Blog

Notes on attention, distraction-free browsing, and how talavo works under the hood.

How background YouTube playback actually works on iOS

22 May 20265 min read

iOS pauses web video the moment the browser leaves the foreground. Here's the WebKit reality behind keeping YouTube playing in the background — without Premium.

The Zen Mode toggle: how it works and what it hides

30 March 20264 min read

Zen Mode strips the engagement machinery out of YouTube — Shorts, comments, and recommendations — with one tap. Here's exactly what disappears and how.

Why we built talavo (and why iPhone YouTube is broken)

12 February 20265 min read

We didn't set out to build a browser. We set out to stop losing evenings to a feed we never chose. Here's the case for fixing it at the browser level.