# Safari Hide Distracting Items

8 Hacker News commenters recommended Safari Hide Distracting Items and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Lets people tap to remove popovers and other page elements in Safari on iPhone, quickly and intuitively. Critics note that removed items can come back.

## Why people recommend it

- Removes popovers and page clutter (2 comments): "I just used Safari's hide distracting items feature. Popovers gone." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46092337)) "which blocked it once and for all, which I was pretty impressed by" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104639))
- Intuitive select-and-remove on pages (2 comments): "Hide distracting items is great on the iPhone to delete elements on the page intuitively" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49445007)) "The native “hide distracting items” feature does allow you to select and remove it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49716086))
- Praised as a recent Apple improvement (2 comments): "The "hide distracting items" option is the best thing Apple has done lately." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47217850)) "I'm liking Apple's "Hide Distracting Items…" feature in Safari." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47020556))

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Safari Hide Distracting Items", https://hackerapproved.com/p/safari-hide-distracting-items/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).