It replaces it with the much more pleasing artwork from the actual video. Someone has gone through and picked nice frames for many of those videos.

DeArrow developer here

To clarify on what it happening, the extension was free for everyone while it was in beta, but as originally described on the website and install page, there is now a soft paywall for new users only. Those beta users also have a license key that they are encouraged to share with others if they would like :)

I understand you may not want to use this at all as a principal, which is fine, but I'll explain the different things I've done to make this better.

• The extension and server source code are FOSS and self hostable
• The database is public and downloadable as with my other extension SponorBlock (https://sponsor.ajay.app/database)
• License keys are encouraged to be shared
• There is an option to request free access
• The payment option is one time forever

I understand if you still don't want to use it though :)

Also if you want, here is a key :P FVE2Q-a3442

If you look at the DeArrow website and browser extension pages, I made sure to only use high quality channels as examples (Tom Scott, CGP Grey) to demonstrate how far reaching the sensationalism problem is.

Creator of theq extension here, that is an optional permissions (may ask). It never asks to access to all sites, it only optionally let's you add support for additional sites such as different Invidious instances. These are arbitrary domains, so it needs permission to ask for any arbitrary website.

Support for invidious is not actually done yet, so right now, it never asks for permission for any new sites anyway

The client side data is used to store your submissions to always show your preferred title, even if there is another submission on the server. You can disable this option in the settings