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My uBlock Origin filters to remove distractions

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Re: My uBlock Origin filters to remove distractions

#81

Post by ronjouch »

aendruk wrote: post #72
ronjouch wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Unfortunately these websites change their basic layout so often that it felt like these fixes would work for 1 month max then I'd have to configure again." You're exaggerating. My userContent.css is 60kB, and although breakages do happen indeed, it's occasional and nowhere near "redo everything every month". What I will reckon is a pain, are machine-mangled CSS classes (e.g. by packers for React / other frameworks…

Judging by some of the other examples here I’m guessing this is a case of writing fragile rules that e.g. count n and m items into a tree and test unnecessarily for incidental classes. If all you do is accumulate the often senseless outputs of the element picker I’d expect the gains to be short-lived.

Indeed, 100%. I learned to never do such things, and would rather not have a rule than have a brittle one. This explains that my experience differs from OP's.

Re: My uBlock Origin filters to remove distractions

#82

Post by gzer0 »

If you go to Options > Filter Lists > Annoyances and check mark the following items:

  "AdGuard – Annoyances"
  "EasyList – Annoyances"
  "uBlock filters – Annoyances"
You will get rid of 99.9% of website annoyances without affecting any main functionality of websites.

I've been doing this on every fresh install of Chrome for years. Works wonders.

Re: My uBlock Origin filters to remove distractions

#83

Post by kup0 »

Using rules to completely block shorts from appearing in any YT feeds (and rules to fix the feeds so they don't look broken afterwards) has been great. YT breaks it from time to time with a UI update, but it's something I'll always use. I hate YT Shorts

Re: My uBlock Origin filters to remove distractions

#84

Post by badsectoracula »

imbnwa wrote: post #76
noname120 wrote: post #65

Arc has native support for cosmetic improvements. Those are called Boosts and you can interactively create your owns in just a few clicks, and also add custom CSS/JS if needed. I use this extensively to declutter/dedistract most websites I visit: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Medium, Gmail, YouTube, and so on. It's a real life-changer! See the Boosts shared by other users here: https://arc.net/boosts

Arc is the best browser UI thus far. Everything else is still stuck in the late 2000s essentially

Some would claim that is a feature. Though personally i'm trying hard(ish) to make Firefox' UI closer to early 2000s :-P (thanks to userChrome.css).

Re: My uBlock Origin filters to remove distractions

#86

Post by robbyking »

gzer0 wrote: post #82

If you go to Options > Filter Lists > Annoyances and check mark the following items: "AdGuard – Annoyances" "EasyList – Annoyances" "uBlock filters – Annoyances" You will get rid of 99.9% of website annoyances without affecting any main functionality of websites. I've been doing this on every fresh install of Chrome for years. Works wonders.

There really are two different version of the internet, and which one you use depends on how how well your ad blockers are configured.

I was using my mom's laptop over the holidays, and it took me a minute to realize why every site I visited looked so _different_. What I quickly realised is almost every site I visited was wallpapered in ads: banners between every paragraph, sidebars full of ads, and background images selling things. A lot of sites were unrecognizable from what I was used to.

Re: My uBlock Origin filters to remove distractions

#87

Post by brezelgoring »

perihelions wrote: post #10
mig4ng wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the last one do?

I don't know if they still do it, but at the time Twitter charged money to display user avatars in a larger size, and styled as a hexagon. I think they were NFT tie-ins or something? They were difficult to ignore, so I wrote a snippet to turn hexagons back into circles. [edit]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30012904 ( "Twitter Rolls Out NFT Profile Pictures" )

I had an extension (that I found here) that transformed all NFT avatars into Jared from Subway. It really takes the edge off of whatever they say. Even the most serious arguments just turn into kids' spats with that picture, it made the site more pleasant to be in.

Re: My uBlock Origin filters to remove distractions

#88

Post by db48x »

ronjouch wrote: post #81
aendruk wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging by some of the other examples here I’m guessing this is a case of writing fragile rules that e.g. count n and m items into a tree and test unnecessarily for incidental classes. If all you do is accumulate the often senseless outputs of the element picker I’d expect the gains to be short-lived.

Indeed, 100%. I learned to never do such things, and would rather not have a rule than have a brittle one. This explains that my experience differs from OP's.

There are better ways to do it. For example, you can match elements containing specific text, such as the text that introduced the annoyance. On NewEgg you might match the text “Download our app” and use it to remove that whole box.

Re: My uBlock Origin filters to remove distractions

#89

Post by ronjouch »

db48x wrote: post #88
ronjouch wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, 100%. I learned to never do such things, and would rather not have a rule than have a brittle one. This explains that my experience differs from OP's.

There are better ways to do it. For example, you can match elements containing specific text, such as the text that introduced the annoyance. On NewEgg you might match the text “Download our app” and use it to remove that whole box.

Yup yup.

- Standard CSS (for userContent.css): https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Attribute_s...

- uBlock Origin: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Static-filter-syntax & https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Procedural-cosmetic-f...

Still, sometimes it's difficult/impossible to make a reliable filter, and in such cases I'd rather not have it than have a brittle one.

Re: My uBlock Origin filters to remove distractions

#90

Post by PcChip »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #58
notsylver wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These aren't just annoyances, they are core features of the sites.

Might be scope for upstream projects to add a new group like "uBlock Focus" where blocks are to focus main content? Before IT took away all plugins (!) I used uBlock this way, hiding sidebars and leads that weren't conducive to work (eg interesting stuff).

>Before IT took away all plugins

weird decision, I push plugins to lots of my customers (uBlock Origin)

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