The Bandwidth Drain
By default, whenever you navigate to a webpage, Google Chrome automatically downloads and renders every single image embedded on that page. While this provides the intended rich visual experience, it can be a massive problem if you are on a strictly metered internet connection, using a slow cellular hotspot, or trying to load an incredibly text-heavy document on a struggling computer. A single modern news article might contain dozens of high-resolution tracking pixels and advertisements that consume megabytes of data without providing any value to the reader.
How to Block All Images in Chrome
If you want to prioritize speed and text over visual aesthetics, you can configure Chrome to completely block the automatic downloading of images globally.
1. Open Google Chrome.
2. Click the three vertical dots in the top-right corner of the window.
3. Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
4. In the left-hand sidebar, click on Privacy and security.
5. In the main pane, click on Site settings.
6. Scroll down until you find the “Content” section, and click on Images.
7. Under the “Default behavior” heading, change the selection from “Sites can show images” to Don’t allow sites to show images.
Once you enable this, websites will load almost instantly. Where images used to be, you will see a small broken image icon or the “alt text” describing what the image was supposed to be.
How to Allow Images on Specific Websites
Blocking all images is extreme, and it might break the functionality of sites like Instagram or Google Maps. You can create exceptions for websites you trust.
1. Still in the Images settings menu, scroll down to the Customized behaviors section.
2. Next to the “Allowed to show images” section, click the Add button.
3. Type the URL of the website you want to exempt (e.g., [*.]wikipedia.org to allow all Wikipedia pages).
4. Click Add.
Chrome will now aggressively block image downloads across the entire internet, saving your bandwidth, except on the specific sites you explicitly permit.