How to hide popups and overlays on any website

Why popups are hard to get rid of

The modern website popup isn't a popup window. It's part of the page: a box drawn over the content, often with a dark layer behind it, asking you to subscribe, download an app or read a special offer. Many sites add a sticky bar along the top or bottom as well. Some also lock the page so you can't scroll until you deal with the box. On a site you visit every day, seeing the same overlay every time is a small, repeated cost.

The built-in way

Chrome's pop-ups and redirects setting blocks new windows that a site tries to open without your permission. It's on by default. It doesn't affect overlays, because those aren't new windows. They're part of the page the site serves you.

Most overlays do have a close button, and many sites remember that you closed theirs, until you clear cookies or use a different browser.

The manual way

When there's no close button, or it doesn't stick, you can remove an overlay yourself:

1. Right-click the overlay and choose Inspect.
2. In the Elements panel that opens, find the element that holds the overlay. Hovering over lines highlights the matching part of the page.
3. Right-click that line and choose Delete element.
4. If the page still won't scroll, the site has locked scrolling on the page itself. In the Elements panel, select the body element and remove the overflow: hidden style shown in the Styles pane.

This works, and it's gone the next time you load the page. Doing it every visit isn't realistic.

Make it permanent with a tool

A userscript can do the same thing on every visit. It's a short piece of JavaScript that runs on a website you choose. One built for a specific site knows what that site's popup, sticky banner and overlay look like, hides them when they appear, and removes the scroll lock if the site set one. Many popups appear after a delay or when you move toward closing the tab, so a good tool keeps watching the page and hides them whenever they show up.

ScriptPanda is a Chrome extension that writes these tools from a description. Open its side panel on the site with the popup, ideally while the popup is showing, paste the request at the end of this guide, and it builds the tool for that page and installs it. The next time you visit, the page opens without the overlay.

Hiding things doesn't need AI once the tool is built, so it runs without using your plan's requests. Building it and changing it do.

A note on cookie banners

Cookie consent banners are a special case. Hiding one doesn't accept or refuse cookies. It only removes the banner from view, and the site behaves as if you haven't answered, which on many sites means it uses whatever it does by default before consent. If you care about what a site stores, answer the banner once with the choice you want, rather than hiding it. You can then ask for a tool that hides the rest of the clutter.

Pair it with other changes

If the page is bright as well as cluttered, the related dark mode guide builds a dark theme for the same site.

Limits

Each tool is built for the site you made it on, in Chrome on your computer. It hides overlays the page draws. It doesn't block anything from loading, so a popup can appear for a moment before it's hidden. If a site changes how its popup is built, the tool can miss it. Open ScriptPanda on the page while the popup is showing, say what came back, and ask it to fix the tool. Some sites put content behind their overlay on purpose, such as a paywall or a sign-in wall. Hiding the box doesn't give you access the site hasn't granted, and the content behind it may simply not be there.