I coded a userscript to restore the dislike counter on YouTube
So, regarding the new update that hides dislike counts from YouTube, I created a Tampermonkey userscript that brings that back, as well as the sentiment bar (the bar below the buttons).
Here is the userscript (paste into Tampermonkey, save the script, and enable it: https://textbin.net/8iyxfntpaa
NOTE: The script DOES NOT work anymore. The script never relied on dislike counts being reported in API, and instead used star ratings hidden in player API and calculated dislikes from there. It was designed to outlive dislike counts themselves being removed from API. However, YouTube pledged to remove dislike counts from API on December 13. I was sure that they wouldn't remove star ratings as well, as it seemed that they completely forgot about it, but it turns out they did. RIP dislike button.
For almost every single video I tested the script on, the estimated dislike count is 100% accurate. There are only some videos with tons of dislikes that the count isn't 100% accurate, but even in those cases, it's 99% accurate.
Here are some examples:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOztnsBPrAA
Actual dislike count:
Calculated dislike count with script:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tollGa3S0o8 (I only picked this because this video is currently #1 on trending as of writing this post)
Calculated dislike count with script:
Actual dislike count:
Heck, even on YouTube Rewind 2018, the dislike count is only 3 dislikes off.
Calculated dislike count with script:
Actual dislike count:
