With the latest beta of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 Sequoia, Apple introduces a new feature for Safari called “Distraction Control” in English. Behind this name hides a practical tool for users, formidable for website editors.
A feature expected by customers
As announced at WWDC 24, Distraction Control is designed to remove distracting elements in articles and web pages, such as login windows, cookie preference pop-ups, newsletter sign-up banners, auto-play videos, and more.
But distraction control doesn’t stop there. While it’s designed to hide static content on a page, and while it’s not an ad blocker, you can temporarily hide ads. However, they reappear when the page reloads.
As you can see, this is a kind of smarter extension of Safari’s “reader”, which has already been considerably reducing distractions for years. Except that the new tool keeps a good part of the site, unlike the first one.
Users must manually enable hiding of items, and Apple assures that nothing is hidden without proactive selection.
Please note that distraction control settings are saved locally on the device and are not synced across your other devices.
Here’s an example of Safari’s “eraser”:
How to hide annoying elements on Safari?
To use the new features of iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS 15 Sequoia, follow the tutorial:
- Open the desired website
- Open the page menu via the left button next to the url (a rectangle with two lines below it)
- Select “Hide distracting elements”
- Then choose the area of the page you want to hide by tapping on it.
- Tap again to validate and delete the item. A very nice little animation gets rid of the area.
That’s it, you won’t see it again when you next visit the site. You can repeat the last two steps as many times as you want. So you won’t be bothered by GDPR pop-ups, newsletter subscriptions and more.
If you want to test it, you will need at least iOS 18 beta 5, or macOS 15 beta 5. What’s new will soon be available to public beta testers. This is one of the few new features in Safari this year, along with the function Highlights to quickly bring out important information.