A text is not that important
So, there is an ad-block extension that most of the people use on a daily basis. Other people may opt-in to disable images, flash, java and whatever, but not a text. So that’s why I've decided to make it possible, at least in Chrome. (upd: Rafaël Rozendaal & Jonas Lund made it possible back in 2013, see update below in the end of the story)
And you know what? I kind of like it. It turns out that the text is not important anymore (well, until you are reaching to the Reddit).
It could be an art project, but it’s pretty much useful. I like how YouTube gets better without all this text, and cats images are nice too.
I’ve created an extension, its source code: https://github.com/nettsundere/TextBlock
Download it from the Chrome webstore: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/textblock/cbjhcabimjmeokngojdenfdpiccgekmd
UPD Rafaël Rozendaal & Jonas Lund made a similar app back in 2013
Today (4/17/2017) I’ve found out that a similar extension already exists. It’s called Text Free browsing, it’s free and you can download it from the store here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/text-free-browsing/ioglfbphilinnhdmfbmfljmhemegfcdg/
Project description: http://www.newrafael.com/text-free-browsing/
The only difference in functionality that I've noticed is that TextBlock blocks the text from dynamically added iframes, and Text Free browser extension keeps them as-is.
I had no idea that somebody did that already. I guess i need to google it better next time.
