Hi folks, happy new year! To celebrate the beginning of new year, we've painstakingly worked through as many of your GitHub requests and other feedback to fix the million little things the app needed. Below you'll find the full list of updates. Please enjoy and keep the ideas coming at https://github.com/ulyngs/reddfocus-open-source/issues or email us at team@reddfocus.org New features: 1. added dark mode! 2. redesigned custom-selector, button, and progressive feedback on hidden elements 3. make google ads highlighting colour more red and account for dark mode on browsers 4. YouTube: add ability to hide the "You" section in the menu bar 5. YouTube: thumbnail styling now includes ads and sponsored posts 6. Facebook: add ability to hide "People you may know" on the feed 7. Facebook: add ability to hide "Contacts" on right sidebar on desktop 8. Instagram: add ability to hide suggested posts 9. Instagram: add ability to hide notification badges 10. X/Twitter: add ability to hide "Explore" section 11. WhatsApp Web: add ability to hide "Status", "Channels", and "Communities" tabs 12. WhatsApp Web: add ability to hide chat profile pictures 13. Reddit: add ability to hide left and right sidebars on desktop 14. Reddit: add ability to hide AI Related Answers/Posts sections on mobile Bug fixes and improvements: 1. fixed all functionalities 2. element hiding, reappearing, and renaming works fluidly across all states (session-only, saving as default, auto-save ON) 3. Instagram: renamed "instagramSuggestions" as "instagramSuggestedFollows" and fixed functionality 4. YouTube: hiding "Subscriptions" now hides all subscribed-to channels and all buttons related to the Subscriptions 5. YouTube: fixed issue where "Explore" section wasn't being hidden 6. YouTube: removed "Entire right sidebar" as functionality replaced by Cinema mode 7. YouTube: view numbers now hides everywhere 7. Facebook: rename "Chat" to "Group chats" to mirror functionality and add "Community chats" to it 8. Facebook: separate "Stories" and "Reels" into their own toggles and fix functionality 9. Instagram: "Reels" now hides Reels in feeds ## perhaps look to separate out "Reels in feed" and "Reels tabs" ## can remove if people find this to be too much 10. LinkedIn: feed is now hidden everywhere except when viewing a specific post 11. Reddit: "Feed" now only targets home feed and not community/popular feeds 12. Reddit: rename "Popular communities" to "Best of Reddit" to mirror functionality and hide entire "Best" section in sidebar Cheers, Ulrik, Tiago, Konrad, and the Reduce Digital Distraction Project (reddfocus.org)

Hi folks, this update brings some quality-of-life improvements: 1. **Clearer instructions**: When you first open ReDD Focus, we have made some visual instructions that hopefully will you get you instantly up and running with the extension! 2. **Name & edit your custom selectors**: Custom elements previously was only shown with whatever mysterious CSS selector was used to hide them. You can now provide your own name to any hidden element (e.g. 'Instagram Reels') and it'll be shown instead of the CSS. You can also make direct adjustments to the CSS if you're a power user! 3. **Various minor improvements**: The google ads background highlighting is now nicer to look at. Please note that in this update we've also deprecated the direct ability to hide ads on Google --- this app is not meant to undermine developers' business models, it is only meant to help you hide elements that does not work for your attentional vulnerabilities. If you look up how to inspect the elements on a web page, you can still make any modifications you would like, using the new ability to edit CSS selectors directly. - Cheers from Ulrik, Konrad, Tiago, and the Reduce Digital Distraction Team (see what we're up to at reddfocus.org) P.S: Keep the suggestions for improvement coming at https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source

Hi folks, this update... drumroll ... changes the name to 'ReDD Focus' and gives it an even cooler ship icon! ('ReDD' stands for 'Reduce Digital Distraction) Also, fixes a number of pieces of functionality that had broken over time, due to various website changes. As always, remember that the extension is open source. Keep your suggestions coming at: https://github.com/ulyngs/reddfocus-open-source Enjoy! - Ulrik, Konrad, Tiago, and the Reduce Digital Distraction Team (see what we're up to at redd-project.org)

Hi folks, this update introduces site-specific accountability features. What does *that* mean? Well it means that you can e.g. add delay to change settings on YouTube.com, without adding delay to change settings on google.com. # NEW ACCOUNTABILITY FEATURES ## Site-specific accountability The settings for delay or auto-saving settings are now site-specific, so your settings for e.g. YouTube.com can be different from google.com. ## Makes it possible to show/hide features without it becoming the default By default, the extension automatically saves your settings when you change them. However, you might want to temporarily show e.g. recommended videos on YouTube without that becoming your new default. This is now possible: In settings you can now disable auto-saving of settings. If you do, you will need to explicitly click 'Save settings' before settings are saved. MINOR IMPROVEMENTS & BUG FIXES - YouTube: auto-playing previews are now (finally!) automatically disabled if you hide recommended videos - LinkedIn: hiding the feed now (finally) only hides it on the landing page - Settings popup: added a 'close' button to the settings popup for more intuitive navigation - On/off switches: these have been removed as they serve little purpose in practice - Nicer styling of delay timer settings Cheers, Ulrik & the ReDD Team redd-project.org

Hi folks, this update makes it possible to hide google's AI Overview. Cheers, Ulrik & the ReDD Team

Hi folks, this minor update makes design tweaks to the new app icon. Cheers, Ulrik & the ReDD Team

Hi folks, this version... *drumroll*... changes the name! Welcome to... VikingFocus! :D Also a number of bug fixes: - you can now again blur / black out video thumbnails on YouTube - improves FB newsfeed selector on mobile Cheers, Ulrik & the ReDD Team

Hi folks, this update improves the app's usability and brings important code improvements that improves the reliability of the app (the under-the-hood improvements are so big that we're calling this 3.0 even though you might notice much difference... :) All praise @kasnder!). Enjoy! - Ulrik & the ReDD Team

