11 ms·

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

519 points by dkthehuman 6y ago

hooda 6y ago
There are 478 upvotes to this post and yet after 1 day, there are only 535 users of this extension after 1 day (16:40EST on Apr-22).
- dkthehuman 6y ago
  The Chrome Web Store has a delay of about 1 day. I posted the latest stats on my journal entry today: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-108-HN-Aftermath-d9e8241640cf445e95c0d2dd8ffcb5c2 https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-108-HN-Aftermath-d9e824...
yaooo 6y ago
huh this seems very similar to https://browsewithintent.com/ https://browsewithintent.com/ which has been around for a while?
bwb 6y ago
Love this!! Been using it for a few days now :)
dkthehuman 6y ago
Hey HN, I've been working on a Chrome/Firefox extension called Intention to help me stay focused and not get distracted, and for me and my friends, we've found it more effective than other tools we've tried. The idea behind it is extremely simple: Commit to a time limit before using a distracting site. This prevents the two most common ways that we get sucked into distractions online: 1. Habitual navigation: Throughout the day, we reflexively type t/f/r <enter> and immediately start scrolling through Twitter / Facebook / Reddit / etc. Intention stops you before you start browsing and gives you the opportunity to decide not to get sucked in. 2. Mindless browsing: Our willpower is no match for the endless stream of personalized content optimized to keep our attention for as long as possible. Intention pauses your browsing after your intended time limit and restores your focus. You can set a daily limit to know how much time you've spent across all distracting sites, and for every day you stay under your limit, you'll grow your personal streak. I designed Intention with privacy as a core priority, and here's what that means: - Intention requests access only to the sites you select, not all sites. - Intention gives you full control over the data you share. - Your browsing history stays in your browser and is never transmitted. Intention is part of a suite of tools I'm developing to help people spend their time well, and I'd love to hear your feedback. DK P.S. If you'd like to read about the process behind developing Intention, I've been publicly writing a daily journal at https://roadtoramen.com https://roadtoramen.com
- mattwad 6y ago
  I really like this idea! The setup was also very easy too and honest about permissions (using Firefox). I 'enabled' Hacker News for 5 minutes so i could leave you a comment :) Next I need this for my phone.
  - dkthehuman 6y ago
    Yay! Honored you'd spend part of your daily limit to leave me a comment. :) Intention actually works on Firefox for Android so you can use it on Android today! Planning to build something special for iOS (the OS limitations make it challenging) in the future.
    - el_benhameen 6y ago
      I don't have a lot to add here, but an upvote didn't seem like it fully expressed how much I like this. I really like this! If you do decide to make something for iOS, I would definitely pay a few bucks for it.
      - dkthehuman 6y ago
        Yay, thanks! Appreciate it. :)
  - nougatbyte 6y ago
    You could try kiwi browser or Firefox mobile, they are compatible with some desktop extensions (not on iOS)
- hjek 6y ago
  > for every day you stay under your limit, you'll grow your personal streak. So this is using gamification to game gamification? Interesting. > immediately start scrolling through [...] Facebook There are some other interesting add-ons in this area. I'm a big fan of safebook[0]. > - Your browsing history stays in your browser and is never transmitted. That sentence worries me. If I told you "I haven't stolen anything from your living room," you'd probably start to think what other room I'd looted. [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/safebook/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/safebook/
dbieber 6y ago
This is fantastic :D! Thanks for building this. As a feature request, I would love to be able to restrict my time spent on websites I arrive at _from_ e.g. HackerNews, not just _on_ HackerNews itself.
mattboulos 6y ago
This is just lovely. Clean, exactly what I need, and the on-boarding/privacy experience is best-in-class. Well done.
- dkthehuman 6y ago
  Thanks so much! I spent a ton of time making sure that it's as privacy-oriented as possible and asks for minimal permissions, unlike most extensions in this space that ask for permissions for all sites. It doesn't make sense that a tool to help with YouTube or Twitter should also have access to your banking site and emails. Glad you appreciate it. :)
- vaer-k 6y ago
  I agree, exceptionally well done. I very much appreciated the onboarding process, especially regarding privacy. I also very much appreciate the fact that it only monitors whitelisted sites, rather than just blanket tracking everything I do.
mattigames 6y ago
"Mindless browsing" is just dopamine addiction, happens with phone notifications, porn and many other stimulus, a good video about it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiE-M1LrZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiE-M1LrZk
- seppin 6y ago
  Thanks for this.
- hinkley 6y ago
  The advice I got is that you need to take a very hard look at what things in your life recharge you, and prioritize the ones that work well over the ones that are minor or neutral. Your initial list will contain a bunch of things that are really just playing for time. They don't recharge you, they just keep you still long enough for you to recuperate a little bit. One of my big ones is naps, but I'm still wrestling with the idea that going to sleep is an activity instead of the absence of (nearly) all activity.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
29athrowaway 6y ago
Stayfocusd does this as well.
- j88439h84 6y ago
  It only has daily limits, not session limits, right?
  - 29athrowaway 6y ago
    I think so.
alirezainjast 6y ago
actually this is what i need. thank you
m_a_g 6y ago
You should look into Motion. https://www.inmotion.app/ https://www.inmotion.app/ It is very similar to your product.
- dkthehuman 6y ago
  Yup, I'm a fan of Motion, and I'm glad they're also trying to help people spend time well! It's a big problem to tackle, and given that we're up against multi-billion dollar corporations, we can use all the help we can get. Motion inspired parts of Intention's design (e.g. the default unlock duration in Intention used to be 5 minutes, but I liked how Motion defaulted to 1 minute so I changed it). Some key differences between Intention and Motion: Product - Intention lets you set a daily limit so that you're encouraged to limit your distracted browsing. - To calculate remaining time, Intention uses active time (time actually spent on a site), not clock time (time passed since you unlocked a site). - Intention displays its timer in the browser toolbar instead of directly on the page, which can block UI elements Privacy - Intention only requests access to the sites you select, not all sites. - Intention gives users full control over what data they share. Right now, Intention includes only crash reporting (no analytics or tracking), and you can disable even that inside the settings.
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    Thank you very much! The privacy aspect was key for me, thanks for doing this right.
netsharc 6y ago
It looks cool, I wonder how easy it is to click away though. I notice I'm on reddit or Facebook less nowadays because the content there stopped interesting me. (Side note: Someone on reddit said the way to quit reddit is to unsubscribe from a lot of the default subreddits and subscribe to subreddits where the content don't interest you, so you would visit the whole site less and less). No one posts their personal updates on FB anymore, I visit FB to see the 2 city-related groups I live in, but the number of dumb posts/comments there make me just snigger, sigh, and leave again. My addictions nowadays are probably YouTube and this site. I've been thinking of making an extension that loads some elements of a site slower, or fail to load the elements (e.g. reddit's Ajax-based replies). That way I would be forced to refresh to view the content. I'm convinced the more it irritates me, the more I will avoid the sites with this active.
