Focal: AI Distraction Blocker

Hides ads, cookie banners, popups and other distractions using the Laya or Jev decision model.

Focal: AI Distraction Blocker — read the page, not the popups. Focal hides the things that pull you away from what you came to read: ads, cookie consent banners, newsletter and signup popups, floating video players, chat bubbles, social share bars, paywall overlays and "recommended for you" link walls. The article stays; the clutter goes. Unlike traditional blockers that rely only on fixed filter lists, Focal adds a small AI decision model that looks at elements a list doesn't know about and decides whether they are a distraction or part of the page you want to read. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT IT DOES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Blocks known ad and tracking servers before they load. • Hides obvious distractions instantly — a full-width cookie bar, a known chat widget, an ad frame — using built-in rules. • Sends only the borderline elements to an AI model, in the background, so pages never wait for it. • Remembers its decisions for each site, so on your next visit known distractions disappear before they appear — with no AI call at all. • Cookie banners: hides them and clicks "Reject all" or "Necessary only" when the banner offers it. Focal never clicks "Accept". • Restores page scrolling when a popup has locked it. • Never deletes anything from the page — it only hides, and everything can be shown again with one click. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT YOU CAN BLOCK ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Turn each category on or off in Settings: • Ads • Cookie banners • Signup / newsletter popups • Sticky and autoplay video players • Chat widgets • Social share bars • Paywall and login overlays • Recommendation walls ("You may like", sponsored links) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CHOOSE HOW THE AI RUNS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Focal works out of the box with network blocking and its built-in rules. To turn on the AI step, pick one of two models in Settings: 1) Jev via OpenRouter (default) — easiest A hosted decision model from TypeSafe, used through your own OpenRouter account. Pay-as-you-go: a page sends at most a handful of short element descriptions, so a typical page costs well under one cent. 2) Laya on your own computer — free and private Convai's open-weight Laya model, running locally through the free Laya local HTTP server. Nothing leaves your machine and there is nothing to pay. Settings opens automatically the first time you install Focal, so you can choose right away. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ HOW TO USE IT WITH JEV (OPENROUTER) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1. Create a free account at openrouter.ai. 2. Add a small amount of credit to your OpenRouter account (Jev is billed per use). 3. Open openrouter.ai/keys and create an API key. It starts with "sk-or-". 4. In Focal's Settings, under Model, choose "Jev via OpenRouter". 5. Paste your key into "OpenRouter API key". Leave the model id as ~typesafe/jev-latest. 6. Click "Test connection" — you should see that Jev answered — then click Save. That's it. The status line in Focal's toolbar popup turns green ("Jev online") once the model has been used on a page. Tip: you can set a spending limit on your key in OpenRouter for peace of mind. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ HOW TO USE IT FOR FREE WITH LAYA ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ You run a small server on your own computer once; Focal talks to it. It takes about 10 minutes, mostly a one-time model download (about 850 MB). Works on Windows, Linux and Apple Silicon Macs. You need: Python 3.12 or newer, git, and the "uv" package manager (install it from docs.astral.sh/uv). 1. Open a terminal and run: git clone https://github.com/ratheesh-aot/laya-local-http-server.git cd laya-local-http-server uv sync 2. Start the server: uv run laya-api The first start downloads the model. Leave this window open while you browse. 3. Check it's running by opening http://localhost:8000/health in your browser — you should see "status": "ok". 4. In Focal's Settings, under Model, choose "Laya". 5. Set "Laya server URL" to http://localhost:8000 and keep the checkpoint "english" (or "multilingual" if you mostly browse in another language). 6. Click "Test connection", then Save. Full step-by-step guide and troubleshooting: github.com/ratheesh-aot/laya-local-http-server Speed: on Apple Silicon Laya answers in a few tens of milliseconds; on a laptop CPU it takes roughly half a second to a second per element. You won't feel it — pages never wait for the AI, and decisions are remembered per site. If port 8000 is already in use, start the server with a different port (for example LAYA_PORT=8002) and use that port in Focal's Settings. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ YOU STAY IN CONTROL ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ From the toolbar popup: • See how many things were hidden on the current page, by category. • "Disable on this site" — one click turns Focal off for a site you trust. On an excluded site the button changes to "Remove from exclude list". • "Show hidden" — temporarily reveal everything that was hidden, outlined so you can see it. • Manage your full exclude list: remove a site, or add any site by name or URL. In Settings: • Choose which categories to block. • Cookie banners: "Hide and reject" (default) or "Hide only". • Model confidence needed to hide: raise it if anything you wanted ever gets hidden. • Debug mode: outlines each detection with its label and confidence instead of hiding it. • Turn network ad blocking on or off. • Clear remembered decisions at any time. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PRIVACY ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • No account, no analytics, no tracking. Focal has no servers of its own. • Obvious distractions are handled entirely inside your browser. • For borderline elements, Focal sends only a short description of that element to the model you chose: its type, class names, up to 300 characters of its visible text, button labels, the domains it links to, and its position on screen. • Focal never sends the page address, page title, cookies, passwords, form contents or your browsing history. • With Laya on localhost, nothing leaves your computer. With Jev, descriptions go to OpenRouter under your own API key. • Settings, your API key, your exclude list and remembered decisions are stored only in your browser. Removing Focal deletes them. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ GOOD TO KNOW ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Without a model configured, Focal still blocks known ad servers and hides obvious distractions with its built-in rules. • The AI is careful by design: when it isn't confident, Focal leaves the element visible rather than risk hiding real content. • If a site misbehaves, click "Disable on this site" — it takes effect immediately. • Questions or feedback: ratheeshspiral09@gmail.com