Unplugg

Reclaim your attention. Block algorithmic content on social media and track your screen time.

Unplugg is a free, open-source Chrome extension that hides algorithmic distractions on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube — without touching your personal data.

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Features

Unplugg lets you selectively block content types per platform. Each platform has a master on/off toggle.

Facebook

Feature	Status
Block Reels	✅ Active
Block Stories (top bar)	✅ Active
Block suggested Videos	✅ Active
Block suggested Groups (sidebar)	✅ Active
Block sponsored posts	❌ Removed — Facebook obfuscates the "Sponsored" label with randomized CSS classes that change on every deploy. Reliable detection without false positives is not possible.
Block Follow suggestions (feed)	❌ Removed — Same reason: CSS class instability causes false positives on organic posts.

Instagram

Feature	Status
Block Reels	✅ Active
Block Stories (top bar)	✅ Active
Block sponsored content	✅ Active
Block suggested accounts	✅ Active

LinkedIn

Feature	Status
Block promoted content (ads)	✅ Active
Block suggested posts	✅ Active

YouTube

Feature	Status
Block Shorts (feed)	✅ Active
Block Shorts (sidebar)	✅ Active

Time tracking

• Tracks time spent on each platform daily
• Shows today's usage vs. yesterday
• Auto-resets at midnight
• Export data as JSON
• All data stays on your device — never transmitted

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How it works

Unplugg injects content scripts on the four supported domains. Each script uses stable, semantic DOM signals to identify and hide content:

• data-pagelet attributes (Facebook's internal rendering system — stable across deploys)
• [role] ARIA attributes
• Structural URL patterns (e.g. /reels/)

What Unplugg does NOT do:

• Read your messages, posts, or personal data
• Use CSS class heuristics that break with every platform deploy
• Send any data to external servers
• Inject ads or affiliate links

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Installation

From the Chrome Web Store

(Coming soon)

Manual installation (developer mode)

1. Clone or download this repository
2. Open Chrome → chrome://extensions
3. Enable Developer mode (top right)
4. Click Load unpacked
5. Select the unplugg/ folder

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Project structure

unplugg/
├── manifest.json                  # Extension manifest (MV3)
├── privacy-policy.md              # Privacy policy
├── icons/                         # Icons (16, 32, 48, 128px)
├── _locales/
│   ├── en/messages.json           # English strings
│   └── fr/messages.json           # French strings
├── popup/
│   ├── popup.html                 # Settings & stats UI
│   ├── popup.css                  # Styles
│   └── popup.js                   # UI logic, settings persistence
├── background/
│   └── service-worker.js          # Time tracking, badge, midnight reset
└── content/
    ├── shared/
    │   └── activity-tracker.js    # Sends activity pings to service worker
    ├── fb-blocker.js              # Facebook content script
    ├── ig-blocker.js              # Instagram content script
    ├── li-blocker.js              # LinkedIn content script
    └── yt-blocker.js              # YouTube content script

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Privacy

Unplugg collects zero personal data. See PRIVACY.md for the full policy.

Permissions used:

Permission	Why
storage	Save preferences and time data locally on your device
tabs	Broadcast settings changes to open platform tabs
alarms	Reset daily counters at midnight

Host permissions: strictly limited to facebook.com, instagram.com, linkedin.com, youtube.com.

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md before submitting a pull request.

Good first issues:

• Adding new language translations in _locales/
• Improving LinkedIn/Instagram detection with new real HTML examples
• Improving the time tracking UI
• Writing automated tests

Important: all detection logic must be based on stable, semantic signals (ARIA attributes, data-pagelet, data-* attributes, structural URLs). CSS class-based detection is explicitly discouraged — classes are obfuscated and rotated by platforms.

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Why some features were removed

Facebook aggressively obfuscates its DOM to prevent third-party tools from reading it. The "Sponsored" label is rendered with one <span> per letter, each assigned a randomly generated CSS class that changes on every platform deployment. Any detection relying on these classes breaks within days and produces false positives — hiding organic posts from accounts you actually follow.

Rather than ship unreliable features, Unplugg only includes detection methods that remain consistent without degrading the user experience.

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.

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Roadmap

• Chrome Web Store listing
• Weekly and monthly time stats
• Pause mode (disable Unplugg for N minutes)
• Per-platform time limit alerts
• Firefox support