Looks like an interesting extension, but unfortunately I would never install it given that "this add-on can access data for all your websites". As far as I am aware, this means it can read and record all data in all websites I visit (including emails, banks, etc) and record everything I type anywhere (including usernames and passwords).<p>Even if the extension's source code is available on GitHub, there is no guarantee that the code hosted at addons.mozilla.org corresponds to the same one found on GitHub; and even if I (or someone else) could verify that the code is indeed the same, and that there is nothing malicious in it right now, there is no guarantee this will still be the case in future (silent) updates.<p>To be clear, this is more of a criticism to Mozilla Firefox's security model, not to this particular extension.
The relevant post from a day ago: I Add 3-25 Seconds of Latency to Every Site I Visit.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22319383" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22319383</a>
Something I started messing around with: add a global stylesheet with the rule<p>body { filter: grayscale(100%); }<p>(only gotcha is position: fixed; elements breaking in Firefox?)<p>It feels a lot easier to focus on what I'm reading and to not be sucked in or distracted by websites. I bet psychologically color activates reward systems that may not be as healthy for digital content.<p>I actually liked it so much that I used accessibility options to make my entire computer and phone grayscale. So far it's great! Also has better performance than a CSS filter for stuff like video.
Love this idea. It would be interesting to see what different ways (AI) you could predict that a site is distracting based on personal and wide-spread usage habits. Some advanced method that doesn't require a user generated whitelist would be the next level for this.
This and the post yesterday about adding latency to websites reaffirms an idea I've been thinking about lately - adding friction back into digital processes helps break some of the addictive power they have.<p>Imagine if you had to use a printer to print out your facebook feed when you wanted to see it. Then, in order to interact, you had to write on that paper the comments, likes, etc. that you wanted to transmit and scan it back into the system. That mode of interaction seems "primitive" compared to the way we use things on our phones, but I think carries with it a lot of nice advantages like introducing time buffers for your mind to catch up to your impulses.
There is also Leechblock which contains the same functionality along with blocking and some in-depth config. But this may be a cool solution for someone who only cares about the latency part.
This is really nice!<p>It would be nice (from my experience) to make the delay variable - - this stops people "Learning" ways of avoiding the always fixed length delay.
This sort of thing has never worked for me. It's like the snooze button on an alarm clock; instead of hitting this relatively large button, even my half-asleep brain will precisely locate the off switch every single time.<p>I've found greater success in just observing my impulses. While I'm working, I might get a desire to type the "hn" keyword into my URL bar (guess where it goes). But because I've noticed this before it happened, I can choose to not do it. If I find myself "idling" on such distractions without realizing, then that means it's time to do something else. Get back to work. Take a break and relax. Get off the screen entirely. Anything else, just don't idle. This seems to get easier with practice.
Another pro tip for managing distractions: use uBlock Origin to block distracting elements on web pages. Ever since I removed the comments section, the recommended videos, and the home button on YouTube I have felt much more in control of my browsing habits there.
The best extension to do this is to run NoScript in temp whitelist only mode. Every time you visit a crappy website with lots of JS domains that load JS domains that load JS domains you'll have to spend 20 seconds load and reloading the page till you get it to work. If at all. It thoroughly discourages visiting these bad websites.<p>But good websites (ie, not web apps) will load instantly and unimpeaded. And as a side effect you're protected from most browser exploits since the vast majority require executing JS.
Easily disabled if you find it annoying. And if you're self disciplined enough to not turn it off, surely you're self disciplined enough to curb your browsing habits?
Big fan of adding friction to my electronic devices. I have a bunch of Firefox extensions to grey scale, automatically block images and videos, and add a 30 second delay timer for districting websites.<p>I use the poorly named extension Monastery for the delay timer.<p><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/monastery/?src=search" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/monastery/?sr...</a>
When I want to get stuff done, I just "block" sites in my hosts file, by pointing them to localhost. I even wrote a small bash utility [1] for that, so it's easy to undo changes in /etc/hosts<p><a href="https://github.com/smnplk/hosta" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/smnplk/hosta</a> [1]
Brilliant! As far as I know, this idea was first proposed by Randall Munroe in the hovertext of <a href="https://xkcd.com/862/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/862/</a> (2011-02-18):<p>"After years of trying various methods, I broke this habit by pitting my impatience against my laziness. I decoupled the action and the neurological reward by setting up a simple 30-second delay I had to wait through, in which I couldn't do anything else, before any new page or chat client would load (and only allowed one to run at once). The urge to check all those sites magically vanished -- and my 'productive' computer use was unaffected."
Would it be possible to make an extension that simply makes everything on a given domain load slowly? I would find that more effective, because I wouldn't be constantly reminded of the arbitrariness of the delay.
<a href="https://selfcontrolapp.com/" rel="nofollow">https://selfcontrolapp.com/</a> on Mac just blocks sites outright. Supports black- and white-listing.
Should have called it self-punishment, or something.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellation" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellation</a>