Are you a Marvel fan? Who isn’t? In iOS 18, Apple has integrated a new feature inside Safari that can remove any selected element on a webpage. Whether it’s pop-ups, images, or even ads that are irritating you. But more than the feature, it is the animation that got everyone talking. Whenever you remove an item or element on a web page (we will show how in a minute), you will see a cool animation of the element being disintegrated just like the Avengers did when Thanos snapped his fingers.
Channel your inner Thanos and bring balance to the web page by removing them with a snap. Once removed, they won’t reappear when you reload or revisit the page. Apple calls it Hide Distracting Items.
Looks amazing, right? Here’s how you can “Thanos snap” and remove elements from any website.
How to Hide Distracting Items on Safari
- Open Safari browser on your iPhone.
- Browse the web as you would do and when you find something annoying – tap the Reader icon in your address bar — it’s on the left side of the bar and looks like a rectangle with two dashes beneath it.
- Tap Hide Distracting Items.
Safari will redirect you to the website, where you can choose the items you want to hide. When you select an item, it will be marked with the word Hide. Tap on that and the item will begin to break down and fly away like it was snapped away by Thanos in the Avengers.
Once removed, you should see a little blue icon in the address bar indicating there are some items that have been removed on that page. If you want to bring back the removed items, tap on that icon and tap Show Hidden Items to reveal everything that you have hidden. There is no option to select multiple items and snap away as Thanos did with half the population in the universe.
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Distraction Control is Awesome But Flawed
This isn’t the first time we’ve had the option to remove items from a webpage. Many browsers including Safari, offer extensions like Stop the Madness that can remove distracting elements on a page. However, Apple’s implementation is much cleaner and fun to use.
That said, there are two things you need to know about Safari’s Hide Distracting Items feature:
- You can’t select items in bulk and remove them in one go.
- Removing an element on a page doesn’t mean it won’t reappear. Some elements like videos and ads are placed in different locations every time the page is loaded.
- Elements removed on one page won’t be removed on another page of the same site.
Once, when checking a camera comparison article, there were three paragraphs of text between the sample images that I wanted to compare side by side. With Thanos by my side, I quickly removed the text and viewed the images without having to scroll constantly.
There are other ways this could have gone but the way Apple implemented it has won hearts. People had a field day talking about how Apple used Thanos’ snapping finger animation where anything you touch disintegrates and blows away.
