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Show HN: A Chrome extension to remind you why you opened Facebook
- wutbrodo 10y agoNews feed eradicator is another useful tool along the same lines. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicator-for/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...
- knn 10y agoThe news feed eradicator has been a very good solution for me. I can still message, participate in groups, but that damned newsfeed is blocked! The newsfeed is engineered to suck up all of our precious cognitive space and fill it with mostly junk.
- kevan 10y agoI found this out recently, in case anyone else doesn't know, messenger.com [1] gets you facebook chat without the rest of facebook. I use it a lot during the day when I want to talk to people but not get sucked into the news feed. [1] https://www.messenger.com/ https://www.messenger.com/
- therein 10y agoI use Messenger.com and I like it except for one big inconvenience. The right bar displaying thumbnails of all your past photos exchanged within a conversation is nothing but annoying and even if you hide it, when you refresh it, it pops up again.
- MasterScrat 10y agoA similar idea that comes to mind seeing this: Every hour, you should see a quick summary of the pages you browsed through for the past hour. It's easy to waste time not realizing how long you spent on AskReddit/TvTropes/whatever... But if an hour of browsing flashes before your eyes and you can see nothing productive, it will wake you up.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- 946789987649 10y agoI really like that, I might get to work on it. Can't imagine it'd be too hard.
- halflings 10y agoThis doesn't look super pretty, but seems to do the job: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/timestats/ejifodhjoeeenihgfpjijjmpomaphmah?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/timestats/ejifodhj...
- rlv-dan 10y agoMany years ago I visited a large (junk) news site several times every day (aftonbladet.se - largest site in Sweden). I asked myself why, but couldn't tell. So I started writing down what articles I had read that had been worth ready. Not much it turned out. So I stopped visiting it, and don't regret it. But it was really hard to break the habit, like an addiction.
- aryamaan 10y agoI am similar boat these days. Every 10 minutes I am doing spending reading something on mobile, 8 minutes will be on Facebook. Yesterday, I deleted the app and found myself multiple times missing that. So, yeah, it's a habit hard to break. And now, I try to spend same amount of time reading some light book on my kindle app.
- ahel 10y agoIt's like a month that I uninstalled the facebook app, because it didn't provide enough value. I didn't noticed the correlation until now, but last week I started carrying with me my old kindle touch during my commute. It just happened and I'm at Chapter 11 of Crystal Society [http://crystal.raelifin.com/ http://crystal.raelifin.com/].
- educar 10y agoI like this idea except I don't use facebook. Sign me up when you target HN :-)
- aidos 10y agoI could have really used this the other night when I went on to wish my friend a happy birthday....and then missed her birthday.
- unicornporn 10y agoI found that the timeline is the problem. It has been tweaked and reworked to make you spend as much time as possible mindlessly scrolling, liking and interacting. I solved the problem by simply removing the timeline. Well, you can't actually remove it. But unfollowing everyone and everything results in this: https://i.imgur.com/w4JZbct.png https://i.imgur.com/w4JZbct.png It might not be for everyone, but it works excellent for me. And nowadays I actually complete what I came there for.
- reustle 10y agoI found the same. The news feed was the only bad part about Facebook. Events, chat, groups, are all great. I killed my news feed using this handy extension https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-news-feed/hjobfcedfgohjkaieocljfcppjbkglfd?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-news-feed/hjo...
- andy_ppp 10y agoI too have done the same, unfortunately Facebook has added a feature that tells me I haven't seen posts against each person. It's better to be able to catch up on your own terms though and a surprising amount of things I've missed out on such as new progeny and marriage proposals are somewhat more relevant than videos of Sad Ben Afleck :-D
- herbst 10y agoI do the same. My Facebook account is basically my Business account and nothing else. No friends, no likes other than my sites, no nothing.
- amelius 10y agoI need a similar thing to remind me why I visited Google, after playing with the doodle.
