Reviews & Comments of StayFocusd - Block Distracting Websites chrome extension

This used to be a great extension but it was just acquired by a web data mining company and they are hoovering up your info. The most egregious section in their new required terms was seeking to control what users do online through the "code of conduct". Not that I intend to cause any harm online but a simple web extension whose purpose was to set time limits on certain URLs should not have any influence/control over users behavior and use of the internet. I recommend that everyone remove this extension ASAP! See below excerpt from the new required terms of service. You agree that you will not, under any circumstances: - Post any information, content or other material (or post links to any information or content) that contains nudity, excessive violence or is abusive, threatening, obscene, defamatory, libelous, or racially, sexually, religiously offensive or otherwise objectionable. - Engage in ongoing toxic behavior, such as repeatedly posting information on an unsolicited basis. - Attempt to, or harass, abuse, or harm, or advocate or incite harassment, abuse, or harm of another person, group, including Sensor Tower employees, directors, officers, and customer service representatives.

It is now part of the "Sensor Tower Family", the only problem being Sensor Tower is not a family, but A MAJOR WEB/MOBILE CONSUMER USAGE DATA COLLECTOR. This little extension that i've been using for almost ten years just got upgraded from being a must-have addition to Chrome, to something that no one in its right mind should ever touch. REMOVE NOW, AND DO NOT INSTALL.

Used to like this but lately has been opening up an advertising tab every time I open a new tab. Making me close a tab I didn't even want to open every time I need to open a new window is not going to help my productivity.

Disappointed This extension was one of the few website blockers out there that I trusted not to collect my personal data, but now it seems that even that trust was misplaced. While the extension itself still works as advertised, the fact that it has been purchased by a company that specializes in data collection is highly concerning. It feels like a betrayal of trust to the users who relied on this extension because of its privacy policy. To be fair, the company has been transparent about their intentions to collect user data through the extension, and there is an option to opt out, but it still feels misleading, and I am sure their policy will only collect more data as time goes on... Thanks for the time saved, but I have to part with this extension.

I wish I didn't need it, but I'm glad I have it!

Apparently the app has been bought by Sensor Tower with no previous knowledge or notification except clicking "accept" with the new Terms of Service. Very deceptive with no news items about it on either StayFocusd website or Sensor Tower's website.

This is still a great extension but is this extension under new management? Because the original developer doesn't seem to respond to reviewers anymore. Anyways, I hope they still keep the momentum going because it is the best site-blocking extension!

What an amazing extension! It works so well, and does everything I need it do. I love the messages that pop up if you try to extend your time, and how it redirects you to the CalPoly page afterwards. I thought that was hilarious.

You guys are THE BEST!!!

The issue with a stayfocusd ad popping up every new tab has been resolved. Love the app. Lots of options to lock down the browser in a way that works for you. Not foolproof, but enough friction to help kick websites.

Extension is good, but a couple of days ago it started to open "onboarding" site with every new tab. Hope to find the solution. PS: Devs fixed the issue, StayFocusd is great again. :)

Keep your Facebook time to a minimum and chill out. A great way to stay focused is to "StayFocused".

The app keeps opening up a new tab everytime I try to open a new tab

I've been using this app for a while and have loved it. However this new update has a bug, where every time you open a new tab, an additional stayfocused popup add opens up with it. Hope you guys can update this and I'll update my rating back to 5/5 once you do.

Since the last update, everytime I open a new tab, another tab with stayfocused opens automtaically and its very annoying and disruptive. Please fix it soon!

Unusable since the update as the stayfocusd ad page pops up EVERY time I open a new tab -- I have tried to disable this but that doesn't seem to be an option. It was really helpful before this update/merger.

t got acquired, now you have to agree to their new owners to collect information about your browsing, for who knows what (marketing!). You can't even refuse, you can only tell them "Maybe later.". Luckily the uninstall isn't a "Maybe" but permanent.

I love this extension. It does exactly what it says it does, with humour. Great stuff.

I'm giving this extension 4 stars for now. So far it seems very effective, but there does seem to be a problem with the Settings values resetting to the default values once a day. I'm assuming they are resetting at the Daily Reset time. I'm using a stock Chrome browser with Malwarebytes Web Protection enabled.

I have been using the extension recently and I like the idea round it but it does have some drawbacks and flaws. Firstly the setting of times doesn't work. By default the limit is ten minutes and even though it gives me the option to change it never actually updates and goes back to 10. Secondly I would like to see an implementation of having a time set specific to certain websites. Overall it's ok but lacks functionality and has a couple bugs.

This is the best extension and most useful extension I have found on the chrome webstore. Also, I approve of their sense of humor.

If you're using MS Edge you may want to check out the ExtensionForceInstall policy so you won't be able to uninstall the extension. Just try not to remember the steps to implement the policy. :D

Really helping me stay away from distractions and get my work done!!

I just wish it had an hourly limit, e.g. 5 minutes an hour allowed for specific websites.

Love it!

A great extension! definitely helpful to boost productivity. The nuclear option helps, I keep "chrome://extensions" in blocked sites, hence after I nuke 'em I can in fact potentially not access it, really helpful, thank you for this. :D

Loved it. The nuke feature is too good.

