The light varies along the bar
Blue on the left of frame and orange on the right gives you a bar that is blue on the left and orange on the right — not one muddy average of the two.
Chrome extension
Every video is surrounded by dead black space.
VIDEO+ turns it into light.
It fills the black bars with light read from the edge of the picture, and spills a glow onto the page around the player. Both track the video live — an underwater scene turns the page blue, a fire scene turns it amber.
- 28 sites, not just YouTube
- The full effect, free
- No account, no data collected
Two effects, working together
A widescreen film in a 16:9 window has black bars top and bottom. A vertical clip on a desktop has them down both sides. VIDEO+ fills that space with light read from the edge of the picture right beside it, so the image appears to continue past its own frame instead of stopping at a hard black line. Then it spills a glow out onto the page, underneath the site's own menus and comments, so it reads as part of the page rather than something pasted over it.
It reads the video. It doesn't just blur it.
Most ambient extensions take the whole frame, blur it, and stretch it behind the player. VIDEO+ samples the edge of the picture on a 448 × 72 grid and builds the light from that. Three things follow from it.
It adapts to the content
On a busy, detailed edge the smoothing widens automatically so the bar doesn't flicker into confetti. On flat colour it tightens, so a clean colour stays clean.
Black stays black
A frame that is genuinely black stays black, instead of glowing faint grey the way a naive blur does. Fades to black actually fade to black.
It adapts to shape, too. A fullscreen film, a theatre-mode video, a small windowed player and a vertical Short are four different problems — each one is tuned separately.
What you can turn on
Immersion bars
Fills the black bars around the video with light from the picture, so the image looks like it continues past its own edges. Works on letterbox bars (top and bottom) and pillarbox bars (down the sides).
Page glow
Spills light out past the player and onto the page. It sits underneath the site's own menus, comments and chat, so nothing gets washed out or covered up.
Dim the page
Darkens everything except the video itself, which is left completely untouched. For when the rest of the page is competing with what you're actually trying to watch.
28 sites, not just YouTube
Each one is tuned individually, because a Twitch channel page and a TikTok feed need very different handling.
Video
- YouTube
- Watch, theatre, fullscreen, embeds, live, Shorts
- Twitch
- Channels, VODs, clips — light kept off the chat panel
- Kick
- Channels, VODs, clips
- Vimeo · Dailymotion
- Watch pages and embeds
- Rumble · Odysee · Bilibili
- Watch pages and live
- Niconico · Streamable
- Watch pages
- Nebula · Plex · Internet Archive
- Watch pages
Short-form & social
- TikTok
- For You and every feed, one clip at a time
- Reels, Stories (photo stories too) and the home feed
- Watch, Reels, posted videos, home timeline
- X (Twitter)
- Single posts and the timeline
- Comment pages and the feed
Work & learning
- Loom · Wistia · Vidyard
- Shared recordings
- Coursera · edX · Udemy · Khan Academy
- Course players
- Google Drive · Photos · Dropbox
- Your own uploaded video
Everywhere else. A generic engine handles standard HTML5 players on most other sites automatically — the list above is simply what has been specifically tested and tuned.
In feeds, it waits. On TikTok, Reels and timelines the effect holds off until you stop scrolling, then lights the clip you landed on. Scrolling never drags.
Not supported: Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video and other DRM services. No extension can read a single pixel of DRM video — the browser walls it off deliberately. More on that.
You decide where it runs
Short-form clips and home feeds are governed by separate switches, because wanting light on a Reel doesn't mean wanting it on your Instagram timeline.
- Run on doomscroll — covers Shorts, Reels, TikTok and clips. Turn it off and those stay dark; everything else keeps working.
- Run in home feeds — covers the Instagram, Facebook, X and Reddit timelines. A separate switch, so your everyday scrolling can stay plain.
- Fullscreen only — the effect appears only when you go fullscreen, and leaves windowed and theatre view completely alone.
- Battery saver — drops the sampling rate when you're unplugged. On mains power nothing changes.
The effect is free. Pro is control over it.
Free isn't a trial or a teaser. It's the complete effect on all 28 sites, with nothing crippled and no nagging. Pro doesn't unlock the light — it unlocks the controls that shape it.
Free
€0
Forever. No account.
- Immersion bars — fill the black bars with light from the picture
- Page glow — spill light onto the page, under the site's interface
- Dim the page — darken everything but the video
- All 28 sites plus the generic engine
- Run on doomscroll — on/off for Shorts, Reels, TikTok, clips
- Run in home feeds — on/off for Instagram, Facebook, X, Reddit
- Fullscreen only and Battery saver
- The Balanced preset
Pro PAY ONCE
€4.99
One payment. Not a subscription.
- Everything in Free, plus:
- All 7 fine-tuning sliders — brightness, colour, softness, glow size, glow strength, screen-edge fade, dim depth
- Subtle and Cinema presets — three intensity levels instead of one
- Per-site profiles — each site remembers its own settings
- Every future Pro feature, included
30-day refund, no questions asked.
What the three presets actually do
Subtle Pro
A restrained edge of light. For reading comments or working beside a video without the page moving in the corner of your eye.
Reach 0.34 · Strength 0.38 · Brightness 92%
Balanced Free
The default, and what most people leave it on. Clearly there, never in the way.
Reach 0.44 · Strength 0.48 · Brightness 100%
Cinema Pro
Nearly double Subtle's reach at more than twice the strength. For films in a dark room, where the light fills the wall behind your screen.
Reach 0.65 · Strength 0.80 · Brightness 115%
Pro activates with a license key — paste it into the extension and you're done. No account, no login, and it keeps working offline. Two computers? Paste the same key on both.
Questions
Does it work on Netflix, Disney+ or Prime Video?
No, and no browser extension can. DRM-protected video is rendered in a protected path the browser deliberately walls off — an extension cannot read a single pixel of it. That's a restriction built into Chrome itself, not something I can code around. I'd rather say so here than let you find out after installing.
Will it slow my browser down?
It samples the video a limited number of times per second rather than every frame, pauses completely while you're scrolling a feed, and drops its rate further on battery. The whole extension is about 200 KB and needs no particular graphics hardware — there's no GPU requirement to meet.
What data do you collect?
None. VIDEO+ reads pixels from the video on the page you're already watching, entirely on your own device, to work out what colours to show. Nothing is uploaded, tracked, or sent anywhere. Your settings are stored locally in your browser. There is no account and no sign-in.
What exactly do I get if I pay?
Three things: all seven fine-tuning sliders, the Subtle and Cinema presets alongside Balanced, and per-site profiles so each site remembers its own settings. Plus anything added to Pro later. You do not pay to unlock the effect — that's free on every supported site and always will be.
Is Pro a subscription?
No. One payment, once. No account to create, no login, no renewal. You get a license key, paste it into the extension, and it keeps working offline.
Can I use Pro on more than one computer?
Yes. Paste the same licence key on each one. It's tied to your purchase, not to a single machine.
Which browsers does it work in?
Chrome, and Chromium-based browsers — Edge, Brave, Opera and Arc. It is not available for Firefox or Safari.
My video site isn't in the list. Will it still work?
Often, yes. Beyond the sites with dedicated support there's a generic engine that handles standard HTML5 video players automatically. The listed sites are the ones that have been specifically tested and tuned.
Stop watching videos in a black box
The full effect, free, on 28 sites. About ten seconds to install, and it starts working on the next video you open.
Add to Chrome — Free