devmunchies 6y ago
these last 2 weeks me and my wife created a strict rule where we can't have any screens (laptops, phone, tablets) in a bedroom. now we don't browse while laying in bed in the morning or at night. this simple change cutdown on my addiction even when out of my bed room. When we go to our bedroom at night we know it means bed time, its a mental change. Also, at first you'll feel an urge to look at your phone at night, but it goes away.
- imhoguy 6y ago
  I think what contributes the most to that bad habit is dependency on alarm clock app in our smartphones. I need to finally buy two alarm clocks with snooze and weekly schedule.
  - fernandotakai 6y ago
    i've been working from home for the past 10 years and for the past 10ish months i just stopped using an alarm clock. work is flexible enough that as long as i'm up before midday, i won't miss any meetings. it has been such a pleasure to wake up when my body tells me it's time to wake up! also, i found that after giving up alarm clocks, i'm waking up between 7:30~8am naturally which is perfect.
  - nbardy 6y ago
    I bought an alarm clock last year and its been huge for my mental health/morning routine. Now my day starts exactly how I want it. No phone. Straight to exercise.
  - oldtapwater 6y ago
    If you have an old dumb-phone without a sim-card you can use it as an alarm instead. For me it turned out to be cheaper and better!
    - imhoguy 6y ago
      Should uninstall any browsers too :)
NoiseAgent 6y ago
I can't seem to get it working in Firefox. I can click the icon in the top right but it just says I'm on a distracting site it does not launch the popup. Any configuration needed in Firefox?
- wussboy 6y ago
  I'm in the same boat. Doesn't seem to be doing anything.
- dkthehuman 6y ago
  Hm, this is a bit strange. It should work fine on Firefox, and a lot of other people on this thread seem to have no issues. Can you share what OS you're on and other extensions you have installed? Feel free to reply via email — my address is dk@getintention.com.
  - wussboy 6y ago
    I tried on 75.0. I disabled all my extensions except yours and restarted. No luck.
    - dkthehuman 6y ago
      Can you email me at the address above? Would like to help you get this working and happy to jump on a Zoom call to debug the issue with you.
  - wussboy 6y ago
    I think I got it sorted. I tried it on 6 different computers/laptops/VMs/Ubuntu/Windows and it never worked. Then I tried Chrome and after I clicked install I was presented with a picture of (I assume) you and a "Continue" button. I had never bothered to click on that before, always going straight to the extension button in the top right corner. However, if you don't press "Continue" it doesn't request the permission it needs to work. I don't know if this is possible, but it might make sense to check that tab permission again (for example, when the user tries to block a site). Hopefully that makes sense. Let me know if you need further clarification.
gintery 6y ago
Now my compulsive snoozing can continue even during daytime :)
greenie_beans 6y ago
this is the exact opposite, but did anybody here ever use stumbleupon?
tiborsaas 6y ago
Consider a setting to remove the icon from the toolbar. It's too easy to right click an uninstall it.
thomashobohm 6y ago
Love the interface!
arkanciscan 6y ago
This but an Android launcher
- Neff 6y ago
  There are some nice "minimal" launchers out there that restrict you to essentially a phone, camera, and messaging app. It adds a hurdle to accessing the apps that are easy to waste time in. While now 100% the same as this, I've found introducing some extra friction can go a long way in curbing unwanted behaviors
  - arkanciscan 6y ago
    I'm looking for something that asks me what I want to do before letting me open any app on the phone. Then it could periodically ask if I have accomplished my goal. "You have been "reading hacker news" for 30 minutes, are you still "reading hacker news"? [No] [Yes- turns off phone]"
j88439h84 6y ago
Hey this looks really helpful! I appreciate your commitment to privacy, that's a very important feature for me. Nonetheless, having been burned by Chrome extensions in the past [1], I'm worried about privacy and I'm wondering if you'd be willing to make it open source to allay those concerns. [1] https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/02/stylish-browser-extension-steals-your-internet-history/ https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/02/stylish-browser-extensio...
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
  You might be interested in a Chrome extension that allows you to view the source code of chrome extensions. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-extension-source-v/jifpbeccnghkjeaalbbjmodiffmgedin?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-extension-s...
  - j88439h84 6y ago
    The packaged version is minified js, so it's not really readable.
- warent 6y ago
  One thing to that's good to know is that it's against Chrome store policy to make the extension code unreadable or inaccessible in any way. They will actually take it down from the store very quickly. I know this because I had a client once who wanted me to obfuscate their extension code and in about an hour it was taken down. So, if you install the extension, you can open up the source.
- dkthehuman 6y ago
  Hey! I totally get where you're coming from. I wrote a post exploring the privacy and security of Chrome extensions: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-4-The-Danger-of-Chrome-Extensions-af93b84006ed48c18b807f512b6c0a07 https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-4-The-Danger-of-Chrome-... I'd love to open source Intention like I've done with a ton of previous projects (http://github.com/dkthehuman/ http://github.com/dkthehuman/), but since it's a Chrome extension, that'd make it trivial for anyone to copy. Given that I'd like to eventually develop a paid plan and make working on this full-time financially sustainable, I hope you can understand why open sourcing doesn't seem like a viable option. I'm brainstorming ways to make the extension as transparent as possible (e.g. if I ever decide to include analytics, (1) providing an opt-out and (2) a way to view all the information that's transmitted in a human-readable way), but at the heart of it, using Intention will require some trust in my integrity and care as a developer. I'm also hoping that writing about my decision-making process publicly in my journal (https://roadtoramen.com https://roadtoramen.com) will provide transparency and help develop that trust. If you ever see me going astray or not thinking clearly, please keep me accountable! If it helps, here are some of the things I've written about privacy (I think about this quite a bit): - My privacy principles: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-97-Privacy-Principles-5ba3c280848e4697869b2c11d773cc92 https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-97-Privacy-Principles-5... - Privacy gut checks: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-86-Privacy-Gut-Checks-070419ee59ff46f5ac1f464f16cacd16 https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-86-Privacy-Gut-Checks-0... - Exploring whether I should include analytics: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-45-Should-I-include-analytics-13bdda9215284442bd1a0f29b82b57fb https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-45-Should-I-include-ana...
JansjoFromIkea 6y ago
Love the idea and the execution looks great too! I'm the kind of person who will just keep selecting to view a bit longer so it wouldn't work for me (I need more rigid restrictions on things like Freedom and actual physical locks) but I'm super happy to see new approaches to this kind of thing emerge.
batesy 6y ago
This looks great. I just signed up for Freedom to solve this problem because it works across devices. I'll test your extension as well to see if it does the job as effectively.
buschkowitz 6y ago
