Apple's New Control Feature Will Let You Hide Cookie Pop Ups On The Screen: Here's How

Apple has rolled out a new feature for Safari called Distraction Control. This feature is designed to give users more control over their web browsing experience by letting them block and remove distracting things like cookie preference pop-ups and other content overlays while they’re browsing, reported MacRumors. The new feature is available with the iOS 18 beta 5, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia developer betas that were launched on Monday.

The new feature is accessible through the same Page Menu interface in Safari as Reader and Viewer. From the menu, users will find a new “Hide Distracting Items” option to enable the Distraction Control feature. Then, users will be able to select different elements on a webpage that they feel are distracting and want to hide. When these items are hidden, they dissipate after a very smooth animation.

It is to be noted that users will have to manually choose each item that they wish to hide on a webpage. While a user can use distraction control to hide an advertisement on a website temporarily, that ad will reappear when the page is refreshed or otherwise reloaded. In fact, when a user activates the Distraction Control feature for the first time, Safari will display a pop-up that highlights that the feature will not permanently remove ads or other areas of a website that change frequently.

The tech giant also stated that nothing is proactively hidden with this new feature, only those items that a user manually selects are hidden. However, Apple stressed that this feature is not meant to serve as an advertisement blocker.

The company has said that when users hide things on a website, like a GDPR banner or a cookies request pop-up, this isn’t synced to their other devices. Elaborating further, Apple said that hiding distracting items will not permanently remove ads and other content that updates frequently.

Furthermore, if a user wishes to unhide an element, they can simply click back into the Page Menu interface in Safari and select “Show Hidden Items.”

The new iOS 18 beta version has also redesigned some features in the Photos app, including removing the new carousel view feature. Additionally, it has redesigned a new reader for better listening and font controls.