Apple Debuts New 'Distraction Control' Feature For Safari

Apple has introduced a new feature for Safari that allows users to block distracting elements on web pages, such as sign-in popups, some autoplay videos and even ads (temporarily). The feature is called "Distraction Control" and is rolling out today in iOS 18 beta 5. 9to5Mac reports: Distraction Control is accessible via the same Page Menu interface in Safari as Reader and Viewer. Here, users will find a new "Hide Distracting Items" option to enable Distraction Control. Users will then be prompted to select different elements on a webpage that they feel are distracting. Users will have to manually choose each item on a webpage that they wish to hide. Distraction Control will persist through page refreshes and reloads, assuming that the hidden item does not change. Apple says that nothing is proactively hidden with this feature; only items that a user manually selects are hidden.

Apple also emphasizes that this feature is not meant to serve as an ad blocker. While a user can technically use Distraction Control to hide an ad on a website temporarily, that ad will re-appear when the page is refreshed or otherwise reloaded. In fact, the first time a user activates Distraction Control, Safari will display a pop-up that emphasizes the feature will not permanently remove ads or other areas of a website that frequently change. If a user chooses to hide something like a GDPR banner or a cookies request pop-up, Distraction Control behaves in the same way as if the user manually clicked to dismiss that pop-up. This means Distraction Control will serve as neither an "Accept" nor "Decline" for that cookies request. Finally, if a user wishes to unhide an item, they can click back into the Page Menu interface in Safari and choose "Show Hidden Items."

Firefox with ublock

[Samuel Silverstein]

Probably works better, namely due to the filter lists that can dynamically update. At least, it already does a very good job of it for me.

Re:

[mi]

I too prefer UBlock now, but AdBlockPlus (ABP) is now available for iOS — I use it on my phone. And it does help...

Safari refers to it with a generic term "Content Blocker" (allowing you to turn it off for one page, for example), which makes me think, there are other such apps too.

Re: Firefox with ublock

[Samuel Silverstein]

Didn't the EU force apple to allow third party browsers? Should be easy for Mozilla to port over the android version.

Re: Firefox with ublock

[Malc]

You can already get Firefox for iOS:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/... [apple.com]

Surely ad-blocking behaviour is independent of the rendering engine that the browser uses?

I donâ(TM)t use and I wouldnâ(TM)t use a full port on my iPhone anyway.

Re: Firefox with ublock

[Samuel Silverstein]

Surely ad-blocking behaviour is independent of the rendering engine that the browser uses?

Firefox is the only browser on mobile (that I'm aware of) that lets you install actual web extensions. Among others I use are cleanurls, YouTube background playback, sponsorblock, dark reader, and some others I can't think of right now. Ublock takes ad blocking a lot further than regular ad blockers though; (hence Google is trying to kill it with manifest v3 in chromium browsers) you've also got the filter lists, and among them are the annoyance filter lists (reddit is chock full of these, basically their w

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

Firefox with uBlock won't get rid of Amazon's idiotic prompt that comes up every single time you sign in, "Would you like to ship to the address you've been using for the last 25 years or do you want to suddenly change your shipping address to somewhere in Burkina Faso?". Every single time.

Re: Firefox with ublock

[Samuel Silverstein]

I can't say I've ever seen that prompt before, and I've never used Amazon's app.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

Might be a non-US thing, I've heard other people here complain about it happening as well.

Could this evolve?

[david.emery]

Users will then be prompted to select different elements on a webpage that they feel are distracting. Users will have to manually choose each item on a webpage that they wish to hide. Distraction Control will persist through page refreshes and reloads, assuming that the hidden item does not change. Apple says that nothing is proactively hidden with this feature; only items that a user manually selects are hidden.

It's not a big stretch to connect this feature to on-device machine learning, that aggregates and learns from previous 'distractions' to learn and then be enabled to hide similar "distractions". I could see two modes: "ask-first" ("Is this also a distraction to be blocked?") or "trusted" (marks and hides 'distractions', with a system preference to allow the user to review what the ML engine has decided is 'distraction' and undo that mark, if desired.) Now that's the kind of applied AI that I would be interested in.

Re:

[nightflameauto]

Users will then be prompted to select different elements on a webpage that they feel are distracting. Users will have to manually choose each item on a webpage that they wish to hide. Distraction Control will persist through page refreshes and reloads, assuming that the hidden item does not change. Apple says that nothing is proactively hidden with this feature; only items that a user manually selects are hidden.

It's not a big stretch to connect this feature to on-device machine learning, that aggregates and learns from previous 'distractions' to learn and then be enabled to hide similar "distractions". I could see two modes: "ask-first" ("Is this also a distraction to be blocked?") or "trusted" (marks and hides 'distractions', with a system preference to allow the user to review what the ML engine has decided is 'distraction' and undo that mark, if desired.) Now that's the kind of applied AI that I would be interested in.

You have violated the AI code of ethics: You have proposed a use for AI which would negatively impact advertisers first. Prepare for your reeducation. Resistance in futile.

Re:

[david.emery]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] "must... sterilize...."

