Adblock Not

Adblock Not is the ad blocker you've never wanted.

It is a joke Chrome MV3 extension built around a deliberately terrible idea: before it blocks ads, it makes you watch an ad. To make the experience feel more official, the whole gate is wrapped in a retro early-2000s TV interface with channel switching, a fake guide, and a lineup of bundled commercials.

This is not a serious ad blocker. It is an anti-product with excellent commitment to the bit.

What It Does

• Detects when a page should show the Adblock Not gate.
• Opens a fullscreen retro TV-style overlay before ad blocking is allowed.
• Makes you watch one of several bundled ad videos to completion, or wait through a fallback timer if playback fails.
• Lets you "change the channel" to a different ad, which is obviously not real relief.
• Includes a retro guide UI so you can manually pick which commercial to suffer through.
• After the gate is cleared, starts lightweight page-level ad hiding and YouTube-specific skip/hide behavior.

Current ad lineup:

• Fushigi
• Education Connection
• Nike Football
• Sears
• Zoobooks

Demo

Add these once you are ready to share the repo publicly:

• TODO: screenshot of the main retro gate overlay
• TODO: screenshot of the guide panel
• TODO: short demo video or GIF of channel switching

If you are linking this repo from DEV, this is probably the most useful demo flow:

1. Open YouTube or another ad-heavy page.
2. Show the overlay appearing.
3. Switch channels a few times.
4. Open the guide and pick a specific ad.
5. Finish playback and unlock the page.

Tech

• Chrome Extension
• Manifest V3
• Vanilla JavaScript
• HTML/CSS
• Bundled local MP4 assets

Project Structure

• manifest.json - MV3 manifest, permissions, content scripts, and bundled media exposure.
• src/content/gate-overlay.js - main front-end experience, player logic, guide UI, and unlock flow.
• src/content/gate-overlay.css - retro TV styling for the overlay.
• src/background/service-worker.js - per-tab / per-origin gate state and message handling.
• src/options/options.html and src/options/options.js - basic settings page.
• src/assets/ - bundled commercial videos used by the gate.

Load It In Chrome

1. Open chrome://extensions.
2. Turn on Developer mode.
3. Click Load unpacked.
4. Select this folder.
5. Reload the extension after making changes to scripts, styles, or bundled assets.

How It Works

At a high level:

1. The content script asks the background worker whether the current page requires the gate.
2. If the page is locked, the overlay is rendered.
3. The user watches an ad or waits for the fallback timer.
4. After completion, the extension marks that page or origin as unlocked.
5. The content script starts lightweight page-level ad hiding.

This project intentionally does not try to compete with real blockers or full filter-engine projects. The point is the joke, the UI, and the anti-value proposition.

Manual Test Checklist

1. Open a page where the content script runs.
2. Confirm the gate appears.
3. Press play and confirm the unlock button stays disabled until playback completes.
4. Use Channel + to switch to a different ad.
5. Open Guide and pick a specific commercial.
6. Complete the ad and confirm the page unlocks.
7. Reload the page and confirm the configured gate scope still behaves correctly.

Limitations

• It is intentionally minimal and front-end focused.
• It performs lightweight page-level ad hiding rather than full network-level blocking.
• Some pages will never show the gate because Chrome does not run content scripts there, including internal browser pages and other restricted URLs.

Why This Exists

Because normal ad blockers are useful, respectful, and efficient.

This one is none of those things.