Show HN: ekill – Like xkill, but for annoying web page elements | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: ekill – Like xkill, but for annoying web page elements

github.com

107 pointsrhardih37 comments

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If you're using ublock origin on Chromium, you already have this.

Go to chrome://extensions/shortcuts and set a shortcut on "Enter element zapper mode".

I set it to ctrl+shift+q because I kept accidentally closing my browser and I needed something to override it ...

This is nice because uBlock Origin is available for multiple browsers.

You're right! Please feel free to add instructions for Firefox if you know how, I suspect it's similar.

It's available as an add-on. You can find it by searching in the add-ons manager (cmd+shift+A in osx). This brings you to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin where you can click to install. I recommend searching for it on your own through the built-in mechanism rather than trusting a link provided by a stranger.

I meant instructions for the relevant keyboard shortcut.

Oh, I just use the mouse. It's fast enough for me.

Firefox Android with uBlock: open the 3 dots menu, uBlock Origin, touch the picker, go to the tab with the element to hide, touch it, touch preview, confirm. Sometimes it's necessary to select parent elements in the DOM list it displays: it's faster than trying to pick the right element with the finger.

Thanks, I just closed chromium.

Yeah the correct shortcut is actually Alt+F4.

Would you look at that. I've actually been using uBlock since forever, but had no idea it could do that. Oh well, I guess sometimes you just can't see the forest for trees.

I'd love for the extension to collect what elements are being killed by other users and kill them automatically for me. Specially on mobile.

I don't think that feature exists anywhere else and seems a trivial implementation of collaborative filtering to decide what to delete preemptively for each user.

That would be an awesome feature, but would mean sticking your hand into the whole data-collection/user privacy/GDPR rats nest. Not a ship I'm too keen to captain.

I just right-click on the element and select {uBlock} "Block Element" from the context menu.

Documentation is here for more details: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Element-zapper

The zapper will also try to detect and remove CSS rules which prevent the whole page from being scrolled.

Well if you already use uBlock Origin you have multiple mode like this all with possible custom hotkeys if you want something like this

And if you want to hide the cookie notices, just check Fanboy’s Cookiemonster List in the Annoyances section.

Thanks. I use it a lot to hide sticky menus, the open in app button of sites hosted on Medium and more or less everything that wastes space on the screen of my phone.

For Firefox, there's Nuke Anything Enhanced https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nuke-anything... The removals are temporary though. There used to be an addon called "Remove it permanently", but I guess it didn't make the transition to a web extension.

For a general slide-in/pop-up blocker, try Kill It https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/kill-it/

Thanks for this! I've been using Kill Sticky https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/ and am now looking forward to an expanded arsenal in the fight against anti-human web elements.

>There used to be an addon called "Remove it permanently",

isn't that just adding it as a ABP/ublock filter?

For any tridactyl (https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl) users out there: ;k

Great idea. I found Saka Key [0], an extension (Chrome and Firefox) for general re/binding of keyboard shortcuts, similar to the various vim extensions, but more general, though it has two vim variants amongst the binding templates. Seems well done. I've felt dissappointed by the other vim extensions. Maybe I'll be able to bind the ublock origin zapper.

[0] https://key.saka.io/

Use http://prebake.eu/ for uBlock Origin on Firefox.

To anybody wondering, the link in parent is for a filtering list that blocks annoying EU cookie notifications on websites. I had been wishing for this so thanks for sharing.

I had a bookmarklet that did this that I've lost ... I'm interested in it if anyone here has it.

Probably http://www.karmatics.com/aardvark/?

Someone opened an issue with just such a thing:

https://github.com/rhardih/ekill/issues/1

Thanks, that is close to what I had.

The web-application can tell when you have deleted elements (and in some cases might even crash, and perhaps even deliberately).

How this should really work is by maintaining two DOMs, one which the application sees, and one which the user sees.

> This is half-baked

Half baked is an understatement, but I guess it works sorta-ok for a half-day project. Pull requests are very welcome though!

<3 this idea!

I've been happy to discover that AdBlock can be used to do this, though perhaps less slickly than this extension.

It doesn't kill the clock in my toolbar on osx. That's what I came for.

I'm not sure why you thought that would be possible, as it says "web elements" in the title.

I'm using it on Android and it's not killing the robocalls I often receive. That's what I came for.

I use it to feed my pet rock and now it's never hungry!

I assumed people would get the joke but most must not have clicked through to the explanation of xkill which is all about killing the desktop clock. I'll make sure to surround a dangerous comment like that in <joke> tags next time.

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