Hi folks, this update adds a much-requested feature and fixes a few things that were broken by changes on the Instagram and LinkedIn website structure: - NEW: on Instagram's Search page you can now hide the distracting content grid - FIXED: Instagram feed & story-hiding now works again; LinkedIn feed & notification count hiding now works again Remember that the extension is open source -- keep the suggestions coming on https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source Enjoy! - Ulrik

Hi folks, this update 1. adds a help button with FAQs, including what to do if the extension becomes irresponsive. 2. fixes a few bugs, including ensuring that the checkboxes with pre-configured options are only shown on the correct URLs, and removing the superfluous refresh button for custom selectors (the list is updated automatically). Enjoy! - Ulrik

Hi folks, this update - fixes a bug that caused the extension to sometimes become unresponsive - adds the ability to temporarily show a custom element you've hidden, so it's easy to see what effects your custom hiding has Enjoy! Best, Ulrik

Hi folks, two minor improvements in this update: - comments-hiding on YouTube now works again! - adds a prompt that if the settings aren't loading, MindShield needs to initialise by closing down Safari fully and re-opening it Keep the feedback coming on the open-source GitHub repo: https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source Enjoy, Ulrik

Hi everyone, this update  1. fixes a critical bug where the extension sometimes did not work until you closed and re-opened Safari 2. makes it possible to exit selection mode for hiding custom elements by simply clicking the selection button one more time. Remember the extension is open source - flag issues & submit suggestions for improvement here: https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source/issues Enjoy! - Ulrik

Hi folks, this update makes it easier to select custom elements to hide: you can now hide multiple elements one after another, easily undo, and simply mark 'done' when you're done. :) Also improves font size in the delay message. Enjoy! - Ulrik

Hi folks, this update fixes a bug which could cut off part of the displayed YouTube window. Keep the feedback coming at https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source Cheers, Ulrik

Hi folks, follow-up update that fixes a few bugs introduced in version 2.0. Also updates the extension description shown in settings. If a website is not immediately responding to the upgraded version, just refresh the page and it should work! (Version 2.0+ manages the hiding functionality slightly differently, so a page you're already using may require a refresh the first time you use the new version of MindShield. Any trouble, let me know on the GitHub repo or at ulrik@redd-project.org) Cheers, Ulrik

Hi everyone, I am INCREDIBLY excited to release this version, because it introduces two features I've been meaning to add for a long time: 1: HIDE ANYTHING: You can now hide any webpage elements you want by simply clicking the 'Hide custom elements' button and then clicking on the element you'd like to get rid off. 2: WORKS ON ANY WEBSITE: You can now use MindShield on ANY website, not just on the few special ones I originally built it for. There's bound to be some wrinkles to iron out before this works really well -- so please submit your feedback and suggestions for improvement at the open-source GitHub repository https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source I've also fixed some bugs here and there. Enjoy! - Ulrik

Hi folks, this update adds instructions for how to create a custom icon on the home screen that goes directly to your chosen platform in Safari. That is, it shows how you can e.g., delete the ordinary Instagram app and add your own homescreen icon to open it directly in Safari with MindShield's modifications. As always, remember that the app is open source - keep the suggestions coming at https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source Enjoy! - Ulrik

Hi folks, this update fixes a couple of broken things due to recent changes on YouTube: - now again hides Shorts in recommended videos - now again is able to hide account images Remember that the extension is open source -- keep the suggestions for improvement coming at https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source Cheers, Ulrik

Hi folks, this update adds a few improvements and bug fixes: - added ability to replace thumbnails with black background: in addition to blurring the thumbnails or removing them all together, you can now also keep their size but simply make them completely black (their brightness are turned down to 0) - fix bug in 'explore' and 'reels' selectors on instagram - improved icon: extension icon is now prettier (thanks @dannflor!) Remember that the extension is open source --- keep the suggestions coming at https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source Cheers, Ulrik

Hi folks, this update fixes a few important bugs -- thank you for your patience, and thanks to the users who flagged (and helped solve!) these on GitHub! Specifically, this update: - Twitter/X: moves from the old twitter.com domain to x.com - Twitter/X: fixes label to hide 'search' button - YouTube: fixed bug in which settings for notifications and thumbnails on YouTube were not stored (thank you SuneGraversen!) Keep those bug reports and improvement feedback coming on https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source :) Have a great week everyone! - Ulrik

Hi folks, this update makes the extension work again on Instagram --- Meta changed something on the HTML which broke it (unintentionally, I'm sure!)... Thanks to the users who brought this to my attention! This update also: - Instagram: allows you to hide the search/explore menu button (thanks to the user who suggested this on GitHub!) - YouTube: makes hiding of account images more complete, such that they are also hidden on comments (thanks to the user who pointed this oversight out on GitHub!) Cheers, Ulrik

Hi folks, this update (a) fixes a bug on YouTube in which the 'like count' when watching a video could not be hidden, (b) gives the extension a much-better looking icon! :) Thanks to the users who suggested both improvements on GitHub! Submit your own feedback and suggestions here: https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source Cheers, Ulrik

Hi folks, this version fixes the selectors on Facebook, which had been broken by changes to Facebook's HTML structure! Remember that the app is open source, so you can flag bugs and suggest improvements at https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source Cheers, Ulrik

Hi folks, this update adds bug fixes and improvements: - on Instagram: you can now hide comments! (Thanks to the user who suggested this on GitHub!) And the annoying 'Use the app' prompt is now hidden, yay! Also numerous bug fixes. - YouTube: numerous bug fixes (e.g., shorts are now properly hidden also in search results) Remember that the app is open source -- submit feedback and improvement suggestions at https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source Cheers, Ulrik