Ever since the beginning of its rollout last week, Pokémon Go has been rampaging through the internet, filling up social media feeds and spawning countless discussions on the augmented reality mobile game.
There is simply no escaping the Pokémon Go craze, with online publications first covering the release of the app and then mainstream news media finally succumbing to the popularity of the game. Even the United States Marines were tweeting about getting Pikachu off the firing line, which is not a usual thing to see from the hardened military branch.
The propagation of Pokémon content as spurred by the release of Pokémon Go can be viewed as either a blessing for fans of the franchise or as a curse for those who are starting to get annoyed with seeing Pokémon posts on every website they visit online.
For Google Chrome users falling in the second category, fortunately there are extensions that can help you out.
The first one is PokeGone. Created by Jamie Farrelly, it will filter out all the mentions of Pokémon on the Google Chrome browser to prevent the little monsters from interrupting your internet browsing experience.
"Remove all traces of Pokémon from the internet with one simple extension!" promises the extension, which can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store for free.
The extension is based on Rob Spectre's Trump Filter, which is also an extension for Chrome that aims to filter out potentially annoying content specifically about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
PokeGone's Product Hunt page contains several comments made by users who are also getting sick of seeing so many Pokémon mentions on the web. The users, however, also saw the missed opportunity of giving the extension a catchier name such as Pokemon No or Pokemon Go Away.
As for the Pokemon No name, that was actually already taken by the second Google Chrome extension created for a similar purpose. Officially named Pokemon No! Pokemon Blocker!, the extension was developed by Conor Browne. However, while PokeGone was based on the Trump Filter, Browne created the code for Pokemon No! from scratch, as mentioned in an exchange with Farrelly on Product Hunt.
With two content filters for Pokémon are already developed for Google Chrome, it goes to show that not everyone is enamored by the Pokémon Go phenomenon. The question, therefore, is when the hype will die down, if it's dying down at all.
