You can’t move on the modern-day internet without bumping into a spoiler or two. Whether it’s Game of Thrones, The Force Awakens or the ending to Citizen Kane, it’s all too easy to trip up over a plot point that you’d rather not know about. If you’re desperately trying to stay in the dark about an upcoming movie or series, there are tools that can help.
You can find quite a few browser extensions around for automatically hiding content you don’t want to see, but some work better (and have been updated more recently) than others. One we found that does the job effectively is Spoiler Alert — the price of entry is your email address (supplying extra information is optional).
The Chrome extension only lets you block movies and TV shows already in its list — the ability to add your own is coming soon apparently — and at the moment the small screen selection is a lot more comprehensive than the big screen one. A smattering of sports and celebrity events are covered, too.
What we like about Spoiler Alert is the big on/off switch at the top that means you can quickly enable or disable the extension when needed (once an episode of your favourite show airs, for example). If you find yourself locked out of an article you’re sure won’t contain spoilers, you don’t have to reconfigure the extension, you just switch it off for a while.
Spoiler Alert isn’t the most refined app you’re going to come across, but it gets the job done. If want you want to keep unspoiled, then you can rely on it to plaster over any mentions of the show in question. You just have to hope that your friends on Twitter and the publishers of the web flag all of their posts accordingly.