Thank you for making this! I was using StayFocusd until now. The look and feel of Intention feels so much fresher and easier to use. Also, having a lot more flexibility for blocking is a great feature. And of course privacy. Much appreciated.
c0delift 6y ago
This is really awesome. I really like how it has you, the user make the final call. I'm hoping long term use of this will make start to catch myself before I even type the url in. Thanks for making this extension!
psandersen 6y ago
This looks really good, I've been going down the rabbit hole of optimising focus and killing distractions... Is there any chance we could get it to make a rest API call on certain actions? I'd like to change my lights in home assistant as an added visual reinforcement.
glennvtx 6y ago
If i could request one thing, it would be the ability to block a site during the scheduled time outright, and / or add a challenge of typing some awful lorem ipsum or something to unlock it for a short time.
thehappypm 6y ago
This is awesome! My mindless browsing became so bad at one point that I made my own extension that I called "Detour". It automatically redirects you from one site to another, so if I absent-mindedly navigated to Reddit, it'd detour me to my homework to-do list. Never got around to really fleshing it out and building the types of features that would really make it useful like this. Kudos!
soledades 6y ago
Too early to say for sure, but this seems to strike the sweet spot as far as nudging me towards my 'intention' without being so onerous that I simply disable it. Thanks a bunch!
renewiltord 6y ago
I used to use Motion but it asks me to login and shit and then doesn't even bother syncing across browsers. Waste of time. And then it slows down web pages and sticks that annoying little box on the side. My user agent has a place for you, in the toolbar. Stop rendering on top of content and then making scroll slow. Ugh. I'll give this a shot.
stedman 6y ago
this extension has helped me save a ton of time on distracting websites -- particularly Hacker News I also love DK's other extention, hidefeed.com, which I use for sites like LinkedIn where i need to go to do work, but don't want to get sucked into the newsfeed.
akcreek 6y ago
This looks really interesting. I've found the best way for me to stay focused is to just block sites via my /etc/hosts file. I'll unblock it when I'm done working and then block again at the end of the day so I'm ready to go in the morning. If I mindlessly type youtube.com in and hit a error I immediately realize I did that mindlessly and get back to work. I've been doing this for a while and it has worked every time.
wken 6y ago
Thank you. Great user experience. Very well done.
grompotr0n 6y ago
Just installed it to try it out. Really liked your setup process: clean, informative and fast.
mscavnicky 6y ago
Here's a similar one that I build few years back. It forces you to wait specified number of seconds before visiting a website. That way you break the dopamine cycle. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/waitblock/kcnjfeppclpdinikcljfjigoongebpkh?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/waitblock/kcnjfepp...
- mattigames 6y ago
  breaking the dopamine cycle requires a bigger effort because it must include phone browsing and notifications, there is a good video about it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiE-M1LrZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiE-M1LrZk
  - mscavnicky 6y ago
    Thanks for the link. Turning off notifications and using greyscale mode certainly helps as well.
fredifrum 6y ago
To the author: this is AWESOME. I find myself caught in the y/t/f <enter> loop all the time. I use a site blocker, but if I do want to visit a site, I end up turning off the blocker and forgetting to re-enable it. This seems like much a better solution that allows me access to the sites I need, but ensures I don't get lost in them, and tracks my usage. I am seriously so pumped about this, funny that I needed to visit one of my blacklist sites (hacker news) in order to find this. Please keep us posted with updates (settings page of the app?), if I continue to use this I'd be happy to pay for it in the future. One thing I'd love to be able to do right now is whitelist certain times in the middle of the day. For example, lunch. Punching in 30 mins on a site is an easy fix, but it'd be nice if that were built in.
- dkthehuman 6y ago
  Thanks so much! There's an in-product mechanism that shows messages on major updates, but I might create a mailing list / Slack channel for a more dedicate space for feedback and updates. If I do, it'll add it to the next in-product message. Once I get through the incoming bugs, I'll spend some time thinking about what options to provide in Intention while making sure that the product stays simple. Appreciate the kind words!
hkdobrev 6y ago
This is awesome! I would also pay for this after I've seen the privacy-aware and clear onboarding! Feature request: "Focus mode" Ability to start a focus session for 30m, 1h, 2h etc. in addition to having the schedule. E.g. by default my schedule allows browsing reddit on the weekend, but if I need to get something done on Sunday I can get click the focus button. Or disable schedule and use it only in focus sessions. For now I can only either change the schedule constantly or disable/enable the extension. A simple "Focus" button would solve those 2 cases. The focus mode could even countdown the focus time with a different colour. This would replace RescueTime for me and I've been a paid user for years.
- dkthehuman 6y ago
  Hey, I'd like to understand your request a bit better. Would the focus mode block all distracting sites for that period or simply activate Intention during a period that's normally disabled via the schedule?
  - hkdobrev 6y ago
    I meant the latter - override the schedule on demand. E.g. if my schedule is 9-6 Mon-Fri, but I want to get focused sometimes when doing a weekend project, I can just click the focus button.
TheApexTheater 6y ago
Good job on helping to curb mindless browsing! On this topic, another add-on I have found to be fairly helpful is called "Pluckeye" [1]. At its base level, it simply blocks all images and video from your browser. You can customize it by adding/removing websites from the blacklist, and is fairly robust to occasional cravings by having a delay on changes to the blacklist that allow a website. The only downside is that most websites now look broken, but I've found that I don't really miss being bombarded by the colorful graphics on websites. I think there is significant work to be done on making these tools more widely known, but I'm happy with the progress being made. Good job, again! [1]: https://www.pluckeye.net/ https://www.pluckeye.net/
- anthk 6y ago
  Or just use Links.
jmondi 6y ago
Thank you for releasing a Firefox version along side the chrome extension.
- dkthehuman 6y ago
  No problem! I personally use Chrome as my primary browser for various reasons, but I love Mozilla's mission to create an Internet that puts people before profits. Happy to support my privacy-forward users. :)
  - graham_paul 6y ago
    Respect for that
anthk 6y ago
Just switch to Gopher :)
Neff 6y ago
This is really great! I love the implementation and the idea of having you actively chose to do something you feel is unproductive. One thing that would be nice to see would be a way to track the referring site - for HN or Reddit it would be easy to go in for a minute, open a ton of tabs, then waste hours. Having the tabs count against the timer for the originating site would help
ollo 6y ago
I've been using something similar but at the router level using DNS, so that it works on all devices and it is not easily circumvented. Reclaiming that wasted time is pretty nice.
MAGZine 6y ago
This is good. A different approach would be to implement hackernew's noprocrast filters, which I quite like. It's nice to have something meter your usage with gaps rather than allowing you to frequently visit the site and prevent you from meaningfully engaging with something else (and instead revisit the site every 10 minutes for 1 minute).
hillgam 6y ago
Awesome! I loved! It is exactly what I was looking for in this quarantine period!
kristofferR 6y ago
