HexBlock Shield

Browser extension for the HexBlock privacy gateway. Blocks ads and trackers at the network level, skips YouTube ads and sponsor segments, and strips Twitch stream ads from HLS playlists.

Features

• Ad blocking — EasyList via declarativeNetRequest. Blocks ad requests before they load.
• Tracker blocking — EasyPrivacy. Blocks fingerprinting scripts and analytics.
• YouTube — Pre-roll and mid-roll ad skipping. SponsorBlock integration for sponsor segments, intros, outros, and self-promotion. Privacy-preserving — only a 4-character SHA-256 hash prefix of the video ID is sent to the API.
• Twitch — HLS M3U8 playlist ad segment stripping. Intercepts the stream playlist before the player loads it and removes ad discontinuity blocks. No proxying — everything runs locally in the browser.
• Cosmetic filtering — Hides ad placeholders and cookie banners that survive network-level blocking.
• HexBlock gateway sync — Optionally pull blocklists from your self-hosted HexBlock instance and report block events to the dashboard.

Installation

Browser	Store
Chrome	Chrome Web Store
Firefox	Firefox Add-ons — submission pending
Edge	Microsoft Edge Add-ons — submission pending

Manual install (developer mode)

1. Download the latest release zip from Releases
2. Extract the zip
3. Go to chrome://extensions (Chrome) or edge://extensions (Edge)
4. Enable Developer mode
5. Click Load unpacked and select the extracted folder

For Firefox: go to about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox, click Load Temporary Add-on, and select the manifest.json file.

Project structure

hexblock-shield/
  manifest.json          Extension manifest (MV3)
  popup.html             Extension popup UI
  src/
    background.js        Service worker — settings, stats, gateway sync
    content.js           General cosmetic filtering on all pages
    youtube.js           YouTube ad skip and SponsorBlock
    twitch.js            Twitch HLS M3U8 ad segment stripper
    popup.js             Popup UI logic
    storage.js           Storage helpers
  lists/
    easylist.json        EasyList rules in declarativeNetRequest format
    easyprivacy.json     EasyPrivacy rules in declarativeNetRequest format
    youtube_ads.json     YouTube-specific ad request rules
  icons/
    icon16.png
    icon32.png
    icon48.png
    icon128.png

How Twitch ad blocking works

Twitch embeds pre-roll ads at the server level via Amazon IVS before issuing stream tokens. Complete pre-roll blocking requires a proxy — no client-side extension can reliably stop them, and every approach that has worked has been patched by Twitch within weeks.

What HexBlock Shield does:

• Hides and mutes the player during ad playback — you see a dark HexBlock screen instead of the ad. The ad still loads in the background but is completely invisible and silent.
• Blocks ad tracking and analytics requests — spade.twitch.tv, adengine.twitch.tv, DoubleClick, IMA SDK.
• Strips ad segments from M3U8 playlists — works for VODs and some live streams where ads are embedded in the HLS playlist.

For complete pre-roll blocking, use TTV LOL PRO alongside HexBlock Shield. They do not conflict.

HexBlock gateway

HexBlock Shield can optionally connect to a self-hosted HexBlock instance to:

• Pull custom blocklists from your server
• Report block events to the HexBlock dashboard query log

Configure the gateway URL in the Settings tab of the extension popup.

Permissions

Permission	Why
storage	Save settings and per-tab stats
declarativeNetRequest	Block ad and tracker requests
tabs	Read current tab URL for the popup
scripting	Inject content scripts dynamically
<all_urls>	Apply cosmetic filtering on all pages

License

MIT — see LICENSE

Related

• HexBlock — self-hosted privacy gateway
• hexblock.co.uk