Quick Start

After Domain Cage installation you'll notice a new browser action button with a shield sign. Navigate to a web-page, and you'll see that the shield will most likely become reddish, and a number appears beneath. This means that Domain Cage has detected and blocked several requests to external domains, and their number is depicted on the button.

Press the button to open Domain Cage popup window. It will list all domains mentioned in intercepted requests. You can mark any of them as allowed for outgoing requests by switching on checkboxes next to each domain, and then pressing the button Allow requests to selected domains. All marked domains will be added into the TO white-list.

If you are unsure about which domains are "good" (for example, required for external resources such as images, css, common javascript libraries) and which are "bad" (ads, trackers, social links which are needless to you), click the string Click here to view all links. This will bring a list of actual links which were requested, so you can figure out which one's actually useful (if any) among them.

When adding a domain to the TO white-list you can specify a custom domain in the editbox under domain's list. If you start a string with a dot, this will mean a domain with all its subdomains. For example, entering .google.com will allow www.google.com and code.google.com as well.

You may add a current domain (domain of the page being viewed at that moment) to the FROM white-list. This will allow any requests from pages on this domain, so it will work as if Domain Cage is off. To do this press the button Allow all requests from this host.

If the checkbox Reload is on while you press Allow requests to selected domains or Allow all requests from this host buttons, then Domain Cage will automatically reload current page after the white-lists have been edited, so it will be re-processed with new settings.

If you want to exclude some white-listed domains, press the button White. This will open a new tab with both TO and FROM editable lists. You'll be able to mark any white-listed domains and remove them by pressing corresponding buttons.

When you navigate to a web-page residing on a domain white-listed in the FROM list, the shield sign becomes greenish. Requests from such pages are not filtered.

If a page you visit does not contain links to external domains, the shield sign remains standard Domain Cage logo.

In addition to the white-lists of domains, it is possible to block requests by their URLs. To add some stuff into the black-list open the context menu ("right" button mouse click) for an unwanted element on current page. Domain Cage shows its own submenu with 2 items: Hide Element (ad hoc) and Block URLs. The latter one contains all URLs found in the page hierarchy (DOM) starting from the clicked element and up through its parents. For example, if the element is an image inside an iframe, Domain Cage will show 3 URLs: the image source, the frame address, and URL of the page itself. Choose any of them to open a dialog box to edit corresponding URL and probably leave only small characteristic part of it, such as /ads/banner, for example. Finally press OK button to add new fragment to the black-list. From now on, all resources with URLs containing any item from the black-list will be blocked, even if they reside on white-listed domains.

To edit the black-list - open Domain Cage popup dialog and press the button Black.

Warning

When you visit your favorite sites first time after Domain Cage installation they may look poor because required resources were blocked. You should whitelist all your favorite sites (as FROM) and popular data sources (for example, ajax.googleapis.com) as TO domains. This will require a bit of work for a short period while the white-lists are forming.

Please be cautious - even your favorite sites may collect important data about you and produce ads, so it's recommended to use the FROM white-list as less as possible.