Remove popup overlays on websites with Overlay Blocker for Chrome

So-called overlay popups are a form of advertising on the Internet that many users find highly annoying. These ads pop up on the same site you are on on top of the page's content unlike regular popups, which are launched in a separate window in front or back of the browser window.

Not only are those ads displayed on top of content, it is often also the case that the rest of the page is dimmed to put the full focus on them.

Overlay ads on legitimate sites display a close option, usually an x icon that you can click on to close it to access the underlying content.

Some implementations support clicks anywhere outside the overlay to remove it from the screen.

Some sites on the other hand display overlays that are not as easily removed. The close icon may be hidden or moved to a position where it cannot be identified easily. At other times, they may launch several overlays at once and display multiple close buttons to confuse users and get them to click on the ads displayed on the screen.

The Google Chrome extension Overlay Blocker offers a solution for these kind of overlay ads. It adds an option to the browser's right-click context menu to close all overlay ads on the page.

It needs to be noted that it works only when overlay advertisement is displayed on a site and that similar forms of advertisement such as interstitial pages are not supported by it.

Whenever you encounter an overlay advertisement on a site you can use Overlay Blocker to get rid of it even if it does not display a close icon prominently or at all on the screen. In fact, activating the extension will get rid of all overlays currently visible on the screen.

Update: Please note that Overlay Blocker collects anonymous data when the extension is installed in the browser. It is suggested to use the alternative listed below instead.

A comparable extension is BehindTheOverlay. It is also available for Chrome and supports clicks to get rid of ads but also keyboard shortcuts.

To use it press Ctrl-Shift-x and the overlay ad will be removed from the page automatically.

Closing Words

Overlay Blocker and BehindTheOverlay are not automated solutions but they are the next best thing. A whitelist option with automatic removal of overlays on all other sites would be the next step though as it would makes things more comfortable for Internet users.

Now You: Which ads do you dislike the most?