Userscript for allowing for lurking as a Twitch user. Press the Raw button to trigger install.

twitchallowlurks.user.js

// ==UserScript==
// @name         TwitchAllowLurks
// @namespace    https://socksthewolf.com/
// @version      0.2.4
// @description  Disable HTML5 Page Visibility API to prevent Twitch ads from stopping lurks
// @author       kookxiang (code) & socksthewolf (config)
// @match        https://twitch.tv/*
// @match        https://m.twitch.tv/*
// @match        https://www.twitch.tv/*
// @exclude      https://www.twitch.tv/popout/*/guest-star
// @exclude      https://www.twitch.tv/settings/*
// @grant        none
// @run-at       document-start
// @downloadURL  https://gist.githubusercontent.com/SocksTheWolf/822155d955661416df1dde5a48cb3e73/raw/twitchallowlurks.user.js
// ==/UserScript==

// stop visibility monitoring events
document.addEventListener('visibilitychange', function (e) { e.stopImmediatePropagation(); }, true);
// disable unfocus events
window.addEventListener('blur', function (e) { e.stopImmediatePropagation(); }, true);

// override document.visibilityState to always return the page is visible
Object.defineProperty(document, 'visibilityState', { get: function () { return "visible"; } });
// override document.hidden to always return that the page is rendering
Object.defineProperty(document, 'hidden', { get: function () { return false; } });

Click here to install

You must have an userscript runner installed. Literally every modern browser made in the last decade and a half has one.

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Kitbashed from this: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/415290-disable-page-visibility-api/code

I just added twitch urls as matches + updated namespace to avoid collisions. Edited this entirely on my phone.

Updated script with a few excludes locations (disables this code from running the on guest star page and your settings pages), and inlined comments into script so it's clear what the script does.

Huge thanks for this, I hope this will help! Much prefer a solution like this over a browser-wide extension.