Hiding Ad-like sections from the homepage

[Hal47]

Description of the new feature / enhancement

Considering how podcasts/audiobooks have similarly dealt with a optional setting during install/with dev tools, would it be possible to likewise hide from the Homepage other sections like:

• Flavor
• Today's Biggest Hits
• Throwback Favorites
• Fresh New Music
• Trending Now
• Mood
• Popular Artists
• Popular Albums

Many of these sections are essentially just ads in disguise, so in my opinion it should still fall within the original scope of SpotX. While people might want to have an option for rarely unused sections like Your top mixes, Recently played , Made for you, Uniquely yours, More like, Your favorite artists, Suggested artists, Recommended for today and More of what you like . . . those at least work using your (musical) preferences instead and thus would (in my opinion) fall more into the scope of things like Spicetify.

📸 Screenshots

No response

[amd64fox]

all these sections are very hard to track, I managed to hide the section with podcasts only because inside this section there are not songs, but podcasts. And other sections will be more difficult to hide, since they do not have a single name, their name depends on which language the user account is currently using.

Perhaps there is a way. We need to study this issue a little more when there is time.

[amd64fox]

added a new input parameter -adsections_off for the test

sections I tried to hide:

• Popular Albums / Artists
• Popular new releases
• Best of Artists / Tracks
• Best of songwriters
• Fresh New Music
• The state of music today
• Mood
• Today's biggest hits
• Throwback
• Trending now
• Popular radio
• Try something else
• Featured Charts
• The best of 2022
• The Best Christmas Music
• Happy Holidays

write here suggestions for adding or removing sections

to test blocking these sections just run it in PowerShell:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12; iex "& { $((iwr -useb 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SpotX-CLI/SpotX-Win/main/Install.ps1').Content) } -adsections_off"

works since version 1.1.93+

[Bec-de-Xorbin]

write here suggestions for adding or removing sections

Popular artists

[amd64fox]

Popular artists

you can send section id, as most likely Best of Artists and Popular Artists are the same section

in order to get the section id you need to get DevTools

after you got the DevTools do this


[Bec-de-Xorbin]

you can send section id, as most likely Best of Artists and Popular Artists are the same section

/section/0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu3C

[amd64fox]

Yes, this is a new section, it was not displayed in my account thanks, added

[Bec-de-Xorbin]

Best of songwriters

0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu4w

[amd64fox]

Best of songwriters

added thanks what is the region of your account?

[Bec-de-Xorbin]

what is the region of your account?

Finland

[amd64fox]

found such sections, your thoughts

Workout spotify:section:0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu3x

Focus spotify:section:0JQ5DAob0JCuWaGLU6ntFY

Sad songs spotify:section:0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu3u

Happy spotify:section:0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu3q

Music to game to spotify:section:0JQ5DAob0Jr9ClCbkV4pZD

Gaming music spotify:section:0JQ5DAob0LaV9FOMJ9utY5

[Hal47]

Seems to work for me, since my homepage is now only showing: Your top mixes, Made for, Recently Played, Recommended for today, Discover more from, More like, For fans of, Uniquely yours, Your playlists, More of what you like and New releases for you. Ignoring future software changes, the only remaining issues should be updating sections as they appear/Spotify comes up with them+language section differences.

Thanks for your work @amd64fox 👍

[amd64fox]

right, spotify adds new id sections from time to time, if you notice that the blocked section has reappeared, just drop its name and id here, here is a short instruction on how to get the section id

I also need your opinion on these sections, are there any lists in this that you would not like to see on the main page?

[Hal47]

Will do, already had DevTools setup to manually mess around with SpotX's experimental features.

If it were up to me, I'd remove everything that doesn't change according to user listening history so seasonal sections (rip Holidays/Christmas music), Best of X year, Featured Charts (which I don't get for some reason) would go. Do Workout, Focus, Happy, Music to game to, Gaming music take it into account listening history? Haven't seen those on my account, just recently came back to Spotify after a long hiatus...

