Clickbait was discussed in an indie webforum. The answer may surprise you.

[Corrupted Unicorn]

Those fluff piece articles they show up when you start up Firefox.

You know them, you got them (at least until you figured out how to get them off your starting page), what do you think of them?

I got them removed from my home PC but sometimes I'm guilty of sneaking a quick click on one of them on my work computer on empty hours.

I want to think they are useful, but to be fair the most interesting part of them is their title. I guess that's why they're called clickbait 

Let's try to discuss the superficiality of clickbait in depth.

We all know obnoxious Youtube thumbnails and prologues to recipes the size of the Silmarillion, but how do you distinguish a "good" article from a fluff piece? How do you ward yourself against this stuff? Can you describe in detail that sensation of "augh" you get when you see an exaggerated open-mouthed smile gaping at you on your youtube searches?

Extension recommendations, reliable sources of articles and anecdotes are welcome.

[MediocreMetastasis]

Firefox has popup articles? I've never seen them before.

Youtube is really bad for it. If I ever see a thumbnail of a guy unhinging his jaw with bulging eyes with the saturation cranked up I'm not clicking. There is an extension where it'll remove the thumbnails and the title of all videos so instead of the clickbaity thumbnail it's a screenshot of the video and instead of the title being "I did something CRAZY in minecraft" it's "minecraft #5". It's an extreme way of avoiding clickbait but it works.

[Nova]

If y'all ever wanna, ya know, not see the thumbnails on YouTube, DeArrow.
It also changes titles if you want too.

https://dearrow.ajay.app/

[Cele]

I had to turn them off years ago... Seeing news constantly even when I'm not looking for them makes me too stressed out :S

[ABlueRose]

I must have turned off Firefox articles instantly because I don't remember ever seeing them 

Like the others have said, "DeArrow" is a really good extension for Youtube. I've been using it for a few weeks now, and love it!

The only tip I can think of for click-bait titles is that if the title ends in a question, nine times out of ten the answer is no.


I will admit I click on click-baity Youtube shorts. As long as I don't begin scrolling through them, I'm okay with myself for clicking on a couple a day