Feed Free - Unbiased Feed (FF - UF)

Take control of your feed. Block algorithmic recommendations, shorts, reels, and more on YouTube and Instagram.

🚀 WHAT'S NEW (Updates from v1.2.1 → v1.4.1) ⌨️ INSTANT KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS • Grayscale Toggle ('G'): Instantly toggle Grayscale Mode on/off anytime using the 'G' hotkey on YouTube and Instagram, complete with a clean, floating status toast notification. • Audio Only Toggle ('A'): Switch YouTube between video and Audio Only Mode on-the-fly using the 'A' hotkey or the floating, draggable player button. ⚡ INDEPENDENT APPEARANCE MODES • Always-Active Grayscale & Audio Mode: Grayscale Mode (YouTube & Instagram) and Audio Only Mode (YouTube) now run independently of the global Feed Free toggle switch. Enjoy your preferred visual/audio appearance settings anytime without affecting your feed blocking rules! 📺 YOUTUBE UPDATES & ENHANCEMENTS • Search Page Shorts Toast Notification: Added auto-dismissing notification toasts when search page Shorts shelves are hidden. • Full Watch-Page Sidebar Nuke: Completely collapse the watch-next sidebar to stretch the main video player into a clean, full-width view. • Hide Shorts Everywhere: Fully remove the Shorts tab and video thumbnails from creator channel pages. • End-Screen Toggle Fix: Resolved a bug where video card overlays remained hidden after toggling the option off; styles now reset cleanly. 📸 INSTAGRAM UPDATES & ENHANCEMENTS • Comments & Likes Count Hiding: Hide comments sections, comment counts, and post likes counts while keeping interactive Like, Comment, Share, and Save icons intact. • Hide Professional Dashboard: Strips away creator/business metric links and icons from the sidebar navigation panel. • Stories Tray Overhaul: Choose to hide stories on Home feed only, or go nuclear with "Stories Everywhere" to scrub trays, highlights, and profile rings globally. • Dynamic Comments Restoration: Hidden comments are tagged on-page for instant restoration when toggled off without requiring page reloads. 🎨 SYSTEM OPTIMIZATIONS & UI • Floating Glassmorphic Scrollbar: Redesigned the popup scrollbar with an ultra-subtle floating translucent glass pill thumb (backdrop-filter: blur). • Unified Heartbeat Engine: Merged background cleanup intervals into an optimized 2.5-second heartbeat loop to minimize CPU & memory consumption. • Scope & Stability: Enforced strict desktop-only domain scope (youtube.com, instagram.com) for rock-solid stability and zero layout interference. ────────────────────────────────────────────── Take control of your social media experience and break the dopamine loops. Feed Free — Unbiased Feed (FF–UF) is a lightweight, privacy-focused digital detox browser extension designed to completely eliminate addictive algorithmic timelines, shorts, reels, and manipulative recommendations on YouTube and Instagram. Reclaim your focus, protect your mental space, and browse entirely on your own terms without getting sucked into endless scrolling. Unlike basic blockers that break when platforms update, Feed Free targets stable semantic structures, accessibility roles, and native URL paths to ensure uninterrupted focus through client-side single-page application (SPA) navigations—no page reloads required. 🚀 OUR 3-PHASE ROADMAP The extension is architected as an ongoing, deliberate development framework across three distinct operational milestones: • Phase 1: Feed Free (Current Phase) — Take back absolute control over your feed layouts. Block recommendations, feeds, likes, comments, and visual triggers on YouTube and Instagram to clear out distracting dopamine loops entirely. • Phase 2: The Unbiased Feed (Upcoming) — Introduce a custom-curated, non-manipulative feed engine. Safely inject neutral, educational, or random content to provide a healthy alternative timeline. • Phase 3: The Focus Lock (Future) — Add intentional behavioral friction and lock-in options, preventing you from overriding your detox settings when you need to focus most. 🌟 KEY FEATURES (CURRENTLY ACTIVE — PHASE 1) 📺 YOUTUBE FOCUS MODE • Hide Home Feed: Instantly clears the central video recommendation grid from the homepage to stop passive scrolling before it starts. • Hide Shorts & Shorts Everywhere: Removes Shorts shelves from the homepage/sidebar, and targets channel profile grids to scrub short-form loops entirely. • Hide Recommendations & End Screens: Clears suggested watch-next video panels and handles clean style resets to wipe out video card overlays when a clip concludes. • Hide Entire Sidebar: Fully collapses the watch-page sidebar context, expanding the video player layout to a clean, symmetrical full-width presentation. • Hide Comments: Removes the entire interactive comments platform to keep you away from time-wasting comment threads. • Deep Sidebar Customization: Individually toggle off noisy sidebar items including Subscriptions, Explore/Trending, Report History (with adjacent line-clearing fixes), and "More from YouTube" blocks. • Audio Only Mode ('A'): Blacks out the video rendering layer while keeping audio streaming smoothly. Features a draggable on-player toggle button, optional visual overlay, keyboard shortcut ('A'), and independent operation from the master switch. • Grayscale Mode ('G'): Desaturates YouTube into high-contrast black and white with a quick keyboard shortcut ('G') and toast notification. 📸 INSTAGRAM FOCUS MODE • Following Feed Enforcement: Automatically intercepts navigation to instagram.com and forces a structural redirect directly to your chronological "Following" timeline, bypassing the algorithmic "For You" feed. • Redirect to DMs / Conflict Resolution: Land straight on your message inbox upon launching the site, with built-in fallback redirect options if routing configurations conflict. • Hide Professional Dashboard: Strips away creator/business metric links and icons from the sidebar navigation panel. • Hide Stories (Home & Everywhere): Hide the home timeline tray, or entirely erase story highlights, tray containers, profile rings, and direct /stories/ paths platform-wide. • Hide Comments with Smart Capture: Completely removes comment lines, comment counts, item icons, and text entry forms while safely preserving the post author's original caption. • Square Profile Photos: Renders all profile pictures and story indicators as soft, clean squares for a highly structured, non-distracting interface layout. • Hide Notes & Likes: Erases status note bubbles from inbox lists and strips away vanity metric counts across posts, reels, hover cards, and profile follower metrics. • Hide Reels & Explore: Blocks entry menus and enforces instant URL redirections away from the main Explore matrix and Reels grids (while safely keeping profile asset tabs intact). • Grayscale Mode ('G'): Turn Instagram completely black & white with keyboard shortcut ('G') to reduce visual dopamine triggers. ⚙️ GLOBAL DETOX CONTROLS • Master Switch: Pause or arm the entire extension's filter parameters simultaneously with one single click from the dashboard panel. • Independent Appearance Controls: Audio Only Mode and Grayscale Mode operate independently of the master toggle, allowing you to keep visual/audio detox active anytime. • Floating Glassmorphic UI: Sleek popup interface featuring a light/dark theme switch, site auto-detection, and a floating glassmorphic scrollbar. • Real-Time Synchronization: Toggle options apply across all your active browser windows and open tabs instantaneously. • SPA-Proof Architecture: Works natively with dynamic Single-Page-Application client routers, maintaining instant filtering states without requiring slow webpage reloads. 🔒 PRIVACY FIRST Feed Free - Unbiased Feed functions entirely locally inside your browser sandbox. It does not track, collect, store, or transmit your browsing patterns, configuration settings, or private account data anywhere. All state choices remain securely stored right on your local device. Quick repository shortcut links are baked into the dashboard's security shield for instant open-source verification.