How to declutter a website without a reader mode
Pointing at every annoyance yourself is the tedious part. Most people give up after two.
BowerBird scans what is actually visible on the page, proposes the clutter it finds, and you approve or reject each item before anything is hidden.
Why the usual fixes do not stick
Reader modes work by throwing the layout away, which is why they fail on anything that is not an article, and why images, tables and code blocks so often come out wrong. Hiding the clutter instead leaves the page as its designers built it, minus the parts that are shouting at you.
How to do it with BowerBird
- Open the popup and click Declutter this page.
- Review the proposed items in the sheet.
- Approve the ones you want gone. Reject the rest.
- Undo any single item afterwards.
Worth knowing: Nothing is hidden without your approval, and the scan runs entirely on your machine. On hardware with the on-device model available you get plainer labels; without it you get the same candidates with descriptive labels instead.
Without granting access to every site you visit
BowerBird installs without asking to read or change your data on any website. Its ad and tracker blocking runs on rules the browser applies itself, which needs no site access at all. When you hide your first element on a site, it asks for that one site, from your click, and you can revoke it later in settings.
Compared with Free element hiders
They are free and simple. For hiding a handful of elements on sites you visit daily they are entirely sufficient, and you do not need BowerBird.
| Free element hiders | BowerBird | |
|---|---|---|
| Manual element hiding | Yes | Yes, unlimited, free |
| Survives a site redesign | Often positional selectors | Stable handles, flagged when not |
| Hide all similar in one click | Rarely | Yes |
| Ad and tracker blocking included | No | Yes |
| Finds the clutter for you | No | Yes (Pro) |
The honest question is whether pointing at everything yourself is tedious enough to pay once to avoid. If it is not, use the free ones.
Hide your first annoyance free - no account, no subscription.
Get it free for Edge Get it free for FirefoxFree includes unlimited manual rules. Pro is $12 one-time, no subscription.
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