Show HN: Tiny Chrome extension to disable images to reduce distractions | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Tiny Chrome extension to disable images to reduce distractions

github.com

69 pointsMarkinK54 comments

I've gotta share something -- so, I think I have a bit of an addiction with YouTube and I'd been thinking about how to shake it off. I didn't get round to it for whatever reason (blocks in modem settings maybe), but one day a month or so ago, if I went to YouTube, I saw this screen: https://i.imgur.com/OIL0jSE.png

Not extremely sure why this happens (I reckon it has to do with my use of adguard), but anyway I noticed I would just... move on, there were not icons to entice me that I could immediately click. And then sure enough, I found myself less hungry for it in the coming weeks.

This all happened by accident but boy o' boy, it works. I'm wasting less time on YouTube.

I similarly stopped going to reddit (the comments don't load on mobile, things become unclickable... I imagine this is a change recently made live to force users to login to increase engagement... ironic that it works out backwards to what their intent was).

Reflecting more on this on a weary weekend morning, about how many are unable to shake off these addictions, I am increasingly convinced of the poisonous effects of these distractions and cannot help but think that dire action is needed to curb these addictions with gov't mandated regulations.

I think price increase of tobacco products (with tax costs embedded in the price) were a great deterrent (better than the warning signs on the tobacco), so I suspect deterrents need be incredibly strong. Finding that balance and perspective, of weighing personal freedoms and recognizing the realities of addictions is going to be very hard, but I hope for the good of us we go somewhere with this and recognize the dangers for what they are.

I put a rule in my adblocker to block the reddit homepage but not individual threads (because that's often where google takes me).

Massively helpful, but also concerning how months later I still automatically try to go to the homepage every once in a while and run into my adblocker.

Would you mind describing how you set up that filter?

edit: Using AdGuard for Safari, the following works for me under custom filtering rules:

||reddit.com^$document

||old.reddit.com^$document

@@||reddit.com/r/*/comments/*

@@||old.reddit.com/r/*/comments/*

@@||reddit.com/r/*/comments/*$document

@@||old.reddit.com/r/*/comments/*$document

I just use:

||reddit.com/^$document,important

@@||reddit.com/*$document

I highly recommend extension for mobile browsers "SocialFocus: Hide Distractions" to replace YouTube and Instagram apps. It lets you block features and UX improvements that keep you on the platform, like thumbnails, feed and reels/shorts.

I like to think to combat addictiveness of modern apps, you need to actively make it less convenient. It's hard to completely quit it, but if it's clunky to use you'll naturally use it less.

For YouTube, I pay for premium because I already block ads, and it feels proper to support creators that way. Then I use my content blocker to remove the sidebar and the end screen overlay, both of which are stuffed with distracting elements. I've bookmarked my subscriptions page, and if creators I like haven't uploaded anything I'm interested in watching, I just close the tab.

This took some effort, but it works wonders. And really, there's only a handful of YouTube channels I actually want to follow anyway. A lot of the rest of it seems to be low effort humor. Nothing wrong with that, it's just mostly not my cup of tea.

Patreon is probably better, IMHO. From what I understand, Youtube Red pays out your subscription money proportionally based on how long you watch their videos. To me, that just seems to encourage them to waste your time, rather than focus information density. With Patreon you decide who gets how much.

> I noticed I would just... move on

That's kinda what happened to me and Reddit. After all the drama with the API (which I never used, btw) I decided to delete my Reddit account of 10 years. Something I never thought I would do, as I spent a significant amount of my internet time on it.

I still go to Reddit from time to time just to browse, and still use it a lot to get viewpoints on specific topics (via Google site: ), but I never partake in discussion any longer. And I don't miss it at all. I still have the urge to punch someone to the face if they share factually wrong information, but I'm glad I have no account to write a comment any longer.

It's truly weird how fast important things can become unimportant.

> Not extremely sure why this happens

It’s when you have no watch history.

It's actually from the adblocker. Google is cracking down and making YouTube harder to use if you don't have ads or a premium subscription.

No, it’s when you are signed out and have no watch history (I can’t remember if it also does it when signed in but with no watch/search history). Try an incognito window with no ad blocker. Trust me on this one. Read about it here: https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/139222780?hl=en&ms...

Yeah, I have watch and search history turned off. The former makes the dashboard empty.

Turning on watch history brings suggestions back.

I also have no watch history, but my screen only began to look like that when I subscribed to premium.

Didn't realize it's a premium-specific thing. I have had watch history turned off for a long time now, and assumed that's all that one needed to do for dashboard to be empty.

It’s not a premium thing. It started last year and may have just coincidentally started around the time they signed up for premium.