[amd64fox]

If it were up to me

at the moment it depends only on those who participate in this discussion 😉

added sections Featured Charts, The best of 2022, The Best Christmas Music, Happy Holidays other sections under consideration...

[Bec-de-Xorbin]

Do you still get suggestions? If so, then: Popular new releases 0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu3D

[amd64fox]

Do you still get suggestions?

Certainly added update spotx

[Shituation]

/section/0JQ5DAuChZYPe9iDhh2mJz /section/0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu4h /section/0JQ5DAob0JCuWaGLU6ntFY 0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu3D

[amd64fox]

@Shituation thanks, the first two sections have already been added, but 3 have not yet been added, could you please clarify how you display the name for this section?

[Shituation]

class="MfVrtIzQJ7iZXfRWg6eM" href="/section/0JQ5DAuChZYPe9iDhh2mJz">En tendencia

Im still seeing it and its the first in the list.

This is the "last" it seems it changes?:

class="MfVrtIzQJ7iZXfRWg6eM" href="/section/0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu3D">Popular new releases

[amd64fox]

I meant this section 0JQ5DAob0JCuWaGLU6ntFY

[Shituation]

0JQ5DAob0JCuWaGLU6ntFY

It seems I passed the wrong code for some reason, the last one is:

"/section/0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu3D">Popular new releases

---

0JQ5DAuChZYPe9iDhh2mJz">En tendencia is still being shown, you say it has already been added, can there be any error?

[amd64fox]

still being shown, you say it has already been added, can there be any error?

in order to block all these sections, you need to add an incoming parameter -adsections_off to the spotx installation line

or use Install_Auto.bat

[Shituation]

the "Automatic full installation" wants to overwrite my old spotify installation with a new version. I don't want to do that because Spotify removed the "block cookies" option.

Where do I add that? do I have to download "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/amd64fox/SpotX/main/Install.ps1" and modify it? where do I put that line?

I've found the instructions deep in the main page.

[Hulayki]

Hi! I've found some ad sections in the region of Hungary.

Happy 0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu3q Sad songs 0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu3u

[amd64fox]

Thanks @Hulayki

Hmm, strange... I initially believed that these sections were personalized, as the descriptions of almost every playlist from these sections mentioned that they were created specifically for the user. When comparing the tracklists of these personalized playlists, I expected them to be entirely distinct for different users. However, upon closer inspection, I noticed that the tracks in these playlists only differed by a maximum of 8-10 percent. It appears that the majority of tracks in these playlists are the same for all users. Therefore, it can be concluded that these playlists are not truly personalized.

I added your “Sad songs” section to the consideration list, the “Happy” section was already there, we need to arrange a vote soon

[Hal47]

Interesting, I assumed they were personalized (as long as they had enough information for the user). Couldn't we just assume that the 92-90% are generic ads (since they seem to be major/mainstream/popular artists) and with the rest being actually tailored once they gather enough preference data to form personalized ads?

[amd64fox]

Yes, in this way the playlist can be called personalized if out of 100 tracks, one track is selected based on your preferences, and the other 99 are advertisements based on global trends, but not for me. Also, you have no idea if this one track is actually selected specifically for you, as my test consisted of simply comparing these personalized playlists among different users. I did not test those tracks based on taste preferences, so I think it's also advertising. If we take simple personalized playlists that we discussed earlier, I can assume that there are no recommendations specifically tailored to you in them at all. There is a large pool of tracks (4-5k), and for each user, 100 tracks are randomly generated from this selection, later as time passes, this pool is updated or refreshed with other tracks, but it's important to note that Spotify does have genuinely personalized playlists that recommend tracks solely for you, without any deception. The most popular examples of these are "Discover Weekly" and "Release Radar".

[amd64fox]

added all these sections also the section 0JQ5DAnM3wGh0gz1MXnu3n (best of artists/tracks) was unlocked

[15seagulls]

section/0JQ5IMCbQBLicmNERjnGn5

"Most Listened 2023" for Germany

[amd64fox]

added, thanks