Blocked, not hidden
The request is refused before it is sent, using Chrome’s own rule engine. Nothing is downloaded and nothing gets a chance to run — which is a different thing from a script that hides the element afterwards.
product / sodium
Sodium
Trackers refused before the request is made. Ads and trackers blocked at the network layer, the holes they leave closed up, and the next page already loading.
Sodium · the rules Chrome applies
what it does
Three things, in order
Then the hole is closed
Blocking a banner leaves the space it sat in. Sodium collapses the empty containers, the sticky bars and the overlays that have nothing left to show.
And the next page is already loading
The page you are heading for starts loading while the pointer is still travelling.
The badge is the interface
There is nothing to set, and that is deliberate: a blocker with a control panel is a blocker asking you to tune it, and every dial is a way to break a page without knowing you did. The toolbar badge counts what it refused on the page you are looking at.
What it cannot do
- It cannot remove an ad the site serves from its own domain as part of the page. Nothing that blocks by request can.
- It does not stop fingerprinting. That is Argon.
- It does not change how a page behaves when you look away. That is Anti-Blur.
- Zero on a page that should have ads usually means the page is serving them from its own domain, not that Sodium is off.
- Permissions
declarativeNetRequest— Chrome applies the rules itself, so the extension never sees your traffic.- Stored
- Nothing about your browsing leaves the machine.
- Interface
- A toolbar badge and a tooltip.
- Price
- Free — download it
Getting Sodium
Free, and a download of its own — never a Chrome Web Store
listing. Take the zip from the download page, unzip it, then open
chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode and
press Load unpacked on the folder. That runs on your everyday
profile and survives a restart.