If you're anything like me, and you've been following the news even a little bit during the past few months, you've probably wanted to wipe the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump from your computer screen on any number of occasions. Lucky for us, the new Trump Filter Chrome Extension is here to block Trump from your Internet (although unfortunately, the extension does not block his presence in real life). There's a lot to love about Trump Filter, but a particularly cool feature is that it does not track your web traffic. Even cooler? Trump Filter is open source, and you can view (and contribute!) to the coding through GitHub.
To be fair, this extension isn't the Internet's first collective effort to help people avoid Donald Trump. Worried about running into Trump while he's campaigning? Fear not! In connection with the aptly named #AvoidTrump hashtag, Mapquest helps you avoid Donald Trump by sharing his upcoming event locations and suggesting places in those areas you're unlikely to run into him (a hipster coffee shop, for example).
Not worried about running into Trump, but still annoyed by him? Rest easy, because the website Paint with Donald Trump allows you to paint whatever you want with itty bitty images of Trump's face, in all of his glorious and emphatic expressions.
But back to Trump Filter: How does this magical Trump remover work? First, the extension is available only on Google Chrome. If you already have Chrome installed, the rest of the setup is pretty simple: Download the Trump Filter extension from the Chrome Web Store (it's free!) and double check your Extensions to make sure it's there. In Chrome, go to your "Settings" page and click on the "Extensions" tab on the left hand side. If installed correctly, it should look something like this on your screen:
Got it? Awesome! Next, click on the "Options." You should see a three choice drop-down menu pop up, like this:
The idea here is that the three options, ranging from "Mild" to "Aggressive" to "Vindictive,"offer adjustable levels of severity. Basically, do you want to read about Trump once in a while? Not really? Never? The severity setting will let you customize your online Trump experience with ease. Users can adjust the level of severity at any time (by going back to the Settings > Extensions in Chrome) and revisiting the drop down menu. Pretty simple, right?
I really wanted to check out what exactly these levels accomplished as I ran my usual routine on the Internet. Drum roll, please...
On the "Mild" setting, not a ton changed. I tried a search of "republican nominee" on Buzzfeed, and it appears Trump still came up in many results:
On the "Aggressive" setting, Buzzfeed blocked all Trump related searches quite nicely:
Things got a little too intense when we progressed to the highest setting, though. On the "Vindictive" setting, Twitter literally wouldn't load:
And that's just my login screen! Not even a Trump related search, or his official Twitter account. I was totally blanked out from Twitter all together.
What else wouldn't load? This very article! I attempted to preview it, and momentarily panicked when I laid eyes on this absolutely blank screen:
Thankfully, this turned out to be a pretty simple fix. Back to the "Settings" I went, and when I returned to the drop-down menu, I got this update on how many Trump mentions had been removed: 585!
Final verdict? For my own purposes, this extension isn't something I can utilize on a regular basis, as I need to access news and social media sites pretty frequently. Once the glitches are fixed? I'll definitely consider enabling the extension again, especially the day after a Republican debate.
What's possibly the coolest thing to know about this extension? In the FAQ of his website, the creator, Rob Spectre, clarifies that not only is he not making money off the extension, he also is not "put up to this by the Republican or Democratic Parties, the Obama Administration, my mother or any other possible sphere of influence." So what's his motivation? In his words: "I am doing this out of a profound sense of annoyance and patriotic duty." Sounds pretty legitimate to me!
Images: Giphy; Marissa Higgins/Bustle (7)
