Quiet Web — Nikhil Rao

Reclaim your attention. Return to the text-first internet.

Quiet Web is a minimal content blocker for people trying to break the grip of media-saturated browsing. It strips out the images, videos, and embedded players that hijack focus — leaving the text intact and the page calm.

What it blocks

• Images — every image request is blocked. Where an image would have been, you'll see a small [image blocked] chip.
• Video — <video> elements are paused, muted, and replaced with a [video blocked] placeholder. Catches inline clips on Twitter, Reddit, news sites.
• Standalone audio — <audio> elements (podcasts, SoundCloud players) get the same treatment.
• Embeds — iframes from YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, Dailymotion, TikTok, and Streamable are stripped out before they load.

Each type has its own toggle. Turn off what you don't want to block.

Per-site control

For sites you visit on purpose — your photographer's portfolio, Figma, your bank's chart — add them to the allowlist with one click. Media loads normally there, blocked everywhere else.

What it's good for

The point isn't to make the web unusable. It's to unhook attention from ambient media — the videos and images you encounter while scrolling Reddit, Twitter, news sites. For sites you go to with intent, allowlist them. For everywhere else, the page becomes quiet.

What it isn't

• It's not a YouTube blocker. Visiting youtube.com directly with blocking on will partially fail because YouTube re-creates its player aggressively. Allowlist YouTube if you want to use it.
• It's not an ad blocker. There are excellent dedicated tools for that. This blocks media of all kinds, ads or not.

Privacy

Quiet Web does not collect, transmit, or store any personal data. Your settings live only in your browser's local storage. No analytics, no telemetry, no remote calls.