It still works for me in Brave. While we're on the topic of "Unhooking" I also like to recommend the DeArrow[1] extension for YouTube.

1: https://dearrow.ajay.app/

It works fine for me, I have not noticed degradation

> doesn't work for shorts anymore, on Firefox

I do get shorts in search results, but if I click they do not load (the audio plays but no video). For the purposes it fills, that blocks them enough for me.