Great extension and does the job. Just a few ideas on how to improve it: a feature that stops me from removing the extension from my browser after my time has run out would greatly help those who feel like procrastinating.

very useful and effective

nuke em feature is mindblowing

Great extension for focused work, but recent change made it so that I lose the page that got blocked. Please change it back so that I can go "Back" to the page after the focus session is over.

Works well enough, but I wish it didn't clobber the URLs of the sites that it blocks. For example, if I am reading a post on reddit and my time runs out, I'd like to return to that post tomorrow easily. Is there any way this feature can be added? Will adjust to 5 stars if so. EDIT: I even have an implementation suggestion: add it to the URI as a ?redirect= param.

Can't say thankyou enough for creating this. Easy to use and love the personal touch to notifications. It shows you understand my dilemma perfectly.

Amazing

Lifesaver for ADHD minds. Exactly what I needed. Thankyou for sharing

Me after installing this extension My productivity: (Giga Chad music intensifies)

I have a problem with this extension. I want to block access to my instagram feed but not block the instagram direct messages. Unfortunately, this seems impossible because the direct messages have the same url with instagram feed with some words added, therefore i can only do the opposite. (block the direct messages without blocking the instagram feed). Can this be solved? If it can i will 5 star this app because it has been really useful to me.

Thank you for this awesome extension. Helped me and still is helping a lot. Thanks again

just amazing

i hope that cat is okay, but at least i can spend 50 minutes on youtube now.

I've been using Stay Focused for over a year and it is so helpful with a great mix of ways to personalize the settings for exactly what I need. Best free extension ever

Love this extension because it's impossible to get around it when you want to cheat and that makes it perfect for what I need. I find other extensions/apps are just to easy to disable but this one is ruthless. I wish there was a mobile option for it.

Doesn't work.

Very effective, and I love the touch of humor throughout

Would really love it if it had the option to have intervals during the day that webpages could be used and different websites could have different intervals, also would love it if could sync it with a pomodoro timer so that the websites would be blocked during the time that you want to work but during your break times and when you are not trying to work, you could still access them. And I really like the nuclear option, so ideally the nuclear option paired with the pomodoro timing.

Really greatly impressed with the extension fast response to my attempts of accessing illegal sites. My problem is it can easily be removed from chrome using the puzzle-like button and I see no workaround. All the google staff seems not to work for me to solve this issue. The other thing is it's calling me "sis" and i find no way to adjust that.

I love stayfocusd but I'm starting to notice a problem - the block list is not case sensitive (everything is stored in lowercase). Therefore if I were to add a youtube video to my allowed list (while blocking youtube.com) it will not recognize the allowed link again if I quit Chrome and restart another session, as youtube links are case sensitive. While I could just repeatedly allow the same website it becomes a problem when I've used up my total allowed time. I don't know if this could have a possible fix, no worries if there isn't (thanks for the work you put into this extension, btw)

Is there a way to unblock certain websites temporarily? Sometimes I need to watch videos on Youtube to do research, and I don't want to switch to a different Chrome profile to circumvent the blocking every time.

I have a serious social media addiction that I manage with StayFocusd. I do relapse from time to time, but long stretches of my life that I have had StayFocusd have been the most productive days of my life. Thank you!

Waste of time..

Really glad i added this! i usually use the StayFocused Mac App, but when i got a windows computer i was too distracted without the app. Love how they have the typing thing when changing settings and how you're unable to change it once it reaches zero. On other chrome extensions i can change the time after it reaches 0 but this one blocks it!!

Amazing extension, absolute gamechanger. Just wondering, is there a way to make it so that you can't change the maximum time per day? I know you can't change it once you hit zero, but I have a bad habit of extending the time when I have 30 seconds left (I guess all the "are you sure?" popups aren't enough of a deterrent)

Please add support for proper wildcards such as: google.com/search?q=*tbm=shop*

Helps me stay focused- I guess it fits its name, huh?

this 5 star is less to rate this extension

Good extension, my mistake was I am writing a long content and the extension force me to quit without saving. And I need to rewrite it again for about 20 lines. Improvement sugestion, instead of force close the tab or website should provide optional to ask the user first.

I wonder how many times we as users have installed and uninstalled it ;then install it back...

I'm using this program very well but i think i found problem of this. If you fix site in chrome, you can enter without blocking. Please update this problem.

Great extension, Please add multiple blocks of blocked time . example - 9AM to 5PM and 8PM to 11:59PM Please add this feature to make it perfect extension

Thanks for this, i wanna play video games but i keep getting distracted. This should help me out

This is some serious stuff. This extension is a must have for procrastinators & those who lose track of time browsing unnecessary stuff on the internet. Being a master time waster and procrastinator myself, I have come here to write a review solely because all the other sites are blocked and I have nowhere else to waste my time. God...I love it so much, it hurts.

