Channel Surfer lets you watch YouTube like it’s old-school cable TV

There’s a amusive caller mode to ticker YouTube: by transmission surfing similar a boomer with cablegram TV. This originative thought comes from London-based developer Steven Irby, who has conscionable launched a web app called Channel Surfer, which presents absorbing YouTube videos successful an interface resembling a retro-looking TV guide.

In the app, you tin browse done different, topic-focused channels and click to tune successful arsenic if you were watching unrecorded TV.

At launch, determination are 40 of these custom-built “channels” to take from, including those focused connected wide topics similar news, politics, sports, and manner content, arsenic good arsenic a enactment of euphony channels and others with a much tech focus.

The second radical includes channels similar “AI & ML,” “Code & Dev,” “Space,” “Retro Tech,” “Tech & Gadgets,” and “Gaming.”

Image Credits:Channel Surfer

As you determination betwixt channels, you articulation the video being played mid-stream. Meanwhile, the usher informs you of the upcoming contented connected each the channels and what clip of time it volition play. You tin besides scroll up to look astatine programming planned for the adjacent 24 hours.

This makes watching YouTube consciousness a batch similar watching old-school unrecorded tv — an acquisition that’s proven fashionable connected escaped streaming services similar Plex, Pluto TV, Tubi, and others, which connection lineups of unrecorded channels playing TV shows and movies. YouTube itself, meanwhile, dominates TV streaming successful the U.S.

Plus, a tiny antagonistic astatine the bottommost of the surface tracks however galore different radical are presently watching YouTube with you.

Image Credits:Channel Surfer

Irby says helium came up with the thought to physique a akin acquisition astatine the streamers, but for YouTube videos, due to the fact that uncovering thing to ticker tin inactive beryllium a struggle.

“I built Channel Surfer due to the fact that I’m bushed of the algorithms and indecision fatigue,” Irby told TechCrunch. “I miss transmission surfing and not having to determine what to watch. I privation to conscionable beryllium and tune into what’s connected and not deliberation astir what to ticker next.”

“My boomer Mom watches cablegram TV. I privation the same, but with my YouTube channels instead. Also, it’s weirdly comforting to cognize I’m watching with different people,” helium said.

The task is 1 of galore caller experiments from Irby, a 40-year-old tech manufacture seasoned who has spent the past decade-plus traveling the world.

“I person truthful overmuch creativity from my long, weird journey. I can’t carnivore the thought of being a Jira summons monkey anymore,” helium said.

The app seems to beryllium a hit, with Irby noting that Channel Surfer’s brand-new website saw much than 10,000 views connected its archetypal day.

Under the hood, Channel Surfer is, for now, a static Next.js tract that uses PartyKit and is hosted connected Cloudflare. The channels and euphony it offers are from Ibry’s ain hand-picked list. GitHub Actions is utilized to tally a publication that refreshes the information daily. There’s nary backend yet.

And portion Claude assisted successful the coding process, the tract is not “vibe-coded,” Irby says.

The channels themselves are fundamentally playing YouTube embeds, including YouTube’s ads, truthful the app should not beryllium violating policy. Eventually, Irby says he’d emotion to bring the app to TV platforms, similar Fire TV, Google TV, and others. (It besides runs connected mobile devices and tablets, but needs much work.)

At launch, Channel Surf is simply a escaped work offering entree to 175 YouTube channels and 25 euphony playlists. But if you subscribe to Irby’s newsletter, you’re fixed the enactment to import your ain YouTube subscriptions into the app.

It’s a quick-and-dirty process to bash so: You resistance a “Channel Surfer” bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar, past unfastened your YouTube subscriptions, and click the bookmarklet. The process begins, directing you backmost to the app wherever you paste the copied JSON substance into a container and click an “import” button. This adds your ain channels to Channel Surfer’s existing lineup, perchance giving you hundreds much channels to ticker successful this format.

The site’s beingness harkens backmost to the web’s earlier days, filled with amusive experiments and creativity. For Irby, that’s the point.

“I’m obsessed with showing the satellite that the aged web is inactive live and well,” helium says. “It’s conscionable buried nether a upland of slop.”