How Prism works
Prism spots an ad, covers it with a nature photo, and mutes the sound until your show is back. It hides ads. It never blocks them.
Spots the ad
On streaming sites, Prism listens for the player's own ad signals: the ad events the player fires, or the ad mode a player switches into during a break. On other pages, a set of per-site rules finds banners, boxes, and sponsored links. Every rule traces to a named source, and you can see them all in the code.
Covers it
A nature photo goes over the ad, exactly its size, and the sound is muted. On a video break you also get a small Intermission card with a countdown. The ad is still served and still plays underneath. Nothing is blocked from loading, and nothing is clicked. A music service's ad break is muted and covered the same way, and Prism for Windows can play a soundscape in its place.
Lifts it
The instant your show returns, the cover lifts and the sound comes back the way you had it. Press Escape at any time to lift every cover for a few seconds. A watchdog and a five-minute ceiling make sure a cover can never stick.
What Prism does not do
- No tracking. Nothing about you or what you watch leaves your device. There is no account and no analytics.
- No selling. There is nothing to sell. Prism holds no data about you anywhere but on your own computer.
- No blocking, no skipping. The ad is served and plays underneath the cover. Prism doesn't stop it, click it, or jump past it.
- No touching copy protection. Protected video plays through the browser's own protected player. Prism never decrypts, captures, or bypasses anything.
- No passwords. You sign in on each service's own page. Prism never asks for, sees, or stores a password.
- No open doors. The only incoming connection Prism for Windows accepts is from a phone you paired as a remote, on your home network, with a code you scanned off the Prism screen. Nothing connects to it from the internet, and neither do we.
These rules are written down for contributors too, in the third-party services policy.
Why some things work on Windows first
Premium streaming services gate picture quality on the copy protection a player supports. Prism for Windows shows each service in Microsoft's own web view, which has hardware PlayReady, so services play at the quality your plan allows, up to 4K. Browsers on other platforms run software Widevine, and most services cap that at 720p. Prism never changes what a service's player is willing to serve. It just picks the player that can serve the most.
The extensions cover ads in whatever browser you use. The full Prism, with your services in one place, is Windows 11 first for this reason.
How every row is picked
Every row in Prism says on screen what is counted, who is counted, who decides, and where the numbers come from. Here is the short version of each. Nothing is ranked to keep you watching.
- Continue watching, My list, Library. Your own services list them, signed in on this device. Prism shows them as they come.
- Yours, by genre. Your titles that TMDB files under that genre, A to Z.
- Top rated on your services. TMDB members' mean vote among titles on your services with enough votes, highest first.
- Newest on your services. Release date, or first air date, as TMDB records it, newest first.
- Most voted on your services. How many TMDB members rated the title, most first.
- New episodes, last 10 days. Series on your services with an episode aired in the last ten days, the one about to leave the row first.
- New movies, last 30 days. Films on your services first released in the last thirty days, oldest release first.
- Most read on Wikipedia. How often each title's Wikipedia article was read over the last seven days, most first. Nobody decides. It is a count of readers.
- Award winners on Wikidata. Awards recorded on each title's Wikidata item, most first.
- First released, on Wikidata. Each title's earliest publication date on Wikidata, newest first.
- TMDB community rating. TMDB members' mean vote, one to ten, shown with the vote count.
- Newest episodes and releases on TMDB. The latest episode air date, or the film release date, newest first.
- Most voted on TMDB. How many TMDB members voted on each title, most first.
- The Binge. Every series on your services that fits thresholds you set, shuffled once a day so the order stays the same all day.
- True Shuffle, for music. Every track in the playlist once, in a truly random order, then a fresh draw. Nothing is weighted. A music service's own shuffle is kept too, named for what it is: theirs.
Titles, pictures, and ratings from TMDB. Availability from JustWatch, through TMDB. Reads from Wikipedia and awards and dates from Wikidata. Your own rows from your own services. See the credits.