We asked, you told us: There's one YouTube Vanced feature you'll miss the most

There’s perhaps no third-party YouTube app more popular than YouTube Vanced, bringing a variety of features to the table compared to the stock app. Unfortunately, the app was shut down by its creators after legal action by Google.

We picked some YouTube Vanced features we miss now that the app has been discontinued, albeit steering clear of features already available with YouTube Premium. We also asked readers which features they’d miss most, and here’s how that poll went.

Which YouTube Vanced feature will you miss the most?

Results

We got over 6,000 votes in our poll after it went live on March 26, giving us a great sample size. It turns out that SponsorBlock is the most popular feature respondents will miss, with ~44% of the vote. This somewhat controversial feature allows users to skip in-video ad segments by creators (e.g. those Raid Shadow Legends or Dollar Shave Club ad spots in videos).

There’s a huge gap to second place, with almost 16% of polled readers saying they miss the true dark theme and UI tweaks the most. We definitely agree with this pick, as YouTube still doesn’t have an OLED-friendly black theme (opting for dark grey instead).

Related: Here are all the YouTube apps and what they do

Rounding out the podium is “granular resolution and playback speed,” accruing 12.73% of the vote. This nifty feature gives you a variety of video resolutions to choose from, as opposed to YouTube burying options for specific resolutions.

The other picks on the list are “none, I never used Vanced” (10%), gesture controls (6.1%), video dislike counts (4.9%), “other” (4.6%), and time-stamped share links (1.7%). We also asked those choosing “other” to leave a comment, and many readers noted that they simply missed Premium features like ad-free functionality and background play.

Comments

• Patrick: The ad-free with Background play and the hide buttons
• Alexander Garcia: Definitely the dislike count and the more intuitive resolution toggle.
• Arf: I missed the background pop up and the feature that makes the sound of the video on even if you turn off your phone
• Name: I’ll miss everything but I feel like the one feature I’ll miss the most is changing the default playback speed. As weird as it sounds I watch most content on 2x speed and setting it as the default was so incredible. RIP Vanced.
• Asaf Nagar: Ads. Background play, also.
• androwin: Blocking ads, that’s all what I wanted from vanced
• Reon: I found Vanced when I was looking to correct the resolution mess. But then I found sponsorblock and life never has been same ever again.