I hope you can get browser syncing implemented soon, without it I don't really have control of how (un)productive I've been.
LUFT 6y ago
But mindless browsing is how I found this post
rgomez 6y ago
I've developed an easy to follow method to stop procrastinating in time "black-hole" sites, like social networks, etc... I've observed that the problem in my case is having the possibility of accessing my account at those sites immediately, as soon as I get bored doing any repetitive task at work, or I have an idea about something I could post in a social network, etc... So the easiest way for me to avoid that is to use a long, very-hard-to-remember password there, write it down in a notepad, and never save the login info in the browser. Bonus measure, you could leave the notepad outside home (in the car f.e.)... that way, losing time procastinating requires actually more effort for me than just stand up for a little and then return to work. The point is never allow that to be an easy option, an easy way to escape from responsibilities... Installed "walls" via browser extensions etc never really worked for me, as in the end I just disable them if I feel that's bothering me. PS. Also of course, avoid to save the cookie session once you close the browser in "dangerous" sites...
- grenoire 6y ago
  Memorised a 14 character (incl. punctuation) password after attempting that, and really didn't take me long, unfortunately.
  - rgomez 6y ago
    Go for 64 characters then, if possible :-)
geza 6y ago
This is quite similar to HabitLab https://habitlab.stanford.edu/ https://habitlab.stanford.edu/ which also includes a number of other options (such as pausing videos on youtube before playing them, hiding comments and news feeds on Facebook, etc). [Disclaimer: I built HabitLab]
dbasner 6y ago
I love this idea and just installed it. However it falls into a similar problem I have found myself in with iphone's screen time. On my iphone I have found myself mindlessly clicking the "add 15 minutes" of screen time and typing in my 4 digit code so often that it is now just muscle memory to do so. Yes, I have no self control. Could you add a feature so you have to type in a pin to continue BUT the number pad is in a random order, to break up muscle memory? Or randomly re-arrange the add 1,5,15 min buttons? Or a math problem?
- tekkk 6y ago
  I myself have tried these types of apps before which sometimes might help, but often I face the same problem as you, when my behaviour devolves to disabling the add-on and doing whatever I want. Now what I have practised is being mindful of my actions, and treat the time when I work, study as time without youtube videos, without writing long HN posts and so on. It's a lot harder than having some app to ping you to stop browsing. But I think it's what works better in the long run. You choose the time when you work, say a couple of hours, then take a break. No mindless browsing in between. Or well actually what has worked best for me is to have no mindless browsing at all during the best part of the day, since the feedback loop is too strong when you get accustomed to looking "just one more video". But I'm curious to try this out. We'll see. But I'm sceptical.
- rohitb91 6y ago
  Yep, same problem here
- service_bus 6y ago
  I think the math problem could help, but you also need to ask yourself if you're just going to keep bypassing it anyway.. in which case software is unlikely to help much. For you I would recommend the book: The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. (audiobook is also well narrated) It's well written and full of great methods for gaining your self control back.
- lain_ 6y ago
  I, too, had that problem, but pins and random math problems aren't so good. What works for me is taking a random piece of text, converting it into binary and using that as the challenge text (to retype). Typing so many 0s and 1s would require a lot of focus - I'd never dare even try changing the configs.
WheelsAtLarge 6y ago
Great Job. I like the simplicity. As time passes you'll be tempted to add features. Be very selective, it's better not to add a feature than to add complexity without real benefits.
- dkthehuman 6y ago
  Thanks for the fantastic advice. Keeping things simple is one of my core product principles, and I intend to be quite careful in what I add. I think it's much better to do a few things extremely well rather than many things somewhat okay.
zeouter 6y ago
Yay Firefox version! Will definitely give this a go.
arikrak 6y ago
Looks nice! How does it compare to LeechBlock?
softwaredoug 6y ago
Pretty cool! Recently I blogged how I make my twitter password really hard to recover through heavy, repeated hashing, which has helped mindless social media browsing https://softwaredoug.com/2020/04/05/kill-your-twitter-addiction.html https://softwaredoug.com/2020/04/05/kill-your-twitter-addict...
enricozb 6y ago
I use Youtube for music, so I usually have a tab open for prolonged time. However, I also waste some time on Youtube by randomly opening a tab. Is there any way you plan on handling this use case?
- dkthehuman 6y ago
  Already handled! See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22940299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22940299
mishftw 6y ago
I found this really useful. Oddly enough I have been using Habit Labs and it's more feature rich but I like this interface - it's clean and in my face.
intrepidhero 6y ago
This is great. Definitely the most thoughtful of these kinds of plugins. I downloaded it and my afternoon was more productive for it. I think that it forces me to take a moment to stop and answer the question, "Do you really want to spend time on this?" before continuing is going to be quite powerful. Thanks!
BoysenberryPi 6y ago
I will definitely give this a try. Also found the shout out to Peaceful Cuisine on your homepage amusing given that I have lost hours of time watching that channel.
foobarbecue 6y ago
This is great. I wanted to give it 5 stars on the Chrome app store, but apparently I can't due to COVID-19: "Due to adjusted work schedules at this time, we are pausing the ability to post reviews on the Chrome Web Store. Our primary objective is to help ensure the Chrome Web Store continues to be stable, secure, and works reliably for anyone who depends on it."
- dkthehuman 6y ago
  Yeah, that's a bummer, but thanks for trying!
- nanowhiz 6y ago
  Yes. This is damn weird. I am not able to promote my chrome extension because it will decrease the chance to get reviewed. :( Is there any announcement about when it will get lifted?
BaitBlock 6y ago
Shameless plug: I've a similar chrome extension called Baitblock (https://baitblock.app https://baitblock.app) - It even offers you summaries of links before you click them where available. - Blocks cookie notices. - Hides Facebook/YouTube feed. - 1st party tracking resistance (deletes cookies on every page load for websites that you're not signed in to) - Website blocking The upcoming version even has in page reader mode so you dont leave the page (video in tweet): https://twitter.com/BaitblockApp/status/1252623683266494464 https://twitter.com/BaitblockApp/status/1252623683266494464 https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/baitblock-distraction-blo/gabkpiepfabknggoijbdfhbidkcnlikl https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/baitblock-distract... - for chrome https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/baitblock https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/baitblock - for firefox
zackproser 6y ago
Loving this. Great work!
Maketsuki 6y ago
Tried it and really liked it! Thank you!
pasha_golub 6y ago
Found a hack. Move focus to another window. Then timer stopped, but you can still use mouse wheel ;-)
hncensorsnonpc 6y ago
I am absolutely hopeless YouTube addict. The first review says you can set breaks compared to other blockers. I have Leechblock setup in a way with dynamic "breaks" I give myself 1,5 hours on YouTube and other blocked sites every 4 hours. Problem is I cheat myself by using the "overwrite feature to give me another 9 minutes again and again. I caught myself just switching to another browser its really really bad. How could this be different?

