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
8. Facebook: rename "Chat" to "Group chats" to mirror functionality and add "Community chats" to it
9. Facebook: separate "Stories" and "Reels" into their own toggles and fix functionality
10. 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
11. LinkedIn: feed is now hidden everywhere except when viewing a specific post
12. Reddit: "Feed" now only targets home feed and not community/popular feeds
13. 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/reddfocus-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 version fixes a couple of bugs:
- Instagram: suggested follows-hiding now works again
- Instagram: comment-hiding now works again

Cheers,

Ulrik & the ReDD Team

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 includes bug fixes and improvements:

• on YouTube, corrected selectors for hiding video thumbnails, view counts, and search suggestions so this should now work again
• when you hide things, the checkboxes now give you a visual feedback when the app is working on hiding content

Remember the app is open source -- keep the suggestions coming at https://github.com/ulyngs/mindshield-open-source

Cheers,

Ulrik & the ReDD Team

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,

with this update:

• you can temporarily show a custom element you've hidden, so it's easy to see what effects your hiding has
• fixes a bug that caused the extension to sometimes become unresponsive

Enjoy!

Best,
Ulrik

Hi folks,

this version makes it easier to finish selecting custom elements to hide: in addition to clicking 'done', you can now also simply press the Escape key.

Enjoy!

Ulrik

Hi folks,

If you hide more than one custom element at a time, you can now undo hiding of them all sequentially.

Cheers,
Ulrik

Hi folks,

this update makes it much easier to select custom elements to hide, by allowing you to hide multiple elements after another, easily undo, and mark 'done' when you're done. :)

Also improves sizing in the delay message.

Enjoy!

• Ulrik