Return YouTube Dislike (RYD) is a free, open-source browser extension that shows an estimated dislike count under YouTube videos, filling the gap left after YouTube hid the public number in November 2021. It pulls those figures from an archive that combines counts saved before the change with votes from people who use the extension today. If you just want the number for one video and don’t want to install anything, you can check any video’s dislikes in your browser instead. Same archive, no add-on.
This post explains the whole thing in one place: what RYD is, where its numbers come from, why counts on old videos are trustworthy while counts on newer uploads are estimates, and what the extension can and can’t do. For the deeper how-tos, installing it, fixing it, and deciding between the extension and a browser tool, there are linked guides further down.
What Return YouTube Dislike is
Return YouTube Dislike is an add-on for desktop browsers that adds a dislike number back to the YouTube layout. You install it once, and from then on a count appears next to the dislike button on video pages, roughly where the public number used to sit.
The project is free and open source, meaning anyone can read its code. It isn’t made by, owned by, or connected to YouTube or Google in any way. It’s a community project that started as a reaction to one specific change on the platform.
That change: in November 2021, YouTube stopped showing the public dislike count on every video. Creators can still see their own dislikes privately in YouTube Studio, but viewers lost the number entirely. For the full story on why YouTube did this and what it argued at the time, see the explanation on our homepage.
Who built it and why
Return YouTube Dislike was started by developer Dmitry Selivanov shortly after YouTube’s announcement, and it’s maintained as an open-source project on GitHub with contributions from volunteers. The extension took off fast, within weeks it had spread across Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers, and it now has millions of users.
The reason it exists is simple. A lot of people used the dislike count as a quick signal: a tutorial with a heavy dislike ratio might be out of date, a “review” with lopsided dislikes might be an ad in disguise, a how-to fix might not actually work. When YouTube removed the number, that signal went dark, and RYD set out to bring a version of it back.
How the archive gets its numbers
This is the part most articles skip, and it’s the part that decides whether you can trust a given number. RYD builds its counts from two very different sources depending on when a video was uploaded.
For videos that existed before November 2021, the project has real archived data. Before YouTube shut off public access, the dislike count was available through YouTube’s own data feed, and RYD (along with other archivists) saved those numbers for millions of videos. Those are actual historical counts, not guesses.
For videos uploaded after the count was hidden, there is no official number to save. RYD estimates it instead. The extension watches how its own users vote, how many of them like versus dislike a given video, and scales that ratio up against the public like count YouTube still shows. Its published formula works out to roughly:
estimated dislikes = (extension users’ dislikes ÷ extension users’ likes) × the video’s public like count
In plain terms: if the people running the extension dislike a video at a certain rate, RYD assumes the wider audience dislikes it at a similar rate and multiplies out from the visible like count.
Here’s how the two situations compare:
| Video uploaded | Data source | How reliable |
|---|---|---|
| Before Nov 2021 | Real counts archived from YouTube’s old public data | High, these are actual saved figures |
| After Nov 2021 | Extrapolated from extension users’ votes and the public like count | An estimate, quality depends on how many users voted |
There’s a privacy angle to how those votes are gathered, too. When you dislike a video through the extension, RYD records the vote against a randomly generated ID that isn’t tied to your Google account, a design meant to stop bots from stuffing the numbers without linking anything back to you. The only thing the extension sends to fetch a count is the video’s ID. More on what that means for your privacy is in the safety guide.
One more detail worth knowing: the numbers are cached, not live. RYD’s own FAQ says counts refresh roughly every two to three days, not the instant a vote lands. So a brand-new video with few extension users voting on it can show a shaky figure that settles as more data comes in.
What this means for accuracy
Be clear-eyed about this. Counts for older, archived videos are accurate because they’re real recorded numbers. Counts for anything uploaded after the change are estimates, and estimates can be wrong.
How wrong? Usually the ratio is in the right ballpark, especially on popular videos where lots of extension users have voted. But independent testing has found cases where the estimate missed badly, one analysis documented a video where RYD’s figure came out close to twenty times the creator’s actual dislike count. That happens when too few extension users have voted on a video, so the sample the estimate is built on is thin.
No third-party tool can show the exact dislike count for a recent video. Only YouTube and the video’s owner hold that number. Any site or extension claiming a precise, official figure for a 2026 upload is overselling what’s possible. The honest description is “a reasonable estimate that’s better on popular videos and rough on obscure ones.”
That honesty matters, and it’s why the same caution applies to any tool built on this archive, including our own browser viewer. The archive is the best public source there is, but a number pulled from it for a recent video is still an estimate.
Why the estimate gets better over time
An estimate on a fresh upload and an estimate on a year-old video aren’t equally trustworthy, and it helps to know why.
The math leans entirely on how many extension users have voted on a given video. On the day a video goes live, maybe a handful of them have watched it, so the sample is tiny and the extrapolation is jumpy. As more users pass through over the following days and weeks, the sample grows and the number stabilizes.
