Ads that never load in the first place
Noise Guard blocks known advertising and tracking domains via network rules, before they even establish a connection. What doesn't load can't slow you down or watch you either.
What Noise Guard actually does
A bundled list of known advertising and tracking domains gets blocked via the browser's own network rules, technically clean and resource-efficient, without Noise Guard having to inspect every single request itself. It also detects advertising elements directly within page content, for cases where ads aren't served from a separate domain but embedded instead.
For new, unknown domains that look like advertising, you can optionally be asked whether Noise Guard should block them going forward too. You decide, Noise Guard only suggests.
Tracking is more than just ads
Many of the blocked domains don't deliver any visible advertising at all, but collect data in the background: which pages you visit, for how long, in what order. Individually, these data points seem harmless. Combined across many websites, they form a surprisingly precise behavioral profile, usually without the affected person ever knowing.
Advertising itself is also often designed to be deliberately conspicuous: bright colors, motion, countdown elements. That's not a design flaw, it follows the simple insight that motion and contrast automatically draw attention, even against one's own will.
What Noise Guard can't guarantee here
Without an additional browser permission, Noise Guard can't measure how many tracking requests were actually blocked, and deliberately doesn't provide a made-up number. The so-called Tracker Story in the settings honestly shows what the block list covers, not what was actually prevented.