519 points by dkthehuman 6y ago

There are 478 upvotes to this post and yet after 1 day, there are only 535 users of this extension after 1 day (16:40EST on Apr-22).

dkthehuman 6y ago
The Chrome Web Store has a delay of about 1 day. I posted the latest stats on my journal entry today: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-108-HN-Aftermath-d9e8241640cf445e95c0d2dd8ffcb5c2 https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-108-HN-Aftermath-d9e824...

yaooo 6y ago

huh this seems very similar to https://browsewithintent.com/ https://browsewithintent.com/ which has been around for a while?

bwb 6y ago

Love this!! Been using it for a few days now :)

dkthehuman 6y ago

Hey HN, I've been working on a Chrome/Firefox extension called Intention to help me stay focused and not get distracted, and for me and my friends, we've found it more effective than other tools we've tried. The idea behind it is extremely simple: Commit to a time limit before using a distracting site. This prevents the two most common ways that we get sucked into distractions online: 1. Habitual navigation: Throughout the day, we reflexively type t/f/r <enter> and immediately start scrolling through Twitter / Facebook / Reddit / etc. Intention stops you before you start browsing and gives you the opportunity to decide not to get sucked in. 2. Mindless browsing: Our willpower is no match for the endless stream of personalized content optimized to keep our attention for as long as possible. Intention pauses your browsing after your intended time limit and restores your focus. You can set a daily limit to know how much time you've spent across all distracting sites, and for every day you stay under your limit, you'll grow your personal streak. I designed Intention with privacy as a core priority, and here's what that means: - Intention requests access only to the sites you select, not all sites. - Intention gives you full control over the data you share. - Your browsing history stays in your browser and is never transmitted. Intention is part of a suite of tools I'm developing to help people spend their time well, and I'd love to hear your feedback. DK P.S. If you'd like to read about the process behind developing Intention, I've been publicly writing a daily journal at https://roadtoramen.com https://roadtoramen.com

mattwad 6y ago
I really like this idea! The setup was also very easy too and honest about permissions (using Firefox). I 'enabled' Hacker News for 5 minutes so i could leave you a comment :) Next I need this for my phone.
- dkthehuman 6y ago
  Yay! Honored you'd spend part of your daily limit to leave me a comment. :) Intention actually works on Firefox for Android so you can use it on Android today! Planning to build something special for iOS (the OS limitations make it challenging) in the future.
  - el_benhameen 6y ago
    I don't have a lot to add here, but an upvote didn't seem like it fully expressed how much I like this. I really like this! If you do decide to make something for iOS, I would definitely pay a few bucks for it.
    - dkthehuman 6y ago
      Yay, thanks! Appreciate it. :)
- nougatbyte 6y ago
  You could try kiwi browser or Firefox mobile, they are compatible with some desktop extensions (not on iOS)
hjek 6y ago
> for every day you stay under your limit, you'll grow your personal streak. So this is using gamification to game gamification? Interesting. > immediately start scrolling through [...] Facebook There are some other interesting add-ons in this area. I'm a big fan of safebook[0]. > - Your browsing history stays in your browser and is never transmitted. That sentence worries me. If I told you "I haven't stolen anything from your living room," you'd probably start to think what other room I'd looted. [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/safebook/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/safebook/

dbieber 6y ago

This is fantastic :D! Thanks for building this. As a feature request, I would love to be able to restrict my time spent on websites I arrive at _from_ e.g. HackerNews, not just _on_ HackerNews itself.

mattboulos 6y ago

This is just lovely. Clean, exactly what I need, and the on-boarding/privacy experience is best-in-class. Well done.

dkthehuman 6y ago
Thanks so much! I spent a ton of time making sure that it's as privacy-oriented as possible and asks for minimal permissions, unlike most extensions in this space that ask for permissions for all sites. It doesn't make sense that a tool to help with YouTube or Twitter should also have access to your banking site and emails. Glad you appreciate it. :)
vaer-k 6y ago
I agree, exceptionally well done. I very much appreciated the onboarding process, especially regarding privacy. I also very much appreciate the fact that it only monitors whitelisted sites, rather than just blanket tracking everything I do.

mattigames 6y ago

"Mindless browsing" is just dopamine addiction, happens with phone notifications, porn and many other stimulus, a good video about it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiE-M1LrZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiE-M1LrZk

seppin 6y ago
Thanks for this.
hinkley 6y ago
The advice I got is that you need to take a very hard look at what things in your life recharge you, and prioritize the ones that work well over the ones that are minor or neutral. Your initial list will contain a bunch of things that are really just playing for time. They don't recharge you, they just keep you still long enough for you to recuperate a little bit. One of my big ones is naps, but I'm still wrestling with the idea that going to sleep is an activity instead of the absence of (nearly) all activity.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

29athrowaway 6y ago

Stayfocusd does this as well.

j88439h84 6y ago
It only has daily limits, not session limits, right?
- 29athrowaway 6y ago
  I think so.

alirezainjast 6y ago

actually this is what i need. thank you

m_a_g 6y ago

You should look into Motion. https://www.inmotion.app/ https://www.inmotion.app/ It is very similar to your product.

dkthehuman 6y ago
Yup, I'm a fan of Motion, and I'm glad they're also trying to help people spend time well! It's a big problem to tackle, and given that we're up against multi-billion dollar corporations, we can use all the help we can get. Motion inspired parts of Intention's design (e.g. the default unlock duration in Intention used to be 5 minutes, but I liked how Motion defaulted to 1 minute so I changed it). Some key differences between Intention and Motion: Product - Intention lets you set a daily limit so that you're encouraged to limit your distracted browsing. - To calculate remaining time, Intention uses active time (time actually spent on a site), not clock time (time passed since you unlocked a site). - Intention displays its timer in the browser toolbar instead of directly on the page, which can block UI elements Privacy - Intention only requests access to the sites you select, not all sites. - Intention gives users full control over what data they share. Right now, Intention includes only crash reporting (no analytics or tracking), and you can disable even that inside the settings.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  Thank you very much! The privacy aspect was key for me, thanks for doing this right.

netsharc 6y ago

It looks cool, I wonder how easy it is to click away though. I notice I'm on reddit or Facebook less nowadays because the content there stopped interesting me. (Side note: Someone on reddit said the way to quit reddit is to unsubscribe from a lot of the default subreddits and subscribe to subreddits where the content don't interest you, so you would visit the whole site less and less). No one posts their personal updates on FB anymore, I visit FB to see the 2 city-related groups I live in, but the number of dumb posts/comments there make me just snigger, sigh, and leave again. My addictions nowadays are probably YouTube and this site. I've been thinking of making an extension that loads some elements of a site slower, or fail to load the elements (e.g. reddit's Ajax-based replies). That way I would be forced to refresh to view the content. I'm convinced the more it irritates me, the more I will avoid the sites with this active.

