🚫 ShortBlocker

Instantly kills YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels tabs - no warnings, no second chances.

A lightweight Chrome browser extension that closes tabs the moment you navigate to YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels. Built for people who want a hard stop, not a nudge.

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✨ Features

• ⚡ Instant tab closure - closes the tab before the page even loads
• 🎯 Covers both platforms - YouTube Shorts + Instagram Reels/Reel
• 🔄 SPA-aware - catches in-app navigation (no page reload needed)
• 📊 Blocked tab counter - tracks how many distractions you've dodged
• 🔕 Toggle on/off - pause blocking without uninstalling
• 🔒 No data collection - everything stays local, zero network requests

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📦 Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/openvaibhav/shortblocker.git

2. Open Chrome and go to chrome://extensions/
3. Enable Developer mode (top-right toggle)
4. Click Load unpacked
5. Select the shortblocker folder
6. The extension icon will appear in your toolbar ✅

Works on all Chromium-based browsers - Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera.

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🗂️ Project Structure

shortblocker/
├── manifest.json
├── icons/
│   ├── icon16.png
│   ├── icon48.png
│   └── icon128.png
└── src/
    ├── background.js
    ├── content.js
    ├── popup.html
    └── popup.js

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🛠️ How It Works

ShortBlocker uses a two-layer approach to make sure no Short or Reel ever loads:

Layer 1 - Background Service Worker (background.js)

• Listens to chrome.tabs.onUpdated and chrome.tabs.onCreated
• The moment a tab's URL matches a Shorts/Reels pattern, it calls chrome.tabs.remove()
• Uses a dedup set to prevent double-counting when multiple events fire for the same tab

Layer 2 - Content Script (content.js)

• Injected into YouTube and Instagram pages at document_start
• Patches history.pushState and history.replaceState to catch in-app SPA navigation
• Catches the case where you're already on YouTube and click into Shorts from the sidebar without a full page reload

URL Patterns Blocked

Platform	Pattern
YouTube	youtube.com/shorts/*
Instagram	instagram.com/reels/*
Instagram	instagram.com/reel/*

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🔧 Customization

Want to add more blocked patterns? Open src/background.js and src/content.js and add to the BLOCKED_PATTERNS array:

const BLOCKED_PATTERNS = [
  /youtube\.com\/shorts\//i,
  /instagram\.com\/reels\//i,
  /instagram\.com\/reel\//i,
  // Add your own:
  // /tiktok\.com/i,
  // /twitter\.com\/i\/status/i,
];

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🙋 FAQ

Q: Will this affect normal YouTube or Instagram browsing?
A: No. Only URLs containing /shorts/ or /reels/ are affected.

Q: What if I want to watch a Short?
A: Toggle the extension off from the popup, watch your short, toggle back on. Or just... don't. That's kind of the point.

Q: Does this send any data anywhere?
A: Absolutely not. All data (counter, settings) is stored locally via chrome.storage.local.

Q: Why does the tab flash briefly before closing?
A: In some cases the background script may receive the URL slightly after the page starts loading. The content script handles this as a second layer to minimize any flash.

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🤝 Contributing

Pull requests are welcome! Some ideas for contribution:

• Add TikTok support
• Daily/weekly stats dashboard
• Allowlist for specific channels
• Custom redirect URL instead of closing (e.g., redirect to a focus page)

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📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

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Built to reclaim your attention. One closed tab at a time.