Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to stop mindless browsing

Re:Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to stop mindless browsing by stared on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @02:31PM (#22937879)

I like this a lot.

What I've found that:

- No breaks is bad.

- It is even worse when a 10 min break turns out to be a 2h rabbit hole.

But most of the current software does not address that. For example:

- I use social media after midnight, and it does not stop me then but cuts the limit for the next day.

- There is a nasty surprise when an app kicks me out, with no warning. So nasty (especially when I am in the middle of writing a long comment) that it may prompt be to uninstall it.

- To strict limits. Sometimes I know that a given day I need more social media.

In your case, it solves all. Also, I see that the timer is at 23 sec, so I click "reply". :)

Thanks!

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Re:Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to stop mindless browsing by kibwen on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @06:36PM (#22940077)

I've yet to check out the OP's extension, but I've used a Firefox extension called LeechBlock before which (with some creativity) can achieve your bullet points as well. For the first I would set up one blocking profile to apply through early morning and a different profile (with the same sites) for the rest of the day; for the second LeechBlock lets you put a countdown timer in the corner of the screen so that at all times you know how much time you have left; for the third it lets you set up an "Override" which will resume blocking after a certain amount of time.

(Sorry if this is distracting from the OP, I aim not to shill but to help more people make use of productivity tools in this era of endless distraction.)

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Re:Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to stop mindless browsing by fragmede on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @09:30AM (#22945309)

I use Crackbook Revival (Chrome) which is similar in purpose. However instead of giving you a countdown timer (because "but 5 more minutes, mooooom") it never actually stops you from browsing, but instead slows down select sites with every page load. First loading a page is instantaneous. 100th time takes seconds which is frustrating enough to cause me to go off and do something else, but without the same anxieties that Leechblock causes.

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Re:Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to stop mindless browsing by dkthehuman on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @07:09PM (#22940304)

No need to apologize! I enjoy trying other tools in this space and learning from all the different practices they use. Will check out LeechBlock — thanks!

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Re:Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to stop mindless browsing by dkthehuman on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @07:08PM (#22940299)

Yay, glad you like it! I also found most tools to be too black and white. I made Intention to be the sweet middle path between blocking sites entirely and having unfettered access.

I can definitely relate to the unpleasantness of getting kicked out with no warning, so I included intelligent logic in Intention that handles cases gracefully. For example, on YouTube, it'll pause the current video when the lock activates but it won't pause the video if it's in a background tab so people can listen to music. Hopefully, you won't even notice these things and everything will Just Work.

Enjoy. :)

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Re:Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to stop mindless browsing by movedx on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @07:20PM (#22940367)

Check out Cold Turkey. It does everything you've asked for, I believe. I use it on and off.

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Re:Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to stop mindless browsing by stared on Friday April 24, 2020 @11:57AM (#22969412)

I quit Cold Turkey cold turkey.

It is the opposite.

- Limits are strict (so even if I write a super-important event announcement on FB, and get kicked out, that's it).

- I don't see any timer. (It needs to be visible constantly, not whenever I check.)

[ Parent | on HN ]