Every developer has that one instinct: someone complains about something annoying, and your brain immediately goes "...I could fix that." It's basically an occupational hazard at this point.
This time, the victim was my friend. What started as one frustrated phone call eventually turned into this project.
The complaint
He's grinding through IELTS prep on KeenIELTS — reading passages, mock listening tests, the usual. One evening, he calls me, mid-rant:
"Bro, I'm trying to read this passage, and suddenly sidebar ads show up on the KeenIELTS page. Then a pop-up appears in the center whenever I interact with the page. I don't need motivation or interaction with ads; I want to finish my practice!"
I couldn't help but laugh, but he had a valid point.
Practicing for IELTS requires concentration, especially when you're working against the clock. Constant advertisements and pop-ups break that focus, making practice far more frustrating than it needs to be.
The "fixes" he'd already tried (that didn't work)
Being a good friend (and a nosy developer), I asked what he'd already tried:
- A regular ad blocker → blocked so aggressively that it also broke the site's own test timer. Great, now he can't tell if he's out of time either.
- Browser reader mode → stripped the ads, sure, but also stripped the navigation and the actual test interface. Unusable.
- Just enduring it → his default strategy, but after weeks of interruptions, his patience had clearly run out.
That's when I started thinking that this wasn't a general ad-blocking problem. It was a very specific problem that needed a focused solution.
What is the actual fix needed to do
I broke it down before writing a single line of code:
- Ad Removal — The extension needed to remove advertisements without affecting the actual learning experience.
- Smart Detection — It had to recognize the difference between ads and genuine website elements.
- Dynamic Blocking — It also needed to catch ads that appeared after the page loaded, since many banners and popups are injected dynamically while you're using the site.
- No Interference — Most importantly, it couldn't interfere with the practice questions, timers, dashboards, or navigation. Those had to remain completely untouched.
- No Data Collection — Since students are already sharing enough information online, I wanted the extension to collect absolutely no personal data.
- Easy to Use — Finally, it had to be effortless to use. Install it once, enable it, and continue studying without changing any settings.
The result
A few days later, KeenIELTS Cleaner was ready.
It's a free Chrome extension built specifically for KeenIELTS. It removes sidebar advertisements, popups, floating banners, and Google AdSense units while leaving the website's actual functionality intact.
It also continues monitoring the page, so if new advertisements appear while switching between Reading, Listening, or other sections, they're removed automatically.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
The Best Feedback
The real success wasn't the code.
It was the fact that my friend quietly kept using it every day.
No more complaints.
No more late-night messages about annoying pop-ups.
Just uninterrupted IELTS practice.
Sometimes the best software isn't the one with the longest feature list. It's the one that removes a small frustration people deal with every single day.
If you're preparing for IELTS on KeenIELTS and want a distraction-free experience, you can try it here:
👉 Get Chrome Extension: Click here
👉 Learn More: https://keenieltscleaner.netlify.app
And if you're a fellow dev who also can't resist turning a friend's rant into a side project — drop your own "someone complained, so I built a thing" story in the comments. I know I'm not the only one.
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