devmunchies 6y ago

these last 2 weeks me and my wife created a strict rule where we can't have any screens (laptops, phone, tablets) in a bedroom. now we don't browse while laying in bed in the morning or at night. this simple change cutdown on my addiction even when out of my bed room. When we go to our bedroom at night we know it means bed time, its a mental change. Also, at first you'll feel an urge to look at your phone at night, but it goes away.

imhoguy 6y ago
I think what contributes the most to that bad habit is dependency on alarm clock app in our smartphones. I need to finally buy two alarm clocks with snooze and weekly schedule.
- fernandotakai 6y ago
  i've been working from home for the past 10 years and for the past 10ish months i just stopped using an alarm clock. work is flexible enough that as long as i'm up before midday, i won't miss any meetings. it has been such a pleasure to wake up when my body tells me it's time to wake up! also, i found that after giving up alarm clocks, i'm waking up between 7:30~8am naturally which is perfect.
- nbardy 6y ago
  I bought an alarm clock last year and its been huge for my mental health/morning routine. Now my day starts exactly how I want it. No phone. Straight to exercise.
- oldtapwater 6y ago
  If you have an old dumb-phone without a sim-card you can use it as an alarm instead. For me it turned out to be cheaper and better!
  - imhoguy 6y ago
    Should uninstall any browsers too :)

NoiseAgent 6y ago

I can't seem to get it working in Firefox. I can click the icon in the top right but it just says I'm on a distracting site it does not launch the popup. Any configuration needed in Firefox?

wussboy 6y ago
I'm in the same boat. Doesn't seem to be doing anything.
dkthehuman 6y ago
Hm, this is a bit strange. It should work fine on Firefox, and a lot of other people on this thread seem to have no issues. Can you share what OS you're on and other extensions you have installed? Feel free to reply via email — my address is dk@getintention.com.
- wussboy 6y ago
  I tried on 75.0. I disabled all my extensions except yours and restarted. No luck.
  - dkthehuman 6y ago
    Can you email me at the address above? Would like to help you get this working and happy to jump on a Zoom call to debug the issue with you.
- wussboy 6y ago
  I think I got it sorted. I tried it on 6 different computers/laptops/VMs/Ubuntu/Windows and it never worked. Then I tried Chrome and after I clicked install I was presented with a picture of (I assume) you and a "Continue" button. I had never bothered to click on that before, always going straight to the extension button in the top right corner. However, if you don't press "Continue" it doesn't request the permission it needs to work. I don't know if this is possible, but it might make sense to check that tab permission again (for example, when the user tries to block a site). Hopefully that makes sense. Let me know if you need further clarification.

gintery 6y ago

Now my compulsive snoozing can continue even during daytime :)

greenie_beans 6y ago

this is the exact opposite, but did anybody here ever use stumbleupon?

tiborsaas 6y ago

Consider a setting to remove the icon from the toolbar. It's too easy to right click an uninstall it.

thomashobohm 6y ago

Love the interface!

arkanciscan 6y ago

This but an Android launcher

Neff 6y ago
There are some nice "minimal" launchers out there that restrict you to essentially a phone, camera, and messaging app. It adds a hurdle to accessing the apps that are easy to waste time in. While now 100% the same as this, I've found introducing some extra friction can go a long way in curbing unwanted behaviors
- arkanciscan 6y ago
  I'm looking for something that asks me what I want to do before letting me open any app on the phone. Then it could periodically ask if I have accomplished my goal. "You have been "reading hacker news" for 30 minutes, are you still "reading hacker news"? [No] [Yes- turns off phone]"

j88439h84 6y ago

Hey this looks really helpful! I appreciate your commitment to privacy, that's a very important feature for me. Nonetheless, having been burned by Chrome extensions in the past [1], I'm worried about privacy and I'm wondering if you'd be willing to make it open source to allay those concerns. [1] https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/02/stylish-browser-extension-steals-your-internet-history/ https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/02/stylish-browser-extensio...

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
You might be interested in a Chrome extension that allows you to view the source code of chrome extensions. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-extension-source-v/jifpbeccnghkjeaalbbjmodiffmgedin?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-extension-s...
- j88439h84 6y ago
  The packaged version is minified js, so it's not really readable.
warent 6y ago
One thing to that's good to know is that it's against Chrome store policy to make the extension code unreadable or inaccessible in any way. They will actually take it down from the store very quickly. I know this because I had a client once who wanted me to obfuscate their extension code and in about an hour it was taken down. So, if you install the extension, you can open up the source.
dkthehuman 6y ago
Hey! I totally get where you're coming from. I wrote a post exploring the privacy and security of Chrome extensions: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-4-The-Danger-of-Chrome-Extensions-af93b84006ed48c18b807f512b6c0a07 https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-4-The-Danger-of-Chrome-... I'd love to open source Intention like I've done with a ton of previous projects (http://github.com/dkthehuman/ http://github.com/dkthehuman/), but since it's a Chrome extension, that'd make it trivial for anyone to copy. Given that I'd like to eventually develop a paid plan and make working on this full-time financially sustainable, I hope you can understand why open sourcing doesn't seem like a viable option. I'm brainstorming ways to make the extension as transparent as possible (e.g. if I ever decide to include analytics, (1) providing an opt-out and (2) a way to view all the information that's transmitted in a human-readable way), but at the heart of it, using Intention will require some trust in my integrity and care as a developer. I'm also hoping that writing about my decision-making process publicly in my journal (https://roadtoramen.com https://roadtoramen.com) will provide transparency and help develop that trust. If you ever see me going astray or not thinking clearly, please keep me accountable! If it helps, here are some of the things I've written about privacy (I think about this quite a bit): - My privacy principles: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-97-Privacy-Principles-5ba3c280848e4697869b2c11d773cc92 https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-97-Privacy-Principles-5... - Privacy gut checks: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-86-Privacy-Gut-Checks-070419ee59ff46f5ac1f464f16cacd16 https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-86-Privacy-Gut-Checks-0... - Exploring whether I should include analytics: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-45-Should-I-include-analytics-13bdda9215284442bd1a0f29b82b57fb https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-45-Should-I-include-ana...

