscrolling, r/macapps. Post about a one-time purchase / open-source alternative to UnTrap. Stuff keywords into store titles the way UnTrap does. Build an "switching from UnTrap" page to catch searches like "untrap alternative".

**Timing** : the anger among these churned users is a matter of the last few months. Get listed before the end of 2026; after that window passes, they'll either have moved to Unhook or gotten used to UnTrap's free version.

**What it means if I got this wrong** : (1) UnTrap launches a one-time purchase or moves old features back to free, and its Chrome rating recovers above 4 stars — the gap closes; (2) UnTrap ships a Safari version — the Safari gap is gone too; (3) conversely, if UnTrap's Chrome users fall out of the 100k bracket while similar tools like Clean YouTube double over a few months, it means real users are switching, and it's worth going after them more seriously.

The last line is for everyone building extensions: once an extension connects to its own backend, its domain climbs global rankings, but that doesn't mean users are growing. Check store numbers and real traffic stats. The other line is for anyone turning a free product paid: don't suddenly lock old features. If you charge, charge for new things, or offer a one-time price. UnTrap's 1-star reviews have already written this lesson dozens of times over.

### Data and sources

Rankings: Tranco daily rank, Chrome real-user traffic brackets (CrUX), untrap.app and unhook.app, 2026-08-20 to 11-05. Stores: Chrome Web Store user counts and ratings (9-01 to 11-07); Firefox Add-ons daily users, reviews and version history (11-07); App Store ratings and charts (11-07). Extension code: request endpoints from the unpacked Chrome 12.4 package. Developer statements: untrap.app/why-plus (2026-10-05), untrap.app/offer. Coverage: Lifehacker (2025-05-08), YouTube video "Stop Wasting Your Time On YouTube" (Kyle Cook of Web Dev Simplified, 2026-04-10), Product Hunt (2023-10-01), Hacker News 40095581 (2024-04-20), search summaries from Reddit r/AppHookup, r/macapps, r/Stopscrolling, r/coolgithubprojects. Review quotes: public Firefox Add-ons reviews (2026-09-26 to 11-07), translated from Chinese. Where I wrote "inferred", it is an inference; Pro conversion, revenue and post-price-hike churn have no public numbers.

[Website ↗](https://untrap.app)

**Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report**

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unhook | Chrome | 2018-06 | Chrome 1M users, 4.9 stars (4,629 reviews) | Category leader, few toggles, fully free; no Safari version; users who leave UnTrap after its price hike go here first |
| Youtube-shorts block / Remove YouTube Shorts / ShortsBlocker and other single-feature extensions | Chrome | 2022–2023 | 400k / 300k / 100k | Hides only Shorts; UnTrap is the all-in-one with hundreds of toggles |
| Clean YouTube(cleanyt.app) | Chrome | 2023-12 | 30k users, 4.9 stars | Closest positioning, free, updates often; can pick up UnTrap's churned users |
| DF Tube / FocusTube / YouTube Detox | Chrome | 2020–2024 | Under 20k | Small player on the same path; weaker in features and distribution than UnTrap |
| Control Panel for YouTube | iOS | 2024-02 | App Store $3.99, US rating 9; open source | The most direct rival on Safari, open source; r/macapps ranks it above UnTrap |
| Vinegar – Tube Cleaner | iOS | 2021-11 | $1.99,761 rating | Replaces the player, blocks ads; does not do distraction toggles |
| SocialLite / ScreenZen | iOS | 2021–2026 | 17k / 53k ratings | Manages the YouTube App itself with Screen Time; UnTrap only handles the web |
| YouTube's built-in Shorts time limit / break reminders | Big-company features | 2026-04 (Shorts limit can be set to 0) | Full user base | The platform itself now covers basic "don't watch Shorts" needs, but it can't turn off recommendations, comments, etc. |
| uBlock filter rules, open-source extensions (KishanKokal/Untrapped, etc.) | Open source | 2023–2026 | Small | Free and transparent, attracts technical users put off by subscriptions |

Where users come from

- **Verified** **Store search / keyword title + 60 + language** : Chrome title "Block Shorts, Remove Recommendations, Detox & Focus", 60 in multiple languages, cross-linked as related extensions with Unhook and others (chromestore.item)

