How to hide trending & recommended sidebars

Works on every website · takes about 10 seconds · free

"Trending now." "Recommended for you." "People also read." Sidebars engineered to pull you into one more click — exactly what you don't want when you're trying to focus on the thing you opened.

Why it gets in the way

They're attention traps by design: motion, thumbnails, and counters in your peripheral vision the entire time you read or work.

The 10-second fix

HideIt is a free browser extension that hides any element you point at — including widgets inside iframes that normally swallow your clicks and open instead of hiding.

1. Install HideIt — free for Chrome, Firefox and Safari (register below to get the link at launch).
2. Turn it on — click the HideIt icon on the page that's bugging you. Until you do, HideIt can't see the page at all.
3. Click the widget — hover Trending sidebars until the red outline wraps it, click, choose Every visit. Gone — and it stays gone, even if the site re-injects it.

Chat widgets live in iframes that eat your clicks — click one normally and it opens. HideIt paints a shield over the widget while picking, so your click hides it instead of feeding it.

The manual way (if you like pain)

You can open DevTools, find the element (usually an

or a .sidebar container — one click in HideIt), and write a custom CSS rule in an ad-blocker. It works until the site changes its markup — HideIt's self-healing selectors handle that for you, and re-hide the element if the site sneaks it back.

Does hiding it break the site?

No — HideIt only hides what you clicked, nothing else. If you ever want it back, open the HideIt popup and un-hide it in one click, per site, per element.

Get HideIt free + launch alert

HideIt lands on Chrome, Firefox and Safari this week. Register and we'll email you the install link the moment it's live — plus you get priority support. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.