If they add this, I'll consider switching to Apple

[smoot123]

I'm a pretty firm Windows/Chrome user. If someone offered an environment which by default didn't play animations or videos (except it would be nice to not screw up Netflix or other legit streaming sites), that's be really interesting. Not moving videos to a pop-up when I scroll past them is a big plus. Automatically answering the "we use cookies" dialogs would also be really nice.

If Apple wants to add these to Safari, geez, I'd have to start considering switching. That sounds like a much better browsing exp

Re:

[markdavis]

>"I'm a pretty firm Windows/Chrome user. If someone offered an environment which by default didn't play animations or videos (except it would be nice to not screw up Netflix or other legit streaming sites), that's be really interesting"

Linux + Firefox + Ublock Origin + a few settings clicks.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

I'm a pretty firm [...] Chrome user.

Yeah but why?

If someone offered an environment which by default didn't play animations or videos (except it would be nice to not screw up Netflix or other legit streaming sites)

They do. It's called firefox! I run with privacy badger, noscript and ublock origin, and I see almost none of the shit that makes the web insanely aggravating on any other setup.

If Apple wants to add these to Safari, geez, I'd have to start considering switching.

You can have it today! And you don't

Re:

[hawk]

>They do. It's called firefox!

Home of, "you're using the 2:15 version! Install the 4:07 version? there might be important security issues!"

and then, content not visible for the fire-pop of, "You still haven't installed the 4:07 version, and it's almost 5:00!"

and so forth.

How about a "damnit, stop asking me" button.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

You can prevent firefox from asking for updates. It's a pretty bad idea unless you know what you're doing. But if you can't figure out how to stop it, then you probably ought to leave it on.

Re:

[hawk]

"can't figure out" and "not willing to expend any effort" are separate concepts. If I look it up, it will just change at their next whim, just like everything else they touch.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

Well there's the thing isn't it.

Firefox don't want a bunch of lazy people blaming them for getting pwn3d.

Not having automatic updates is something you should NOT be lazy about. And FFS you're whiny too. It's not hard and the mechanisms have not changed for years.

All browsers should offer these

[FudRucker]

Especially be able to disable autoplay videos, maybe make it so videos are not even downloaded, lots of websites dont give a damn if they waste other people's bandwidth which costs users money, so make disable autoplay, disable animated gif images too,

Re:

[antdude]

This please. I only have 4 GB cap per month! :(

Re:

[hawk]

4? Mine is 1.

I was signing up for a plan with 2, but you could pay $2 for each additional.

He asked if I meant another I hadn't noticed. I asked about adding, and he said yes--but it turns out that it's *$5*, not $2! But for $72 for the year . . .

Now, my normal usage had been at or near 1/month. I don't watch videos, ever. But it's not *quite* enough to run Waze and pandora when I take 8 hour each way drives. When it comes up in a a couple of months, I'll switch to the other.

Sign in popup from Google I guess?

[thesjaakspoiler]

Now that would be something for the better I think.

Re:

[theskipper]

Doesn't help for Safari but for uBlock Origin users in general, adding this to your Settings->My Filters kills it:

||accounts.google.com/gsi/*$xhr,script,3p

Finally something useful

[khchung]

Good to finally see some useful innovation from Apple.

The biggest thing

[Malay2bowman]

Are those damn cookie popups. And lately they have started to become more aggressive, one of them even popping up a second popup with some legalese bullshit without my actually pressing anything to make that happen. No, I am not going to adjust pages of "cookie preferences" for each popup. I am not going to read your legal swill that protects thee, but not me. And as an American, I should not be dealing with this shit from American sites when it was the EU that monstered this crap. "OH SAY CAN YOU SEE, BY

Re: The biggest thing

[Malc]

The EU didnâ(TM)t mandate those annoying dialogs, They could just be a simple affair in the corner where you can ignore them. In fact, itâ(TM)s American companies that seem to have the most annoying dialogs. So it seems like a choice. The worst are the ones with âoelegitimate interestâ options checked, hidden until you scroll. These seem to be deliberately difficult and perhaps in violation of the EU laws, and whoâ(TM)s to say what is âoelegitimateâ (Iâ(TM)ll be

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

American sites when it was the EU that monstered this crap

Those sites could choose to not use any of the "non mandatory" cookies to track your behavior. It's American companies being shitty and wanting to know everything about you so they can sell your data to aggressive advertisers.

You're blaming the wrong people here.

Re:

[Malay2bowman]

"American companies being shitty and wanting to know everything about you so they can sell your data to aggressive advertisers." What I don't understand is how the super saturation point hasn't been hit yet, and we haven't heard of a collapse of this 'sector of the economy' yet. Is the privacy invasion market THAT good? :-/ Normally the value of a product drops when too many people are doing it, but I guess the largest "big data" companies muscled away the little guys from this gold rush. This is the only

Re:

[Malay2bowman]

So my guess is there are only a few major data brokers in the world, and the sites are giving your data to these these brokers, who in return give advertising/corporate $$$ to those sites while taking a generous cut for themselves, and sells the collected data to these various companies.