Popularity works the same way. A video with millions of views draws far more extension users than an obscure one with a few thousand, so mainstream uploads tend to carry steadier estimates than niche ones. If a count looks wildly off on a small video, a thin sample is usually the reason, not a broken tool.
None of this makes a recent number exact, it stays an estimate. But it does mean the same video can read as more reliable a month after upload than it did on day one.
What the extension shows on a video page
Once installed, RYD works quietly. Open any YouTube video on your desktop browser and a dislike number appears next to the dislike button, alongside the like count YouTube already shows.
Many versions also draw the old like/dislike ratio bar, the thin colored line under the video that showed the split at a glance. Settings let you switch between showing the raw count, the ratio bar, or both, and you can usually adjust how the number is formatted.
The ratio is often more telling than the raw number. A video with 2,000 dislikes and two million likes is in fine shape; a video with 2,000 dislikes and 3,000 likes is a different story. Seeing both figures side by side is what let viewers judge a video at a glance, and it’s what the extension restores.
You don’t paste anything or click a button per video. The count is just there as you browse, which is the extension’s main advantage over pasting links into a website one at a time.
Where to get it
Return YouTube Dislike is distributed through the official browser stores, and you should only install it from there, the Chrome Web Store for Chrome, Edge, Opera, and Brave, and Firefox Add-ons for Firefox. The project’s own install page links to each one.
Rather than repeat every step here, two guides cover installation in detail:
- How to install Return YouTube Dislike on Chrome, the step-by-step for Chrome, Edge, Opera, and Brave.
- Return YouTube Dislike on Firefox, Edge, Safari, and mobile, everything outside Chrome, including the awkward mobile situation.
Before you install anything, it’s fair to ask whether the add-on is trustworthy. The measured answer, what permissions it asks for, what data it sends, and how to install safely, is in Is the Return YouTube Dislike extension safe?.
What Return YouTube Dislike can’t do
The extension has real limits, and knowing them saves frustration.
It doesn’t work inside the YouTube mobile app. Browser extensions don’t run in the iOS or Android YouTube apps at all, and they don’t run in mobile Chrome or Safari either. On a phone, the extension is simply not an option for most people, which is exactly the situation a browser-based viewer was built for.
It can’t reveal dislikes on private or unlisted videos. The archive only holds data for videos that were public and seen by extension users, so anything hidden from the public was never captured.
It can’t show you another creator’s private analytics. Dislike numbers inside YouTube Studio belong to the account that owns the channel. RYD estimates a public figure from the outside; it has no access to anyone’s Studio dashboard.
And it can break. YouTube changes its site layout regularly, browsers change their extension rules, Chrome’s move to the Manifest V3 system affected extensions across the board, and any of that can stop the count from showing until the extension updates. When that happens, the fixes are in Return YouTube Dislike not working? Here’s how to fix it.
Extension or browser tool?
Both read the same archive, so the numbers are broadly the same. What differs is how you get to them.
The extension shows counts automatically on every video while you browse, which suits someone at a desktop all day. A browser tool needs no install, runs on a phone, works on a locked-down school or work computer, and keeps working when the extension breaks, you paste a link and read the number.
No install needed: check any video’s dislikes in your browser. It’s free, needs no login, and works on mobile where the extension can’t. For a full, even-handed comparison, see Extension vs web tool: which way should you check dislikes?.
Frequently asked questions
Is Return YouTube Dislike accurate?
For videos uploaded before November 2021, yes, those counts come from real archived data. For newer videos, the number is an estimate built from extension users’ votes, and it can be off, sometimes badly, on videos that few users have voted on. Treat recent-video counts as approximate.
Is Return YouTube Dislike free?
Yes. The extension is free and open source, and the archive behind it is a community project. Browser tools built on the same data, including ours, are free as well and need no account.
Is Return YouTube Dislike made by YouTube?
No. It’s an independent, community-run project with no affiliation to YouTube, Google, or Alphabet. It reads public data and estimates a count; it has no special access to YouTube’s systems.
Does Return YouTube Dislike work on mobile?
Not through the extension. Browser extensions don’t run in the YouTube app or in mobile Chrome and Safari. To see a dislike count on a phone, a browser-based viewer is the practical route.
Can I see dislikes without installing anything?
Yes. Paste a video link into a web viewer that reads the same archive, and you get the estimated count without any add-on. That’s the fastest option for a one-off check or for anyone on a phone.
Where to go next
Now that you know what Return YouTube Dislike is and where its numbers come from, the rest of this topic splits by what you actually want to do:
- Worried it’s an add-on you shouldn’t trust? Read Is the Return YouTube Dislike extension safe?
- Ready to install it on desktop? Follow How to install it on Chrome or the Firefox, Edge, Safari, and mobile guide.
- Had it stop showing counts? See Return YouTube Dislike not working.
- Not sure you even need the extension? Compare it with the browser tool.
And any time you just want the number for one video, without an add-on and without leaving your phone, paste the link into our free viewer. It reads the same archive this whole guide describes.
Return YouTube Dislike is an independent project and its behaviour can change; this explainer was accurate on the date shown above.