- bottled_poe 10y agoHow about a different solution to prevent the problem in the first place - A chrome extension to warn you before loading that tempting facebook link that you are about to spend (statistically) x minutes on Facebook.
- FB_fan 10y agoFacebook in full anticipation of this problem has hired former DARPA head Regina Dugan, to lead a major R&D effort to ensure that click happens. As Brother Zuckerberg has said there is nothing more important than that click, if the world is to remain open and connected.
- welanes 10y agoOn the problem of wasting time browsing - I stick to a rough Pomodoro style principle. Coffee in the morning while I spend 20 minutes gorging on the sweet sweet stream of fresh info from HN/Reddit/Feedly/Twitter that surfaced while I slept. Anything that looks interesting but requires more than a few minutes to chew on (like this, today: FBI Paid More Than $1M to Hack San Bernardino iPhone) I bookmark. Throughout the day I take 10mins break for each 50mins of work, I don't go to these sites again, I just work through what I picked out in that first 20 minutes. Gets the thirst for news out of the way and allows you to procrastinate, in a sense, "productively".
- rollinDyno 10y agoThat 'sweet sweet stream' actually contains not what surfaced while you slept but during the whole day except your allotted 20 minutes. How do you consume 4 streams (HN, Reddit, Feedly and Twitter) each containing roughly 24 hours of activity, in 20 minutes?
- giancarlostoro 10y agoI'm pretty sure he means he looks at all the headlines, and then picks whatever is the most relevant / interesting to read throughout the day.
- gedrap 10y agoHN Algolia is neat for this kind of workflow https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=last24h&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page... just check it once a day, pick up what to read for the rest of the day.
- welanes 10y agoNot too hard. As giancarlostoro said, I simply skim in the mornings - open my favorite sites, find posts I think are worth reading and middle click a lot. Go through the resulting new tabs and bookmark what seems interesting for later. The goal isn't to read every single new thing on the Internet, but between my pre-filtered sites and the morning skim I get a nice slice of interesting content to read throughout the day.
- Buetol 10y agoSpeaking of facebook-related chrome extensions, I recommand this work of art, suprinsigly well done to the finest details: Ponyhoof https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ponyhoof/efjjgphedlaihnlgaibiaihhmhaejjdd?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ponyhoof/efjjgphed...
- rollinDyno 10y agoWe are starting to realise that information overload is leading to a diabetes-like condition for the mind. Solutions like these mean we haven't only diagnosed ourselves but also almost immediately fighting back.
- allemagne 10y agoI generated a random password for Facebook, put it in my phone, and then promptly logged out of FB in chrome. I can look at facebook on my phone all I want, but the app sucks anyway and I feel like an obvious slacker if I look at my phone for a long time, or glance at it more frequently than once an hour or so. Works for me.
- ambivalence 10y agoOne more trick for you: use messenger.com if you need contact with people at work but don't want notifications or the news feed to distract you.
- kevincox 10y agoI love messenger.com It's a way better interface for just chatting then the Facebook site and they have been adding new features to it regularly. My only complaint is that it refuses to work on mobile (even though the desktop site is very responsive). It just pushes you at the app.
- gedrap 10y agoThis. Since I've started using messenger.com, I check facebook.com about once a week. Was really easy to switch and saved a lot of mental energy and attention that would have went for random facebook posts, etc.
- cpach 10y agoThat’s great! I had no idea messenger.com even existed...
- rorygreen 10y agoHaving used Facebook mainly for the messaging functionality for years now, I'm amazed I never knew messenger.com existed. It's interesting to consider that, although I use an ad-blocker, it must be in Facebook's interests to keep people on the main site in order to throw adverts at them, further infiltrate their lives etc.
- mullsork 10y agoThey're adding all sorts of junk to Messenger. Surely they're monetizing that platform on itself already, or will soon.
