Browser Bits
Focus Guard icon

Focus Guard

Block distracting sites with "Why are you here?" prompt. Reduce YouTube, X, Reddit, Instagram use — digital detox, 100% local.

Users
3
Works on
Chrome
Version
3.0.2
Add to Chrome

You went to check one thing, and forty minutes of feed later you cannot remember what it was. This puts a full-screen question in the way first — "Why are you here?" — and you either type an answer or go back where you came from.

Focus Guard — block distracting sites with a mindful "Why are you here?" prompt. Before you open YouTube, X (Twitter), Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, a full-screen overlay asks for your purpose. No purpose? Go back. Have one? Continue after a short countdown. 100% local, no tracking — nothing ever leaves your browser.

Stop mindless scrolling. Focus Guard helps you break social media addiction and build intentional browsing habits by inserting a pause — one question — before every distracting site visit. A simple digital detox tool that works in the moment of temptation, not as a rigid blocker you'll just disable.

Screenshots

What it does

  • Full-screen "Why are you here?" prompt on distracting websites

  • 6 popular social media and video sites monitored by default (YouTube, X/Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok)

  • Add any custom site you want to monitor or block

  • Daily stats: see how many times you turned back vs continued

  • Toggle individual sites on/off from the popup

  • Clean, minimal overlay that works on any site

  • Private by design

    zero data collection, no accounts, 100% local processing

  • People trying to reduce social media use and stop mindless scrolling

  • Students preparing for exams who need fewer distractions

  • Remote workers, developers, and designers fighting focus loss during deep work

  • Anyone building better digital habits

    digital minimalism, dopamine detox, mindful browsing

  • Users who found blockers like Cold Turkey, Freedom, StayFocusd, or LeechBlock too strict and want a gentler nudge instead

When you'd reach for it

  • The quick check that eats an hour

    You open YouTube for one video and surface much later. With that domain ticked in the popup, the page is covered by a prompt naming the site you are about to visit and asking for your purpose. Answering takes three seconds, and the pause is usually enough to notice you did not have a reason.

  • Study blocks and deep work

    Set the re-ask interval to five minutes, or to "Until tab closes", so a single answer does not buy you the rest of the afternoon. The popup counts how many times you turned back and how many times you continued today, and both numbers reset at midnight. When the session is over, flip the master toggle off.

  • Time sinks that are not social media

    Your distraction might be a shopping site, a news homepage, or one specific forum. Type the domain into the Custom Sites field in the popup and it is guarded from that moment, with an X next to it to remove it later. Each site keeps its own on/off checkbox, so you can guard one and leave the rest alone.

Permissions & privacy

Single purpose

Focus Guard displays a full-screen prompt asking "Why are you here?" when the user visits distracting websites such as YouTube, X (Twitter), Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. The extension helps users browse with intention and reduce mindless scrolling by requiring them to state a purpose before accessing these sites. No data leaves the browser.

storageFocus Guard uses the storage permission to save user preferences locally via chrome.storage, including which sites are enabled/disabled, custom sites added by the user, and daily statistics (number of times turned back vs continued). No personal data or page content is stored. Nothing is synced externally or sent to any server.
webNavigationFocus Guard uses the webNavigation permission to reliably detect when a user navigates to a monitored distracting site (YouTube, X/Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or user-added custom sites). Many of these sites are single-page applications that change URL via the History API without a full page reload (e.g., moving from the YouTube homepage to a video, or between Reddit posts), so a simple content-script page-load check is not enough. Listening to webNavigation events allows the extension to show the "Why are you here?" prompt at the exact moment the user arrives on a distracting page, regardless of whether the navigation was a hard reload or an in-app transition. No navigation history is stored or transmitted.
tabsFocus Guard uses the tabs permission to read the URL of the currently active tab so it can determine whether that tab is on a monitored distracting site and decide whether to inject the full-screen "Why are you here?" prompt. It is also used to detect when the user switches between tabs (for example, jumping from a work tab back to an open YouTube tab), so the prompt can be shown again if the user has been away long enough that the previous "purpose" should expire. Only URL and active-tab change events are used — no tab contents, form data, or browsing history is collected, stored, or transmitted.
<all_urls>Focus Guard uses host permissions for the monitored social media and video sites (YouTube, X/Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok) in its content_scripts. This is required because the extension must run on these sites to display the "Why are you here?" full-screen prompt before the user accesses them. The content script does not read or modify page content beyond showing the overlay — it does not collect URLs, read page text, or transmit any data externally. If the user adds custom monitored sites, broader host access may be requested accordingly.

It runs only the code shipped inside the package — no remote code is fetched.

Questions people ask

How do I block distracting websites in Chrome?

Open the popup and tick the sites you want guarded. YouTube, X (Twitter), Reddit, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are listed for you but start switched off, so nothing is interrupted until you choose it. Any other domain can be added by typing it into the Custom Sites box, and typing twitter.com is treated as x.com.

Can I still get to the site when I actually need it?

Yes. Type your purpose into the prompt and press Continue, wait out a two-second countdown, and the overlay disappears. The Continue button stays disabled while the field is empty, so you have to write something. Press Go back instead and the tab returns to the previous page, or closes if that tab has nothing to go back to.

How often does it ask again?

That is the "Re-ask after" setting in the popup: 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes, or until the tab closes. Once you continue, that site stops asking in that tab until the interval runs out. Opening the same site in a different tab starts a fresh ask.

Does it still appear when I click from video to video on YouTube?

Yes, once the interval has expired. Sites like YouTube and Reddit swap pages without a full reload, so the extension watches for in-site navigation and re-checks at that moment rather than only on page load. That is what the webNavigation permission is for.

What permissions does it declare, and what is each one for?

The manifest declares storage, webNavigation and tabs, plus host access to all http and https sites. Storage holds your preferences in chrome.storage.local: which of the built-in sites are switched on, the custom domains you added, the re-ask interval, and today's two counters. WebNavigation catches arrivals on sites that change URL through the History API without a full reload, which is how the prompt still appears when you move from the YouTube homepage into a video. Tabs supplies the active tab's address so the extension can tell whether that tab is on a guarded site, notices when you switch tabs back to one, and lets the tab be closed when Go back has nowhere to return to. Host access is broad because the overlay is drawn by a content script that has to be able to run on whatever domain you add to the list.

Related extensions

More in: Productivity