Better Likes

Better Likes vs Return YouTube Dislike

Both projects show reactions the platform doesn't. Only one of them can tell you whether the number on the screen is actually real.

TL;DR

Return YouTube Dislike (RYD) gives each browser install a random number and trusts it. Reinstall the extension or open a new browser profile — you get a fresh "user", forever. Better Likes asks for one working email and uses an irreversible hash of it as your account, so one real person = one real vote, the same way most social networks already work.

RYD is a great project that filled a real gap when YouTube hid the dislike button. We respect it — it's open source, GPL-3, and one of the reasons users still have any signal at all. This page is not a take-down. It is an honest explanation of why the numbers differ and what each project is actually measuring.

At a glance

Better Likes Return YouTube Dislike
Who counts as a user One verified email address = one account One random number per install, no verification
Cost of making 100 fake "users" 100 working email inboxes (hard, slow, traceable) 100 reinstalls or browser profiles (free, instant)
What you actually see Real reactions from verified people An estimate: archived counts + extrapolation from votes
Sign-in to read counts No — reads are fully anonymous No — reads are fully anonymous
Sign-in to submit a reaction Yes — one-time email code, then 30-day session No
If you reinstall the extension Same account (your email hash is the same) Brand-new "user" with a clean slate
If you open a private window Sign in again, but it's still you You become a different person to the server
"Delete my account" Yes — one button, erases your record + decrements counters No formal flow; clearing the random ID doesn't undo votes
Source code github.com/khasky/betterlikes — GPL-3 github.com/Anarios/return-youtube-dislike — GPL-3

Why the difference matters

1. Who is "a user" in each project?

In Better Likes, your account identifier is sha256(secret_salt || lowercase(email)). Two installs with the same email = the same account. Two browser profiles with the same email = the same account. Reinstalling = the same account. We never store the email itself; only the hash.

In RYD, your account identifier is a 36-character random string generated by crypto.getRandomValues the first time the extension registers. Reinstall → new identity. Different browser → new identity. New profile → new identity. The server has no way to tell them apart from a real new person.

Verifiable in the RYD source — see generateUserID() and register() in Extensions/combined/ryd.background.js.

2. What does the number on the screen actually mean?

RYD's own website is upfront about this: the count you see is a mix of historical dislike data scraped before YouTube removed the public counter, plus an extrapolation built from how the extension's anonymous users vote. The README and the official site both describe it as an estimate.

Better Likes doesn't estimate. The number under a Facebook post, a GitHub repo, or an Amazon product is the literal count of verified accounts that clicked that emoji. If you didn't react, you're not in it. If you reinstall, you don't suddenly become two people.

3. How easy is it to fake votes?

RYD does not ignore this problem. Every vote triggers a proof-of-work puzzle the browser has to solve before the server accepts it — a small CPU cost designed to make industrial botting uneconomic. That part is well-engineered (you can read solvePuzzle in the same background file). But the cost is a fraction of a second per vote and applies per browser install, not per person. Spinning up many installs is cheap; solving a few seconds of CPU is cheaper.

Better Likes costs real-world effort to fake. To create another voter you need another working email address that can receive a 6-digit code. That's the same friction every mainstream login flow uses, and it's why ten throwaway emails feel like ten reactions instead of ten thousand.

4. Honest disclaimer: 5 million people can't be wrong, right?

RYD has millions of installs. Most users — rightly — don't care about identity models; they install it because YouTube took away a useful signal and any signal is better than none. We agree. For "rough thermometer on a viral video", an estimate is fine.

Better Likes is built for a different job: reactions on specific things — a Facebook post, a single GitHub repo, an Amazon product. There the difference between "real" and "estimated" matters, because one is feedback and the other is vibes.

Which one should you pick?

Pick RYD if you only need a rough idea of how a YouTube video is landing, and you don't want to sign in for anything. It is a great fit for that.

Pick Better Likes if you want reactions across the sites Better Likes supports — and you want the counts to reflect actual people who showed up, not anonymous numbers a re-installed browser hands out for free.

Install Better Likes Read the source

Fair-play notes