- Aldo_MX 10y agoI prefer to use Franz[1] It's an electron-based app which allows you to load the web versions of Messenger, Whatsapp, Slack and many more. [1] http://meetfranz.com/ http://meetfranz.com/
- tdkl 10y agoIf you want a desktop Messenger application, check this out : http://messengerfordesktop.com http://messengerfordesktop.com Electron app, uses native notifications, no need to run a webpage in a browser.
- druska 10y agoThis won't work because it requires user input. People are lazy, and unless you are extremely disciplined I guarantee you will stop wanting to use that input box very soon after installing.
- Raphmedia 10y agoEDIT: This piece of code wasn't used and has since been removed. This app has my stamp of approval now! From the github: "f.action = 'http://gtmetrix.com/analyze.html?bm';" http://gtmetrix.com/analyze.html?bm';" ... are you tracking people with this application?
- joshblour 10y agohey Raphemdia, actual developer and OP here, (user yonah91 was created a few minutes ago) the line of code you're referring to is in a file called popup.js which is never actually loaded . It's from the sample code which I used to learn how to make a chrome extension (https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/getstarted#resources https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/getstarted#resources) I'll remove it now, so that people don't the wrong idea.
- joshblour 10y agodone. File removed: https://github.com/yonahforst/focusbook/commit/491cf59a087c8f73ac5b88cbfe5b9a442d85a1e1 https://github.com/yonahforst/focusbook/commit/491cf59a087c8...
- Raphmedia 10y agoFair enough! I didn't investigate much. Looking back, yes, this file was not used! Definitely using your app and recommending it to my friends!
- yonah91 10y agoHey, developer here. Unfortunately there's no free lunch and I need to do some demographic research with my free projects in order to make them viable.
- solaceb 10y agoWhy is that not clearly expressed in the plug ins overview?
- joshblour 10y agoYou're not the developer, I am. And I absolutely am not tracking anyone. That code is from the sample app: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/getstarted#resources https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/getstarted#resources and it's since been removed
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dang 10y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11549269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11549269 and marked it off-topic.
- RIMR 10y agoThis would be a great plugin for the workplace, but it appears to be laced with profanity. That's definitely going to prevent a number of people from using it. Maybe redo the language and add an "Angry Mode" that is a bit more insulting if the user wants that... Also, it's clearly tracking me, but nowhere can I find anything that discloses that. I can only assume you're collecting/selling my data, so there's absolutely no way I am installing this, and I am DEFINITELY not recommending it for workplace use, because I don't know what kind of data you might be collecting. If you want to make some cash on these things, add some ads. You definitely have space in that injected header to fit a banner or two.
- joshblour 10y agoHey. Good point about the profanity. I'll add an option toggle it on and off. It was meant to be sort of a fun tool for myself. About tracking, it is absolutely not tracking anything or anyone. That line of code referring to gtmetrix.com is from the sample google extension which i just forgot to remove. https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/getstarted#resources https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/getstarted#resources I'll remove it now. Sorry for the confusion. I hate tracking and would never do it to anyone without their permission (or even with their permission)
- joshblour 10y agodone. file removed: https://github.com/yonahforst/focusbook/commit/491cf59a087c8f73ac5b88cbfe5b9a442d85a1e1 https://github.com/yonahforst/focusbook/commit/491cf59a087c8...
- joshblour 10y agoRIMR - I've just uploaded a new version to the chrome store that has a switch to turn off profanity. Keep an eye on the chrome store for version 1.3, it should be available in an hr or so
- tammer 10y agoHas somebody broken out FB events into a standalone app yet? Can't wait until the real world can go back to being the focus.
- cableshaft 10y agoI need this on my phone more than I need a chrome extension, since I mainly go to Facebook on my phone. But good idea!
- lolptdr 10y agolove the clear use of profanity and simplicity of this extension, but luckily facebook is blocked for me =)
- ahmetsulek 10y agoYou should also see http://usedetox.com http://usedetox.com You can access the feeds on Panda http://usepanda.com http://usepanda.com instead of Facebook feed.
- vittore 10y agothis should work for youtube, google, twitter and whole bunch of other things as well, not just facebook