Block "Promoted Content" or turn off images in summaries?

I’m going to call this an idea, but it is more a response to an aggravation.

My goal is not to deprive other sites of money, but the “Promoted Content” in the RSS article preview is getting really, really annoying. NYTimes, is but one example, but clearly a lot of sites are implementing the exact same system, with the exact same 8 pieces of sensationalist content over and over.

I have “preview images” turned off in story list, but I don’t see anyway to turn off images from the RSS feed. Some feeds actually put full content in their feeds, and I would rather not turn off their images. But for some feeds and folders, I would like to block images from article previews, or otherwise block these ads.

On my mac, I can run a proxy that seems to block them, but I have no way to block them on my iPad, and due to image sizing, that is where they are most egregious.

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Hey Nick, NewsBlur does not change the RSS feed in any way, as that is against most publisher’s terms of service. However, you are free to do so as you please. If you know how to run a proxy, then you may know how to write custom CSS to hide the ads. All it takes is a little bit of CSS.

Are you suggesting I could proxy the feed, css-ifyit, and then point NewsBlur to that feed? Or run NewsBlur app through the proxy? Hmm, my proxy is not generally internet accessible, but I could toss one up on AWS.

Rather, just use a browser extension to inject custom CSS.

Of course, but I am more interested (and infuriated) by their presence on the iPad app, where I can’t use an extension.

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I am just as aggravated and the few sites whose feeds I see these on don’t really care.