Silenzio

A cross-browser extension that blurs or blacks out videos and images and mutes audio across the web — useful when you want to scroll feeds without being pulled in by autoplay, motion, or unexpected visual content.

Works on standard <video> players, short-form feeds (YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn feed, etc.), and all <img> content (JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, SVG-as-img).

Install from the Chrome Web Store → ·

Install for Firefox → .

Screenshots

Features

• Per-type modes — independent Off / Blur / Blackout for videos and images.
• Audio muting — <video> and <audio> are muted whenever video filtering is active. Capture-phase listeners catch sites trying to unmute or swap sources.
• Scope — apply everywhere, only on a list of sites, or everywhere except a list of sites. Hostname suffix match (one entry covers subdomains).
• Per-URL rules — override the mode for specific URLs. Pattern is hostname/path (end the path with * for a prefix match); first match wins, otherwise the global modes apply.
• Long-press reveal — hold a blurred image or video for ~400ms to peek at it, release to re-apply the filter. The follow-up click is suppressed, so peeking a blurred linked image won’t navigate. Toggle in settings.
• Pause timers — pause on the current site for 5/10/30 minutes from the popup, or pause globally for 15/60 minutes from settings. Auto-resumes. Applies across embedded cross-origin frames on the tab.
• Working hours — optional schedule so Silenzio is only active during a daily time window on selected days (default Mon–Fri 09:00–17:00).
• Dark mode — popup and settings follow your browser/OS theme.

Install

Chrome / Edge

Install from the Chrome Web Store.

To load from source (for development, or to try changes before a release reaches the store):

1. Open chrome://extensions (or edge://extensions).
2. Enable Developer mode.
3. Click Load unpacked → select this repo’s extension/ subdirectory.

Firefox

Install from Mozilla Add-ons (AMO). On first install, click the Silenzio toolbar icon → puzzle-piece menu → Silenzio → Always allow on all websites (one-time; Firefox MV3 requires this host-permission grant explicitly, or nothing will blur).

To load from source instead (for development, or to try changes before a release reaches AMO):

1. Open about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox.
2. Click Load Temporary Add-on… → pick extension/manifest.json.
3. Click the Silenzio toolbar icon → puzzle-piece menu → Silenzio → Always allow on all websites. (One-time; Firefox MV3 requires explicit host-permission grant.)

Usage

Click the toolbar icon to open the popup:

• Mode rows for Videos and Images — Off / Blur / Blackout.
• Pause this site — 5 / 10 / 30 minute buttons.
• Settings → opens the full options page (scope rules, per-URL rules, long-press reveal, working hours, global pause).

To peek at a blurred element without changing any setting, press and hold it for ~400ms; release to re-blur.

What’s not handled (yet)

• CSS background-image decorations (avatars, hero banners painted via background-image).
• Inline <svg> (icons mostly — <img src="*.svg"> is handled).
• <canvas> elements.
• Web Audio API graphs that bypass HTMLMediaElement.muted.

Privacy

Silenzio collects no data, transmits nothing, and uses no third-party scripts. See PRIVACY.md for the full policy and permission justifications.

Development

Manifest V3 cross-browser package — no build step. The content script runs on every frame at document_start, applies CSS filter classes to <video>, <audio>, and <img> elements, and re-applies on DOM mutations via MutationObserver. State — modes, scope rules, pause expiries, working-hours schedule — is stored as a single object in chrome.storage.local. The popup and options page subscribe to storage.onChanged so changes propagate live to every open tab.

To regenerate the toolbar icons after editing scripts/make-icons.py:

python3 scripts/make-icons.py

Requires Pillow (pip install pillow).

License

MIT.