- **Verified** **Paid Safari version, exclusive** : App Store $4.99, US rating 524, #1 in Korea's paid Productivity chart, best #25 in the US (appstore library); the developer says one-time purchase revenue has funded the free version for three years (untrap.app/why-plus)

- **Verified** **Free-promo chart push** : 2023-09 posted "$1.99 → Free" on r/AppHookup

- **Verified** **Product Hunt / HN launch** : PH 2023-10-01 125 votes; HN Show HN 2024-04-20 18 points, posted by the author himself

- **Verified** **Press** : Lifehacker 2025-05-08 feature recommendation

- **Verified** **YouTube creator (looks organic)** : Kyle Cook (Web Dev Simplified) 2026-04-10 video 57,540 views, description links untrap.app and his settings export

- **Verified** **Reddit word of mouth** : recommended in r/Stopscrolling, r/digitalminimalism, r/macapps, AppAddict

- Inferred **Paid ads** : nothing found in Meta/TikTok/Google ad libraries

## UnTrap for YouTube (untrap.app) research report

> Data as of 2026-11-07. Library data comes from the traffic / chromestore / appstore libraries on the agent-im server; web pages from Jina / Exa search and official APIs.

### One line

UnTrap is a YouTube distraction-blocking extension by Ukrainian indie developer Yevhen Tretiakov (it hides Shorts, recommendations, comments and 200–250+ other toggles, plus content filtering, AI video summaries, timed focus and cross-browser sync). It's free on Chrome / Edge / Firefox; the Safari version sells for a $4.99 one-time purchase on the App Store. **It didn't just take off recently** : it launched 2023 years ago and slowly built up 100k Chrome and 24k Firefox users over three years. **The recent climb in its Tranco ranking most likely isn't growth in website visits; it's the extension itself frequently calling back to untrap.app's API** (remote config, AI summaries, account / subscription). At the same time, at the end of 2026-09 it locked features it had offered free for years behind $3.99/month (or $35.99 a year) Pro, and its rating immediately dropped. It's a sample for watching "free extension turns subscription", not a sample of something that is "blowing up".

### 1. What it is and where its traffic lands

- Product form: browser extension, listed in four stores: Chrome (`enboaomnljigfhfjfoalacienlhjlfil`, released 2023-02-14), Firefox (listed 2023-10-11), Edge, and Safari (App Store id 1637438059,2022-08-08, $4.99). The official homepage is just a landing page; its buttons all point to each store (https://untrap.app/, 2026-10-30 version).

- The same developer also has SocialFocus (Safari, $4.99,327 rating), Shorts Blocker for YouTube ($1.99,135 rating), and Dumb Phone launcher (free, 228 rating), a small "digital wellbeing" product set (iTunes Search API, 2026-11-07).

- **Users are in the extension, not on the website** : untrap.app is not in CrUX's global top 1M; it has only reached the "top 1M" bracket in 2026-07 India and 2026-09 the UK (traffic.crux_domain). By comparison, unhook.app holds steady at the 500k bracket globally and in a dozen-plus countries.

### 2. Numbers

| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Tranco rank | 2026-08-20 rank 570,229 → September 31–350k → October 28–310k → 11-05 rank 271,233 | traffic.rank_day |
| Comparison: Unhook (unhook.app, 1M users) | 690k → 670k | traffic.rank_day |
| Chrome users | 100,000 (9-01 to 11-07 did not cross a bracket) | chromestore.extops_series / item_snap |
| Chrome rating | 9-01 4.6 (658 reviews) → 10-13 4.3 (808) → 10-14 2.8 (808) → 10-17 2.5 → 11-07 2.8 (857) | chromestore.extops_series |
| Firefox daily active users | 23,691, rating 3.46 (222 reviews) | AMO API,2026-11-07 |
| Safari version | US 524 rating / 4.05 stars, +5 in the last 7 days; best #25 on the US paid Productivity chart; #1 on Korea's paid Productivity chart (paid overall chart #44) | appstore.app_profile;iTunes lookup |

A few things to clarify:

- **Tranco's climb lines up with product version numbers** . The Firefox version log shows a gap of one and a half years after 2024-12's 8.3.1, then 2026-06-20 jumps through 9.9,08-05 10.4.1, 08-09 11.0, 09-08 12.0, 09-16 12.1, 10-06 12.3, 10-25 12.4 (AMO versions API). untrap.app got 1M before it first hit Tranco in 2026-08-20, and that roughly matches the 10.x / 11.0 releases.

