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Comment by CarlJW | Hacker News Reader

Great! The more solutions to filter unwanted content on the internet the better.

Sometimes we find ourselves stuck having to use a particular platform because that's where the group chat is.

I've had great success with Firefox and the Social Focus extension. Works on a number of different sites including YouTube, Reddit and Instagram.

https://socialfocus.app/

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I would love have something like this on a phone but only solution which I thought of other than stop using the app is decompile whole app, remove the reels and recompile it again which is not very viable solution.

not that i love this solution but that's exactly what the revanecd project does

here are their available patches for instagram: https://revanced.app/patches?pkg=com.instagram.android

Whoa thank you!

Thanks! Will try.

I use ScreenZen for mobile - it can block specifically short form content so you can stick to the actual social parts.

I use timelimit.io for managing screen time. Nice granular controls and schedule based rules.

I apply the 80/20 rule. 8 minutes allowed, followed by 2 minutes blocked. Then at night I reverse it. 2 minutes allowed, 8 minutes blocked. Just enough time to make one search query and then get off my phone. Or if I do get trapped by something, it's only for a short time.

https://timelimit.io/en/

This works on Firefox Mobile. I use it on Android and my Desktop without any issue.

I'll add also, for the odd thing that this doesn't filter, then I use uBlock Origin to filter that particular element.

Haven't checked on it since about mid last year but Facebook settings didn't work with it for me.

LinkedIn has also been especially hard to find a good blocker for to remove the sponsored/suggested posts from the timeline (it's just full of garbage engagement bait hot takes).

I just vibecoded a tampermonkey script to block scrolling on Instagram and also block reels. I also had it redirect from the `/reels/` URL to `/reel` which is just the single video view (for when friends link me memes), but it seems they removed that.

IGPlus worked much better for me on Instagram. https://weblxapplications.com/en/products/igplus

For facebook I love Facebook Purity. Only problem is it's desktop only. https://www.fbpurity.com/

Edit, some things I've been able to us ublock origin for. Like facebook reels. Not 100% clean but enough to stop them from working (no video, just still thumbnail when you open them). In some ways that provides some reinforcement learning to the brain.

if you're just using meta platforms for the chat functionality, may i recommend beeper.com?

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