StopTheMadness is an extension for Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Brave that stops web sites from making your browser harder to use. And it protects your privacy on the web. StopTheMadness is not an ad blocker: it offers unique features not available from ad blockers or any other apps. StopTheMadness is one of a kind!

(Chrome, Edge, and Brave require enabling "Developer mode" in the Extensions window.)

StopTheMadness is made by indie developer Jeff Johnson. The support link has documentation and my email address.

Many web sites deliberately disable user interface features in your browser that you normally expect to work. StopTheMadness re-enables those features for you in your browser:
• ⌘-click and middle-click to open a link in a new tab
• ⌘-key keyboard shortcuts
• opening contextual menus
• selecting, copying, cutting, and pasting of text
• drag and drop
• AutoFill/autocomplete of passwords, emails, etc.

StopTheMadness also protects your privacy on the web:
• Removes tracking tags such as utm_source, gclid, and fbclid from the end of URLs.
• Stops clickjacking in Google Search, Gmail, Facebook, and DuckDuckGo.
• Stops hyperlink auditing (anchor "ping").
• Stops tracking beacons (Navigator.sendBeacon).
• Stops sites from using the Page Visibility API to know when a tab is visible on your screen.

Bonus Features:
• Stop videos from autoplaying. This works even on sites where the browser's autoplay preferences don't work!
• Show native video controls. Use AirPlay or Picture-in-Picture from Safari on sites that don't normally support it!
• Add your own site-specific CSS and JavaScript to web pages!
• Stops "Are you sure you want to leave this page?" alerts. Close your tabs without getting stopped by the site!
• Force external links to open in the current tab instead of a new tab. Remove target="_blank" from links so that they no longer automatically create a new tab.
• Force external links to open in a new tab instead of the current tab. This is great if you're scrolling through a list of links and want to open each one in a new tab.
• Force images to the front. Bypass the transparent overlay on sites such as Instagram that prevents you from dragging and opening the contextual menu on images.
• Warns when you paste or type beyond the maximum length in a password field or other text field. Stops you from accidentally losing characters! (Feature not available in Firefox.)
• ⌘-c to copy link URL on hover! Much easier than opening the contextual menu. Also ⌘-x to copy link title on hover!
• ⌘-delete on hover to delete any HTML element on the page! If something is in your way, temporarily remove it.
• Stop ⌘-left-arrow from unexpectedly sending you back to the previous page in your browsing history.
• Stop scrolljacking.
• Stop sites from using JavaScript to track the movement of your mouse pointer. This feature can also stop hover popups from appearing on Wikipedia and Twitter.

Safari-specific Features:
• Stops URL shorteners. Checks the links you click in Safari for well-known link shorteners — bit.ly, tinyurl.com, l.facebook.com, t.co (used by Twitter), etc. — and loads the unshortened destination URL instead of the shortened URL. This occurs without setting any cookies or other site data, so you can't be tracked by your click.
• Stop Safari from automatically submitting login forms. AutoFill login forms and then make changes such as checking "Remember Me" or take CAPTCHA tests before submitting.
• Automatically open clicked links in other apps. You can specify rules in StopTheMadness such as open https://docs.google.com links in Google Chrome. Or even don't open https://facebook.com links at all, to keep you from accidentally opening Facebook!
• ⌘-v when hovering over a link to open the link with the app selected in the "Open Link with" popup.
• Open links with an alternative browser from Safari's contextual menu.
• Copy link title from Safari's contextual menu.

New in this version

• New setting in Web URL Rules to handle non-clicked URLs too! Now Web URLs can handle all links loaded in Safari, not just links clicked in the web page!
• New setting in Context Menu tab to Protect contextual menus only when the option key is pressed! This setting reverses the behavior of the Protect contextual menus website option: it's activated when the option key is pressed, instead of deactivated when the option key is pressed. The new setting improves compatibility with other Safari extensions that have special contextual menu items.
• Show native video controls improvements on many sites.
• Added cid, c_id, itm_, mbid, and mc_tc to URL tracking parameters removed by Stop link trackers.
• When you open the extension popup, the website options for the active tab are automatically selected.
• When you create new customized website options, the URL of the active tab is autofilled.
• Fixed an issue where iCloud import of settings could be slow or never finish.
• Improved error message text for iCloud export and import network problems.
• Fixed an incompatibility issue with the Dark Reader extension.
• Fixed a bug with Protect all mouse clicks where it didn't automatically remove tracking tags when opening the contextual menu.
• Moved the Protect mouse movement website option to the "Widespread breakage" section. It's recommended for use only on specific sites where needed.
• Moved the Safari style sheet website option to the Custom Elements tab. The feature has been superseded by Custom Elements CSS.
• Other minor fixes and improvements.