- **The current Chrome version (12.4) calls back to untrap.app extensively** : after downloading and unpacking the CRX, I found `untrap.app/api/v3/options` (remote config), `/api/v3/options/shortsblocker/release`, `/api/v2/untrap/summarize/{insight,timestamp,comments,transcription,limits,jobs}` (AI summaries), `/api/v1/untrap/recovery-time`, and `/api/analytics/plus-communication` (tracking for Pro promotion). Three of Tranco's five sources are DNS / network traffic (Umbrella, Cloudflare Radar, etc.); hundreds of thousands of browsers with the extension installed repeatedly resolve untrap.app, which pushes its rank up regardless of whether anyone visits the site. This is the answer to the card's "not in CrUX, the climb may come from DNS / API traffic": an inference, but with fairly solid evidence.

- **The rating fell from 4.3 to 2.8 while the review count stayed the same** (10-14,808 reviews). Arithmetically, new reviews can't have pulled it down; it looks more like the Chrome Web Store changed its averaging method (or began weighting recent reviews), amplifying the effect of the many 1-star reviews since late September. **Unverified** . Either way, among the roughly 150 reviews added from 9 through October, most were 1-star, which is clear from the Firefox side too.

### 3. How the growth happened (three years, not three months)

| Channel | Evidence | Confirmed? |
|---|---|---|
| Store search / title SEO | Keyword-packed Chrome title: "Block Shorts, Remove Recommendations, Detox & Focus"; in the store's "related extensions" it links to Unhook, FocusTube and YouTube Detox (chromestore.item related extensions) | Yes |
| Paid Safari exclusive | Few distraction-blocking extensions exist on Safari; it captures iPhone / Mac users who watch YouTube in Safari with a $4.99 one-time purchase. Unhook has no Safari version. | Yes |
| Free-promo chart push | 2023-09 posted "[iOS/Mac] UnTrap for YouTube $1.99 → Free" on r/AppHookup (reddit.com/r/AppHookup/comments/16v5pk7) | Yes |
| Launch communities | Product Hunt 2023-10-01 (125 votes); HN "Show HN: YouTube Is Great Again" 2024-04-20, posted by yevhentretiakov himself, 18 points (HN API); 2023-09/10 also posted two other HN submissions, 1–2 points | Yes, but small volume |
| Press | Lifehacker 2025-05-08 "This Extension Gets Rid of YouTube's Annoying Clutter" ("I recommend Untrap") | Yes |
| Creators / video | Kyle Cook of Web Dev Simplified published "Stop Wasting Your Time On YouTube" 2026-04-10, with 57,540 views and 2,672 likes; the description links directly to untrap.app and his own UnTrap settings export (YouTube Data API). The description doesn't mention sponsorship, so it looks organic. | Yes |
| Reddit word of mouth | r/Stopscrolling, r/digitalminimalism (someone asked how to block only Shorts, and the answer was UnTrap), r/macapps, AppAddict (2026-08-13): long posts recommending Control Panel + UnTrap | Yes |
| localization | Chrome Web Store in 60+ languages; the current listing language is even Filipino (chromestore.item) | Yes |
| Paid ads | Not in our Meta / TikTok / Google ad libraries (card ads empty); no evidence of paid promotion found | None seen |
| TikTok / X | TikHub search "untrap youtube": 0 results; x-radar, last 90 days: 0 posts | None seen |

Verdict: a classic indie long-tail build: keyword-stuffed titles, listings across many stores, occasional free promos, Product Hunt, HN, and organic recommendations from Lifehacker and a developer YouTuber. No paid acquisition, no single explosive spike.