JansjoFromIkea 6y ago

Love the idea and the execution looks great too! I'm the kind of person who will just keep selecting to view a bit longer so it wouldn't work for me (I need more rigid restrictions on things like Freedom and actual physical locks) but I'm super happy to see new approaches to this kind of thing emerge.

batesy 6y ago

This looks great. I just signed up for Freedom to solve this problem because it works across devices. I'll test your extension as well to see if it does the job as effectively.

buschkowitz 6y ago

Thank you for making this! I was using StayFocusd until now. The look and feel of Intention feels so much fresher and easier to use. Also, having a lot more flexibility for blocking is a great feature. And of course privacy. Much appreciated.

c0delift 6y ago

This is really awesome. I really like how it has you, the user make the final call. I'm hoping long term use of this will make start to catch myself before I even type the url in. Thanks for making this extension!

psandersen 6y ago

This looks really good, I've been going down the rabbit hole of optimising focus and killing distractions... Is there any chance we could get it to make a rest API call on certain actions? I'd like to change my lights in home assistant as an added visual reinforcement.

glennvtx 6y ago

If i could request one thing, it would be the ability to block a site during the scheduled time outright, and / or add a challenge of typing some awful lorem ipsum or something to unlock it for a short time.

thehappypm 6y ago

This is awesome! My mindless browsing became so bad at one point that I made my own extension that I called "Detour". It automatically redirects you from one site to another, so if I absent-mindedly navigated to Reddit, it'd detour me to my homework to-do list. Never got around to really fleshing it out and building the types of features that would really make it useful like this. Kudos!

soledades 6y ago

Too early to say for sure, but this seems to strike the sweet spot as far as nudging me towards my 'intention' without being so onerous that I simply disable it. Thanks a bunch!

renewiltord 6y ago

I used to use Motion but it asks me to login and shit and then doesn't even bother syncing across browsers. Waste of time. And then it slows down web pages and sticks that annoying little box on the side. My user agent has a place for you, in the toolbar. Stop rendering on top of content and then making scroll slow. Ugh. I'll give this a shot.

stedman 6y ago

this extension has helped me save a ton of time on distracting websites -- particularly Hacker News I also love DK's other extention, hidefeed.com, which I use for sites like LinkedIn where i need to go to do work, but don't want to get sucked into the newsfeed.

akcreek 6y ago

This looks really interesting. I've found the best way for me to stay focused is to just block sites via my /etc/hosts file. I'll unblock it when I'm done working and then block again at the end of the day so I'm ready to go in the morning. If I mindlessly type youtube.com in and hit a error I immediately realize I did that mindlessly and get back to work. I've been doing this for a while and it has worked every time.

wken 6y ago

Thank you. Great user experience. Very well done.

grompotr0n 6y ago

Just installed it to try it out. Really liked your setup process: clean, informative and fast.

mscavnicky 6y ago

Here's a similar one that I build few years back. It forces you to wait specified number of seconds before visiting a website. That way you break the dopamine cycle. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/waitblock/kcnjfeppclpdinikcljfjigoongebpkh?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/waitblock/kcnjfepp...

mattigames 6y ago
breaking the dopamine cycle requires a bigger effort because it must include phone browsing and notifications, there is a good video about it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiE-M1LrZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiE-M1LrZk
- mscavnicky 6y ago
  Thanks for the link. Turning off notifications and using greyscale mode certainly helps as well.

fredifrum 6y ago

To the author: this is AWESOME. I find myself caught in the y/t/f <enter> loop all the time. I use a site blocker, but if I do want to visit a site, I end up turning off the blocker and forgetting to re-enable it. This seems like much a better solution that allows me access to the sites I need, but ensures I don't get lost in them, and tracks my usage. I am seriously so pumped about this, funny that I needed to visit one of my blacklist sites (hacker news) in order to find this. Please keep us posted with updates (settings page of the app?), if I continue to use this I'd be happy to pay for it in the future. One thing I'd love to be able to do right now is whitelist certain times in the middle of the day. For example, lunch. Punching in 30 mins on a site is an easy fix, but it'd be nice if that were built in.

dkthehuman 6y ago
Thanks so much! There's an in-product mechanism that shows messages on major updates, but I might create a mailing list / Slack channel for a more dedicate space for feedback and updates. If I do, it'll add it to the next in-product message. Once I get through the incoming bugs, I'll spend some time thinking about what options to provide in Intention while making sure that the product stays simple. Appreciate the kind words!

hkdobrev 6y ago

This is awesome! I would also pay for this after I've seen the privacy-aware and clear onboarding! Feature request: "Focus mode" Ability to start a focus session for 30m, 1h, 2h etc. in addition to having the schedule. E.g. by default my schedule allows browsing reddit on the weekend, but if I need to get something done on Sunday I can get click the focus button. Or disable schedule and use it only in focus sessions. For now I can only either change the schedule constantly or disable/enable the extension. A simple "Focus" button would solve those 2 cases. The focus mode could even countdown the focus time with a different colour. This would replace RescueTime for me and I've been a paid user for years.

dkthehuman 6y ago
Hey, I'd like to understand your request a bit better. Would the focus mode block all distracting sites for that period or simply activate Intention during a period that's normally disabled via the schedule?
- hkdobrev 6y ago
  I meant the latter - override the schedule on demand. E.g. if my schedule is 9-6 Mon-Fri, but I want to get focused sometimes when doing a weekend project, I can just click the focus button.

TheApexTheater 6y ago

Good job on helping to curb mindless browsing! On this topic, another add-on I have found to be fairly helpful is called "Pluckeye" [1]. At its base level, it simply blocks all images and video from your browser. You can customize it by adding/removing websites from the blacklist, and is fairly robust to occasional cravings by having a delay on changes to the blacklist that allow a website. The only downside is that most websites now look broken, but I've found that I don't really miss being bombarded by the colorful graphics on websites. I think there is significant work to be done on making these tools more widely known, but I'm happy with the progress being made. Good job, again! [1]: https://www.pluckeye.net/ https://www.pluckeye.net/

anthk 6y ago
Or just use Links.

jmondi 6y ago

Thank you for releasing a Firefox version along side the chrome extension.

dkthehuman 6y ago
No problem! I personally use Chrome as my primary browser for various reasons, but I love Mozilla's mission to create an Internet that puts people before profits. Happy to support my privacy-forward users. :)
- graham_paul 6y ago
  Respect for that

anthk 6y ago

Just switch to Gopher :)

Neff 6y ago

This is really great! I love the implementation and the idea of having you actively chose to do something you feel is unproductive. One thing that would be nice to see would be a way to track the referring site - for HN or Reddit it would be easy to go in for a minute, open a ton of tabs, then waste hours. Having the tabs count against the timer for the originating site would help

ollo 6y ago

I've been using something similar but at the router level using DNS, so that it works on all devices and it is not easily circumvented. Reclaiming that wasted time is pretty nice.

MAGZine 6y ago

This is good. A different approach would be to implement hackernew's noprocrast filters, which I quite like. It's nice to have something meter your usage with gaps rather than allowing you to frequently visit the site and prevent you from meaningfully engaging with something else (and instead revisit the site every 10 minutes for 1 minute).

hillgam 6y ago

Awesome! I loved! It is exactly what I was looking for in this quarantine period!

kristofferR 6y ago

I hope you can get browser syncing implemented soon, without it I don't really have control of how (un)productive I've been.

