Friction Gate

Interrupt mindless scrolling with a 10 second pause before distracting websites like Reddit, X, and YouTube.

You don't have a willpower problem. You have a muscle memory problem. Do you ever open a new tab just to quickly check something, and suddenly find yourself mindlessly scrolling for 30 minutes? You try to use website blockers, but a blocked site just turns into a negotiation with a settings page. And let's be honest, you always win that negotiation. Friction Gate takes a different approach. It inserts a deliberate 10 second pause before you reach the three biggest time sinks — Reddit, X, and YouTube. It interrupts your reflex and puts the choice back in your hands. ⚡ Key Features - A Pause, Not a Block: A 10 second cooling off period to break your doomscrolling reflex without making you feel guilty. - The Behavior Experiment: Half of users get a simple pause. The other half must type out why they want to visit the site. Which group will you be in? - 30 Minute Free Pass: Once you wait out the 10 seconds, you get 30 minutes of uninterrupted access to the site. - Zero Configuration: No schedules, no site lists, no streaks to maintain. Just install and let it work. 🔒 Privacy First Zero URL leakage. The exact pages, paths, or search queries you visit are never recorded or sent, and neither is anything you type into the pause screen. No accounts, no emails, no third party trackers. What is collected: a random anonymous ID, which of the two test groups you're in, the event type and time, which of the three sites it was, and — for the typing group — whether you typed, how many characters, and how long you took. Once a day it also reports how many times it stepped in. That data exists for one reason: to compare the two pause designs so the pause itself can be improved. Full detail in the privacy policy. ⚠️ Note Whether you get the simple 10 second pause or the typing challenge is decided by a completely random coin flip at install. Give it a try and see if a little friction can help you beat the algorithm!