### 4. Competitors

| Product | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from UnTrap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unhook – Remove YouTube Recommended & Shorts | Chrome / Firefox / Edge | 2018-06 | Chrome 1M, 4.9 stars from 4,629 reviews | The category leader: few toggles, free, excellent reputation; **no Safari version** . When UnTrap raised prices, users in reviews wrote "switching to Unhook" |
| Youtube-shorts block / Remove YouTube Shorts / No YouTube Shorts / ShortsBlocker | Chrome | 2022–2023 | 400k / 300k / 100k / 100k | Only does one thing, blocking Shorts; UnTrap is an all-in-one with "hundreds of toggles" |
| Clean YouTube(cleanyt.app) | Chrome | 2023-12 | 30k users, 4.9 stars | Closest in positioning, still updating frequently (2026-11-04), and can pick up churned users |
| DF Tube / FocusTube / YouTube Detox / LockedIn / Ruckit / Superpower YouTube | Chrome | 2020–2025 | A few hundred to 20k | Same path, all small; titles follow the same formula, "Block Shorts, Hide Recommendations…" |
| Enhancer for YouTube, Iridium | Chrome / Firefox | Years | Big | Feature enhancement (player, video quality), not focused on removing distractions |
| Control Panel for YouTube(Jonny Buchanan) | iOS / Mac Safari $3.99; open source | 2024-02 | App Store US rating 9 | The most direct rival on Safari; r/macapps puts it first and says to use UnTrap "if you need deeper filtering" |
| Vinegar – Tube Cleaner | iOS Safari $1.99 | 2021-11 | 761 rating | Replaces the YouTube player and removes ads; not a distraction-blocking toggle |
| SocialLite / ScreenZen / #blockit | iOS App(Screen Time API) | 2020–2026 | SocialLite 17k ratings, ScreenZen 53k | Manages the YouTube app itself; UnTrap only handles the web |
| Built into YouTube | Big-company features | 2026-04 | full range | YouTube can now cap Shorts watch time at 0 (HN 2026-04-16 thread), and there's a built-in break reminder. The core need is getting absorbed by the platforms themselves |
| uBlock Origin filter rules / open-source projects (KishanKokal/Untrapped, etc.) | Open source | 2026-02 and others | Small | Free and transparent; r/coolgithubprojects has someone building an open-source alternative "like Unhook," naming Unhook and Untrap as "too many features, closed source" |

### 5. Why it took off

1. **The need is real and persistent** : after Shorts launched and homepage recommendations grew addictive, lots of people want to "only see what I searched for." Unhook proved this demand 2018 years ago; UnTrap entered 2023 years later.

2. **Differentiates by being the most complete** : Unhook has dozens of toggles, UnTrap has 177 → 250+, and can play Shorts as regular videos, filter by channel or keyword, use presets, and lock settings with a password. Power users love it (a Firefox review mentions "spent hours tuning the config"), and WDS videos even share a config export.

3. **Safari is its revenue and moat** : the browser version is free for traffic, and the Safari version is a one-time purchase for revenue. Unhook doesn't do Safari, so few iPhone users watching YouTube in Safari have an option. The developer says "for three years, App Store one-time-purchase revenue has funded the free Chrome / Firefox versions" (untrap.app/why-plus, 2026-10-05).

4. **Keyword-stuffed titles + listings across many stores + 60 multiple languages** , capturing long-tail store search.

### 6. Differentiation, and whether that's why it broke out

The differentiation = **most toggles + the only mainstream product covering all four browsers (including the paid Safari version)** . The former gave it visibility beyond Unhook (Lifehacker and YouTuber recommendations praise that "everything can be turned off"), the latter gave it revenue. These two points are indeed why it accumulated over a hundred thousand users, but they weren't enough to overtake Unhook (the gap of 10k vs 100k vs 1M scale has persisted).

**This recent wave** (the reason for the resurgence) is unrelated to differentiation:

- The Tranco rise comes from DNS traffic as the extension started calling the untrap.app API again (see section 2), not from new users;

- Late September launched Pro ($3.99/month, $35.99/year, 3-day trial for annual plans, Paddle billing), locking features that used to be free, like hiding homepage shelves, disabling autoplay, and filters. Over a month, dozens of 1-star reviews appeared on Firefox ("untrap trapped users in a subscription", "switching to Unhook", "I'd pay $20 one-time"), and the Chrome average dropped from 4.6 to 2.5–2.8;

- Developer 10-05 posts a long apology: one-time purchase revenue on the App Store dropped sharply, donations and Patreon fell far short, so they had to switch to a subscription.

