Useful Browser Extensions to waste less time distracted on the internet
In the spirit of giving practical advice (partly inspired to post by this), here are some browser extensions that I’ve found useful to nudge me to be more intentional with my time. I would expect the first two in particular to lessen the amount of time I waste by a combined 1-3[1] hours per week (though numbers here are shaky). However, of course, there are limits to how much extensions can do for you. All of these are/can be free
UnTrap for YouTube: This gives you a customizable YT interface where you can hide a bunch of distracting stuff. It has significant customizability, which is nice. I used to use Unhook instead, but I think UnTrap is better because of more features and more updates (when I quit Unhook a few months back, some features weren’t working). There are four features that I find especially valuable:
Redirect home page (what you find when you open youtube.com) to watch later page
In the past, I’d type youtube.com when I was bored and start watching something random. But now, I only see videos that I previously wanted myself to watch when I do this.
Hide next video recommendations on the sidebar
Add friction to go from video to video
Hide comments
YouTube comments tend to be pretty low-quality from my experience and I don’t think it’s good to have them in my head. I occasionally quickly re-enable comments which is pretty easy
Converting YouTube shorts to having a normal video player
The shorts player is very distracting by itself. If I use it for a while, I almost always feel overstimulated and that I didn’t get much.
Downside: The code for UnTrap does not seem publicly available so perhaps there are some security risks. On the other hand, it does seem like the permissions are quite restricted and it is reasonable popular, with >100k users. I’m not super familiar with browser extension risks, so if someone who knows more about the risks can quickly comment that’d be great.
LeechBlock to force yourself to pause and write some text before visiting distracting sites. You could use it to fully block sites, but I find that that’s less useful.
I really like Rob Miles’ setup from this videoand I copy most of his setup. If you haven’t seen the video, I highly recommend.
I used to use One Sec (and I didn’t realize LeechBlock didn’t force blocking), but LeechBlock has custom text that you can type which means you can use a good prompt[2]
The minor disagreement is that he prefers a longer prompt to force yourself to type, while I’m okay with a shorter prompt but one to remind yourself to pause
Bonus Mentions (less useful, but still nice)
uBlacklist to hide specific sites from showing up in browser results including both rage-inducing sites and distracting sites
It’s become less useful since I’ve started to use google less
DeArrow to also show user-generated titles for youtube videos and avoid clickbait
User-Generated titles are generally okay but not that great imo, so I set it to show the actual title by default but have a clickable button to show a user generated title
If you want it for free, it’s possible
I’m also interested in hearing others’ experiences with these extensions or suggestions of other extensions for similar purposes.
Useful Browser Extensions to waste less time distracted on the internet
In the spirit of giving practical advice (partly inspired to post by this), here are some browser extensions that I’ve found useful to nudge me to be more intentional with my time. I would expect the first two in particular to lessen the amount of time I waste by a combined 1-3[1] hours per week (though numbers here are shaky). However, of course, there are limits to how much extensions can do for you. All of these are/can be free
UnTrap for YouTube: This gives you a customizable YT interface where you can hide a bunch of distracting stuff. It has significant customizability, which is nice. I used to use Unhook instead, but I think UnTrap is better because of more features and more updates (when I quit Unhook a few months back, some features weren’t working). There are four features that I find especially valuable:
Redirect home page (what you find when you open youtube.com) to watch later page
In the past, I’d type youtube.com when I was bored and start watching something random. But now, I only see videos that I previously wanted myself to watch when I do this.
Hide next video recommendations on the sidebar
Add friction to go from video to video
Hide comments
YouTube comments tend to be pretty low-quality from my experience and I don’t think it’s good to have them in my head. I occasionally quickly re-enable comments which is pretty easy
Converting YouTube shorts to having a normal video player
The shorts player is very distracting by itself. If I use it for a while, I almost always feel overstimulated and that I didn’t get much.
Downside: The code for UnTrap does not seem publicly available so perhaps there are some security risks. On the other hand, it does seem like the permissions are quite restricted and it is reasonable popular, with >100k users. I’m not super familiar with browser extension risks, so if someone who knows more about the risks can quickly comment that’d be great.
LeechBlock to force yourself to pause and write some text before visiting distracting sites. You could use it to fully block sites, but I find that that’s less useful.
I really like Rob Miles’ setup from this video and I copy most of his setup. If you haven’t seen the video, I highly recommend.
I used to use One Sec (and I didn’t realize LeechBlock didn’t force blocking), but LeechBlock has custom text that you can type which means you can use a good prompt[2]
The minor disagreement is that he prefers a longer prompt to force yourself to type, while I’m okay with a shorter prompt but one to remind yourself to pause
Bonus Mentions (less useful, but still nice)
uBlacklist to hide specific sites from showing up in browser results including both rage-inducing sites and distracting sites
It’s become less useful since I’ve started to use google less
DeArrow to also show user-generated titles for youtube videos and avoid clickbait
User-Generated titles are generally okay but not that great imo, so I set it to show the actual title by default but have a clickable button to show a user generated title
If you want it for free, it’s possible
I’m also interested in hearing others’ experiences with these extensions or suggestions of other extensions for similar purposes.
50-150 hours per year!
Mine is “I have now said why I’m accessing this site. It is better than journalling now.”