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

getintention.com

11–20 of 143 posts

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

#12

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

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.

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

#14
post #2

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: Througho…

I really like this property:

> Intention requests access only to the sites you select, not all sites.

Very few add-ons implement it (talking about Firefox) but it makes the add-on much more trustworthy.

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

#17
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.

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

#18
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.

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

#20
post #2

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: Througho…

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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