I use an app called Jomo to block YouTube, as well as about 10 other distracting applications. It runs on every device I have and makes it very challenging to use the app when I feel the urge to. For a long time I convinced myself that I needed to keep some access to YouTube because there is obviously some meaningful content on the platform. After having it completely blocked for a few months I have come to realize that there is nothing on the platform that is absolutely essential for me to be able to view, and that the downside of getting distracted was not at all worth it.

If you turn off watch history, then that’s what the homepage has started to look like they don’t recommend anything that’s helped me shake it a bit; Works on Roku iOS and desktop.

A technique that helped me (after started meditation/setting my intentions/etc) is turning off the autocomplete for “top sites” and “browsing history.” It doesn’t block anything but adds just enough friction that I can remember my intentions and make a non-automatic decision.

There's probably a few extensions that do this for YouTube. One is called Unhook.

I just blocked YouTube using hosts file this week. Haven’t missed it. But no more random time sinks.

I had offloaded YouTube on my phone since the phone is out of storage. Not going back.

Disabling image loading used to be a standard setting on browsers in the dial-up internet days. I don't recall when that disappeared.

OP's extension simply uses the `chrome.contentSettings.images` API, which you've always been able to set manually in the standard browser settings. It never disappeared (chrome://settings/content/images).

But for LinkedIn and other sites, I still have to turn it on sometimes. But only for a few minutes. So I have the auto disable feature.

I think you're looking for chrome://settings/content/images

This is exactly what this extension does

Loved the dedicated button for it in good ol' Opera.

In between the bandwidth getting better and the content getting shittier :) Which is what, 2008-2016?

I wrote a bookmarklet for same:

    javascript:(function(){var imgs=document.getElementsByTagName("img");
    for(var i=0;i<imgs.length;i++)imgs[i].style.visibility="hidden"}());

Although it will break on <picture> elements and any element with a background-image of course

I had Claude modify it to add those features

    javascript:(function(){
        var imgs = document.getElementsByTagName("img");
        for (var i = 0; i < imgs.length; i++) {
            imgs[i].style.visibility = "hidden";
        }
        
        var pictures = document.getElementsByTagName("picture");
        for (var i = 0; i < pictures.length; i++) {
            pictures[i].style.display = "none";
        }
        
        var elements = document.getElementsByTagName("*");
        for (var i = 0; i < elements.length; i++) {
            elements[i].style.backgroundImage = "none";
        }
    }());

Talking about distraction, this is off topic, but I found Carmack's method very useful.

He used to go to a random motel, book for a few days, away from office, and work on a hard topic (usually graphics) non stop.

I took a poor man's option instead. Go to a chain coffee shop where you can buy a cup of coffee and sit in a corner undisturbed (human noises do not concern me). Bring a dumb phone just in case, turn off WiFi, and you are good to go.

I tried this a few weeks ago and went over one and a half chapters of "Crafting Interpreters" in 3 hours. I had to admit it was tough to go beyond that, but you might be able to do more with a healthier body. It was also from 10AM to 1PM so hunger had an impact as well.

It is also possible with uBlock Origin and it even works on Firefox Android.

Overall browsers should be focused more on reducing distractions.

Shopping! Collections! Donate! Improve video! Zoom photo! Enhance photo!

Google disagrees

So does the vampires from the industry of nothing - ads.

So much money with so little value, how come drugs are illegal and this ain't

Are there any browsers that are text only with nice formatting? Would be great to style the page just based of h1, h2 etc and make it beautiful to read from a typography formatting perspective.

I mean there is reader mode but your mileage will vary depending on the site markup

Firefox extension please

Unfortunately, this extension decides to use Chrome-specific APIs rather than the standardized (and comprehensive) WebExtensions API. The good news is that people have written portable extensions with identical (or greater) functionality.

As others stated in the thread, ImageBlock and uBlock both have settings to toggle images. There's also ImageBlock X which provides a single button to toggle image blocking, like the extension in this thread.

Image Block, also works on Firefox for Android (where it's most useful) : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/image-block/

you can use ublock origin, it has a setting for that. It's pretty much a necessity for me to disable JavaScript and images until i manually enable them. The modern internet is a mess

Firefox also has the about:config preference permissions.default.image: 2, which will block most images.

Will this work on manifest v3 chrome?

You might as well use "Reading Mode" when accessing websites.

why give PR to something that can be easily done via browser settings?

I just made it for myself and share it here. For me it is better to control by button and aute deactivate feature than with manual control.

Nice work! People will always find something to complain about.

If you find it useful, a handful of other people probably will as well.

Thank you!

It's an easily accessible toggle. It would be a pain to be on a website where you need to see an image and have to go find the setting toggle it, view you content , then find and toggle it again.

What does PR here mean?

Edit, public relations I guess..

because the way the extension does it is more convenient for some people

You can use unhook extension for youtube, hides a lot of distraction!

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