Every time I go in to block gmail, it blocks google as a whole, including search and my drive. in blocked sites, it switched from "gmail" to "google." What's the work around? Thank you!!

it worked fine til today it started blockeng allowed website after using neuclear option

It has a great deal of useful features and resources and on top of all, it's free, I really liked the concept and the effort put behind it. However, the biggest problem which might make me use Windows LAN settings and proxies to block distracting websites instead is that, the settings file's size grows exponentially as I add sites to the blocked or allowed list, to the point which I can't export it without manually copying the settings value from "Inspect element" to a txt file, because whenever I try exporting it, a 0B .json file is generated. Manually copying the settings also sometimes crashes whatever program I'm using to save them, because the text is too big. I'd really appreciate a fix to this problem, which would probably make this extension flawless.

It works great for most parts, but sometimes it starts blocking random sites even though those sites not on my block list. This happens from time to time when it is installed over a few weeks.

It doesn't work, I tried blocking Youtube and it allowed all the videos, everything. Useless.

It is nice but sometimes I am not able to open the website to change the time. So can you help me with this?

Haven't actually used it yet, but so excited just from going through the features. So excited that I wanted to give a 5-star review. Thanks!

great extension for self control

jeez, thanks a lot for making me feel guilty when I tried to increase the timer of allowed websites hahah

This is the best thing I have ever used. It reminds me constantly to go back to work and not waste my time. So helpful. Thanks a lot..!

Just blindly download it and start using. I could say better than any paywalled extensions. Sorry for now I will not be able to donate you something but will definitely donate in future. Thanks for developing this ??‍♂️.

I actually have no problem with it but for some reason Stayfocusd isn't able to import its settings from a JSON export I have

It did not meet my needs. I uninstalled it. I need to be able to block a set of websites all the time, but then periodically disable the block for specific sites temporarily. StayFocusd does not provide this functionality.

It made me more productive :D

Easy to set up, works as intended. Had no issues with it. EDIT: One issue. Removing a blocked site. Kept giving me the pop up dialogue that I can't remove a blocked site when the Nuclear option is active, go to the Nuclear Option tab, nothing I do turns it off. Get the message this option is in place until NaN:NaN:NaN. Had to remove and reinstall the extension.

does what it says it does and does it well

Excellent

LMFAOO this extension is so funny i literally just got berated for trying to add more free time and was redirected me to a procrastination tips website :') whats great about this extension is that it doesnt let you add more free time once its run out and theres also a "nuclear" option that completely blocks you from entering any sites so u gotta be careful to allow the necessary sites before u activate it.

very helpful. If you feel the urge to remove the extension to stop nuclear mode, you can block the extensions site to prevent that.

Gives a ton of "Unchecked runtime.lastError: The message port closed before a response was received. " errors. Seems like this has been happening for two years. https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues/9899#issuecomment-464819325 Gotta fix them! Edit: changed rating since the owner seemed to care.

Phenomenal extension for confining my social medial impulses. Thanks for creating this!

I really hate this extension because it works so well

It does not work. I set the websites the hours between the sites to be blocked. And the sites still work!

I put one site into this app to block: www.twitter.com. Within the first 2 days of using it, it blocked several sites related to my job instead of just Twitter. Terrible.

This app cannot block websites. When setting 0 minute to block a site there is a message saying that we cannot block a website less than 1 minute per day. Very odd. Downloaded BlockSite instead

OP EXTENSION <3

This was a very well put together app, but when I hit the time limit the entire browser would freeze and I couldn't get to ANY of my tabs, including my work. Don't see many comments like this, so maybe it's me. Great options, funny settings. That's why - despite the freezing - I still gave it 4 starts. But I have also uninstalled it because it's annoying when it freezes.

It's fun and quite interesting method to avoid wasting time in social networking sites.

A powerful extension with a sense of humor. I have tried half a dozen "focus" extensions and this is by far the best. I have legitimately laughed out loud by the humor put into the popups when you try to change your restrictions to your favor. I use it every day and it's really helped me put my life together.

This is the best website blocker I have ever installed. I especially love the nuclear option because once you hit the nuke button, you can't reverse it, thus you can't cheat once you have pressed the button. To prevent you from cheating even more, they have the type setting, which I think those two settings make this extension have purpose instead of just removing blocked websites from the list whenever you want to. The thing I wished the nuclear option had though is the ability to change the blocking time to different units other than hours. Other than that, this is a great site blocker.

Best option to block

I need same extension/app for android

waste

This is the perfect browser extension for those who are want to focus better.

I'm confused: why can't the "max allowed time on blocked sites" be set to 0 minutes? I don't want ANY time on blocked sites -- that's what it means to BLOCK a site. Thank you.

works amazing

Biggest issue is the "Are you still there?" not being configurable. 5 minutes is too short, I'll be reading or watching without touching anything for 5 minutes, but then again when I walk away from the computer for 10-20 minutes I'd like it to pause my time so I can continue later. Let us choose how much time instead of being hardcoded at 5 minutes. I just turn it off but then run out of time, meaning I have had to increase my time limit to compensate... Will give 5 stars after this simple change.

I have an issue. I only have three sites blocked: facebook.com, twitter.com, and reddit.com but for some reason LinkedIn is also being blocked.

I just found this, haven't even started using it yet, and I know this is going to be super helpful.