### 7. How many people have seen it

**It's circulating in small circles.** One Lifehacker article (2025-05), a video on Web Dev Simplified author Kyle Cook's personal channel (57k views), a few Reddit threads, 125 PH votes, 18 HN points; nothing found on X or TikTok. Revenue is not public (not on TrustMRR; the developer only says "one-time-purchase revenue declined"). Recent buzz has mostly been negative: bad reviews over the subscription.

### 8. Copycats

Nothing obviously copied from UnTrap. The same title formula ("Block Shorts, Hide Recommendations & …") is everywhere among small extensions like FocusTube, YouTube Detox, LockedIn, and Ruckit, but they all trace back to the Unhook lineage, not to UnTrap. The thing to watch is the opposite direction: after the price hike, Firefox reviews have people calling for "someone to reverse-engineer a free version," and open-source alternatives on Reddit are already using Unhook / Untrap as targets.

### 9. Takeaways

- **A free browser version for traffic + paid Safari / App Store version for revenue** is a clean combination in a category where Chrome doesn't allow charging and Safari users are willing to pay; Unhook not doing Safari leaves room for it.

- Keyword-stuffed titles, 60+ language localization, and occasional free promos / PH / HN are enough for a solo developer to capture long-tail traffic.

- **A cautionary tale** : after three free years, moving legacy features behind a monthly subscription without warning caused reputation to collapse immediately (Chrome 4.6 → 2.8). The better move is to keep existing features free for current users and charge only for new ones, or offer a one-time purchase ("I'd pay $20 one-time" keeps appearing in bad reviews). Justify subscriptions by ongoing costs of the feature itself (metered AI summaries, sync), not by "maintenance is hard."

- **Lesson for signals** : once an extension adds remote config / backend APIs, its domain's Tranco rank rises, but that isn't user growth; to judge extension domains, look at CrUX and store user counts.

### 10. Still unclear

- How much of the Tranco climb comes from API / DNS versus real visits to the /offer checkout page: I infer the former dominates, but there's no per-source data.

- Why the Chrome rating dropped from 4.3 to 2.8 while the review count stayed the same (did the store algorithm change or is it a data issue).

- Pro conversion and revenue, and how many users churned after the price hike: the Chrome user count is still in the 100k tier (above 100k it's only shown on a scale, so the change can't be seen).

- The separate "UnTrap Pro for Youtube" on the App Store (id 6757027470, found via Exa on a Canadian-store page) can't be found by lookup now; it may have been delisted or moved storefronts.

### Sources

- traffic.rank_day / crux_domain (untrap.app, unhook.app), 2026-08-20 through 2026-11-05

- chromestore.item / item_snap / extops_series (enboaomnljigfhfjfoalacienlhjlfil and similar), 2026-11-07

- appstore.app_profile (1637438059, 1661093205, 6451330524), 2026-11-07

- AMO API: addons.mozilla.org/api/v5/addons/addon/untrap-for-youtube/ (reviews, version history)

- Extension CRX 12.4 unpacked (downloaded from clients2.google.com)

- [untrap.app/](https://untrap.app/), [untrap.app/offer/](https://untrap.app/offer/), [untrap.app/why-plus/](https://untrap.app/why-plus/) (2026-10-05)

- [lifehacker.com/tech/youtube-untrap-browser-extension](https://lifehacker.com/tech/youtube-untrap-browser-extension)(2025-05-08)

- YouTube jnsuwGElcig(Kyle Cook from Web Dev Simplified,2026-04-10)

- HN item 40095581; HN Algolia search

- Reddit: r/AppHookup 16v5pk7, r/macapps 1vnab8q, r/Stopscrolling 1lhyk9s, r/coolgithubprojects 1tjv3yh (only search snippets were viewed; Reddit post bodies were blocked by 403)

- iTunes Search / Lookup API (UnTrap, the developer's other apps, Control Panel for YouTube, Vinegar, etc.)

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.