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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:
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.
Bonus Mentions (less useful, but still nice)
I’m also interested in hearing others’ experiences with these extensions or suggestions of other extensions for similar purposes.