LUFT 6y ago

But mindless browsing is how I found this post

rgomez 6y ago

I've developed an easy to follow method to stop procrastinating in time "black-hole" sites, like social networks, etc... I've observed that the problem in my case is having the possibility of accessing my account at those sites immediately, as soon as I get bored doing any repetitive task at work, or I have an idea about something I could post in a social network, etc... So the easiest way for me to avoid that is to use a long, very-hard-to-remember password there, write it down in a notepad, and never save the login info in the browser. Bonus measure, you could leave the notepad outside home (in the car f.e.)... that way, losing time procastinating requires actually more effort for me than just stand up for a little and then return to work. The point is never allow that to be an easy option, an easy way to escape from responsibilities... Installed "walls" via browser extensions etc never really worked for me, as in the end I just disable them if I feel that's bothering me. PS. Also of course, avoid to save the cookie session once you close the browser in "dangerous" sites...

grenoire 6y ago
Memorised a 14 character (incl. punctuation) password after attempting that, and really didn't take me long, unfortunately.
- rgomez 6y ago
  Go for 64 characters then, if possible :-)

geza 6y ago

This is quite similar to HabitLab https://habitlab.stanford.edu/ https://habitlab.stanford.edu/ which also includes a number of other options (such as pausing videos on youtube before playing them, hiding comments and news feeds on Facebook, etc). [Disclaimer: I built HabitLab]

dbasner 6y ago

I love this idea and just installed it. However it falls into a similar problem I have found myself in with iphone's screen time. On my iphone I have found myself mindlessly clicking the "add 15 minutes" of screen time and typing in my 4 digit code so often that it is now just muscle memory to do so. Yes, I have no self control. Could you add a feature so you have to type in a pin to continue BUT the number pad is in a random order, to break up muscle memory? Or randomly re-arrange the add 1,5,15 min buttons? Or a math problem?

tekkk 6y ago
I myself have tried these types of apps before which sometimes might help, but often I face the same problem as you, when my behaviour devolves to disabling the add-on and doing whatever I want. Now what I have practised is being mindful of my actions, and treat the time when I work, study as time without youtube videos, without writing long HN posts and so on. It's a lot harder than having some app to ping you to stop browsing. But I think it's what works better in the long run. You choose the time when you work, say a couple of hours, then take a break. No mindless browsing in between. Or well actually what has worked best for me is to have no mindless browsing at all during the best part of the day, since the feedback loop is too strong when you get accustomed to looking "just one more video". But I'm curious to try this out. We'll see. But I'm sceptical.
rohitb91 6y ago
Yep, same problem here
service_bus 6y ago
I think the math problem could help, but you also need to ask yourself if you're just going to keep bypassing it anyway.. in which case software is unlikely to help much. For you I would recommend the book: The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. (audiobook is also well narrated) It's well written and full of great methods for gaining your self control back.
lain_ 6y ago
I, too, had that problem, but pins and random math problems aren't so good. What works for me is taking a random piece of text, converting it into binary and using that as the challenge text (to retype). Typing so many 0s and 1s would require a lot of focus - I'd never dare even try changing the configs.

WheelsAtLarge 6y ago

Great Job. I like the simplicity. As time passes you'll be tempted to add features. Be very selective, it's better not to add a feature than to add complexity without real benefits.

dkthehuman 6y ago
Thanks for the fantastic advice. Keeping things simple is one of my core product principles, and I intend to be quite careful in what I add. I think it's much better to do a few things extremely well rather than many things somewhat okay.

zeouter 6y ago

Yay Firefox version! Will definitely give this a go.

arikrak 6y ago

Looks nice! How does it compare to LeechBlock?

softwaredoug 6y ago

Pretty cool! Recently I blogged how I make my twitter password really hard to recover through heavy, repeated hashing, which has helped mindless social media browsing https://softwaredoug.com/2020/04/05/kill-your-twitter-addiction.html https://softwaredoug.com/2020/04/05/kill-your-twitter-addict...

enricozb 6y ago

I use Youtube for music, so I usually have a tab open for prolonged time. However, I also waste some time on Youtube by randomly opening a tab. Is there any way you plan on handling this use case?

dkthehuman 6y ago
Already handled! See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22940299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22940299

mishftw 6y ago

I found this really useful. Oddly enough I have been using Habit Labs and it's more feature rich but I like this interface - it's clean and in my face.

intrepidhero 6y ago

This is great. Definitely the most thoughtful of these kinds of plugins. I downloaded it and my afternoon was more productive for it. I think that it forces me to take a moment to stop and answer the question, "Do you really want to spend time on this?" before continuing is going to be quite powerful. Thanks!

BoysenberryPi 6y ago

I will definitely give this a try. Also found the shout out to Peaceful Cuisine on your homepage amusing given that I have lost hours of time watching that channel.

foobarbecue 6y ago

This is great. I wanted to give it 5 stars on the Chrome app store, but apparently I can't due to COVID-19: "Due to adjusted work schedules at this time, we are pausing the ability to post reviews on the Chrome Web Store. Our primary objective is to help ensure the Chrome Web Store continues to be stable, secure, and works reliably for anyone who depends on it."

dkthehuman 6y ago
Yeah, that's a bummer, but thanks for trying!
nanowhiz 6y ago
Yes. This is damn weird. I am not able to promote my chrome extension because it will decrease the chance to get reviewed. :( Is there any announcement about when it will get lifted?

BaitBlock 6y ago

Shameless plug: I've a similar chrome extension called Baitblock (https://baitblock.app https://baitblock.app) - It even offers you summaries of links before you click them where available. - Blocks cookie notices. - Hides Facebook/YouTube feed. - 1st party tracking resistance (deletes cookies on every page load for websites that you're not signed in to) - Website blocking The upcoming version even has in page reader mode so you dont leave the page (video in tweet): https://twitter.com/BaitblockApp/status/1252623683266494464 https://twitter.com/BaitblockApp/status/1252623683266494464 https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/baitblock-distraction-blo/gabkpiepfabknggoijbdfhbidkcnlikl https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/baitblock-distract... - for chrome https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/baitblock https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/baitblock - for firefox

zackproser 6y ago

Loving this. Great work!

Maketsuki 6y ago

Tried it and really liked it! Thank you!

pasha_golub 6y ago

Found a hack. Move focus to another window. Then timer stopped, but you can still use mouse wheel ;-)

hncensorsnonpc 6y ago

I am absolutely hopeless YouTube addict. The first review says you can set breaks compared to other blockers. I have Leechblock setup in a way with dynamic "breaks" I give myself 1,5 hours on YouTube and other blocked sites every 4 hours. Problem is I cheat myself by using the "overwrite feature to give me another 9 minutes again and again. I caught myself just switching to another browser its really really bad. How could this be different?