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Show HN: Scream to Unlock – Blocks social media until you scream “I'm a loser”

237 points madinmo | 1 comments | 25 Jun 25 10:49 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

Hi all,

I kept wasting time on social media, even though I’d promised myself I’d stay focused. Regular site blockers didn’t help.

I needed something that felt annoying enough to break the habit. That’s how the idea came up: make the blocker ask me to say something embarrassing out loud before it lets me back in. If I actually have to yell “I’m a loser” into my mic. Even better - the louder I screamed, the more time I’d get.

So I put together Scream to Unlock. It’s silly, but so far it’s done its job. My social feeds stay locked unless I really want them.

Extension link - https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/scream-to-unlock-ye...

Its open source and transparent - https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/scream-to-unlock. No data collection or tracking, Audio processing happens locally in your browser. No recordings saved or transmitted.

Show context
snickerdoodle12 ◴[25 Jun 25 13:08 UTC] No.44376893[source]▶
Can't you just uninstall the extension?
replies(2): >>44377081 #>>44377823 #
ndarray ◴[25 Jun 25 14:35 UTC] No.44377823[source]▶
That's the problem with habit blocking extensions. A theoretical workaround would be to create two extensions - only make them work when both are installed and when one notices that the other got disabled, it does something like deleting your login credentials, or some form of reversible but very annoying punishment.
replies(1): >>44378006 #
1. netsharc ◴[25 Jun 25 14:49 UTC] No.44378006[source]▶
There's such a URL-blocking extension, that cam be programmed to block the chrome://extensions URL...