WebBlock

A better website blocker for chrome

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How it Works

• In options page, add website urls you want to block (specifically, the website prefix, so include the https://www.)
• In the textarea, add a message you want to see when you visit a blocked website. This could be a motivational quote, a list of other things to do, or any HTML.
• Now, when you visit a blocked site, you will have to wait 2 minutes to access that site. You will also see the message you wrote in the textbox. After 2 minutes, the extension will start blocking again in 60 minutes.
  • 2 minutes and 60 minutes are defaults which are configurable in the options page
  • If you click away from the page, the tab will close
  • After the 60 minutes are up, all tabs on your blocked list will close

Why it Works

The idea is very simple: increase the "cost" of going to the websites that you block. By effectively forcing you to do nothing for 2 minutes (and with the prompts that you write for yourself), you start to think about what else you could be doing instead, and the prospect of doing those things becomes attractive compared to doing nothing for the next 2 minutes. If you click away to do something else, the blocked tab will close to help you focus. It reblocks in 60 minutes and closes all tabs that should be blocked so you never go on a blocked site "binge".

However, if you really do need to go on a blocked site, 2 minutes is not that long to wait, and you can use the textarea to remind yourself to stretch in that time.

Install

Develop

pnpm install
pnpm run dev

Now the ./dist/ folder can be used as an extension using Load Unpacked.

Build

pnpm install
pnpm run build

Now ./dist.zip is ready for publishing.