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Guidelines & Tips from IT: Google Chrome Hacks - Chapter 2

 

Pop-ups, modals, overlays, interstitials: there are a lot of different ways to refer to the design elements that websites use to notify you of something (e.g., this site uses cookies) or encourage you to take an action (e.g., sign up for our newsletter). Regardless of what you call them, these notifications can be annoying, intrusive, and distracting.

But you don't have to deal with the process of closing multiple pop-up notifications to read content online. With the right extensions, you can block all website notifications on Chrome and get rid of other annoying website elements like paginated articles and auto-playing videos to start enjoying a less distracting online reading experience.

In this chapter, we can see about the following things,
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  • How to stop Chrome from hijacking your media keys,
  • Remove all clutter from any site in one click,
  • How to block ads on Chrome

1. How to stop Chrome from hijacking your media keys

You open a video link while listening to music. You reflexively hit the play/pause key on your keyboard to pause the music.

The video pauses. The music keeps playing.

You might try digging in Chrome's settings, but there's no solution to be found there. That doesn't mean there's no way to stop this from happening you just need to know where to look.

Chrome's hidden options aren't easy to find. For this case, in the Chrome address bar, type chrome://flags, and search for "key", or just copy this link into Chrome: chrome://flags/#hardware-media-key-handling. You'll see the hidden Hardware Media Key Handling option.

 

 

Set this to Disabled. Make sure you also restart your browser—you'll see a Relaunch button at the bottom of the window.
 
 
From now on, your media keys will have no effect whatsoever on anything happening in Chrome, meaning you can pause your music when a video starts playing. This will save you a lot of money on new computers and will also make your life a little better.
 
2. Remove all clutter from any site in one click
 
 
Too many websites are a cluttered mess—the article you want to read is hidden beneath layers of ads, marketing pop-ups, and worse. How many times do you have to click "Close"?

Instead of doing all of that clicking and waiting, try using Mercury Reader. This free extension shows you the article you want to read and nothing else—just click the icon or use the keyboard shortcut (Cmd + Esc for Mac users, Alt + \ for Windows users).
 
 
3. How to block ads on Chrome
 
 
Online ads aren't as much of a nuisance as they used to be. Generally, sites have stopped doing things like cramming ads into every open space on the page and using pop-ups and pop-unders. But even though things are better, you'll still occasionally run across a site like the one above that hasn't caught up to the new user experience best practices for advertising.

If ads are slowing down your browsing experience consistently, you can use an ad blocker to get rid of them all together like the free AdBlocker Ultimate. It blocks display ads, YouTube pre-roll ads, and even AdWords ads (the text ads that appear in Google's search results).

Other popular free ad-blockers for Chrome include uBlock Origin (known for its customizability) and Ghostery (blocks ads and trackers).
Something to remember: Ads can be obnoxious, but if there's a website consistently producing content you enjoy, consider adding that site to an allows list in your ad blocker. Many sites can only continue producing content because they earn advertising revenue. If you really don't want to see ads, you could also consider paying for a subscription to the site, donating to a creator's Patreon, or offering some other alternative method of monetary support.
Ads, overlays, notification requests, and auto-playing videos aren't quite everything annoying you might run into online. There are other things you'd probably like to be able to disable (hello, chatbots) that don't currently have solutions. However, these setting changes and extensions are a good starting point for enjoying a more pleasant and less distracting internet browsing experience.

Finally, we hope you enjoyed reading this email and found this informative and helpful in keeping yourselves up-to-date.
 

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