Focus

Productivity

focus and distraction blocking

SHOW HN2014

42points
43comments
#754of 2,272 in 2014
Top 34%of 2014 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

5 positive, 11 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 8 critical, out of 25 comments about the project. Thread score -0.09.

Execution: 0 for, 4 againstPerformance: 0 for, 2 againstIdea: 2 for, 0 againstDesign: 2 for, 0 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Simple, well-crafted design with motivational quotes

    From 3 comments
    • Thanks for making this. It's beautifully crafted and great attention to detail is shown with the inspirational quotes and the optional b/w icon.
      eddflrs on HN
    • Nice touch showing a motivational quote when you try to visit the blocked website. I've been using Concentrate[1] so far with great results. It has a few more options (such as a…
      metabren on HN
    • This app is awesome! I've tried out others, StayFocused, manually editing /etc/hosts, but I love the simplicity of this. Would it be possible to add exceptions to sites? For…
      _august on HN

Objections

  • Does not work reliably in Firefox or with proxy and DNS setups

    From 2 comments
    • I could really use this ! but seems fine (get the nice inspirational quotes) with Chrome and Safari, but Firefox still is able to get through. I am typing this using Firefox 26 ...
      hakcermani on HN
    • I just can't seem to get Focus to work. I am using DNSCrypt from OpenDNS, but when I disable it, I still can't get Focus to work. I have Automatic Proxy Discovery and Automatic…
      bicv on HN
  • Only available on OS X

    From 1 comment
    • Looks pretty useful but since its OS X only, so I can't use it. Btw, just cursious: >Do you have a grayscale icon? I don't like colorful icons in my menubar. Wow, are all Mac…
      xerophtye on HN

Requests

  • Scheduling and time limits for blocking

    From 1 comment
    • It would be cool if you could set a schedule for certain times to block sites (or time limits). There are various browser extensions for this, but it would be more effective on…
      arikrak on HN
  • Exceptions for specific pages or subreddits

    From 1 comment
    • This app is awesome! I've tried out others, StayFocused, manually editing /etc/hosts, but I love the simplicity of this. Would it be possible to add exceptions to sites? For…
      _august on HN
  • Global hotkey and Alfred integration

    From 1 comment
    • Nice, exactly what I'm looking for. A few ideas for features: More options in the filter preferences. How are wildcards handled and multiple domains? A system-wide hotkey for…
      robinhoodexe on HN
  • Pre- and post-focus hooks for custom scripts

    From 2 comments
    • I saw a lot of these apps out there but none that worked quite how I wanted. I wrote a little more about this in the case study: http://bradjasper.com/blog/case-study-focus/…
      Jasber on HN
    • I'm working on integrating some of this into Focus already, and plan on adding pre-focus & post-focus hooks to add your own custom functionality to cover everything else. Should…
      Jasber on HN

Questions

  • Why is the executable 1.8mb so large

    From 1 comment
    • This is great, thanks for releasing the app and the source code. Just one question, why is it so big? 1.8mb executable seems quite large. Still, fantastic!
      10feet on HN
  • How are wildcards and multiple domains handled

    From 1 comment
    • Nice, exactly what I'm looking for. A few ideas for features: More options in the filter preferences. How are wildcards handled and multiple domains? A system-wide hotkey for…
      robinhoodexe on HN

Alternatives named

  • StayFocusd

    From 2 comments
    • I've been using StayFocusd for this exact purpose for years. As others have mentioned, there are rather a lot of extensions and apps that will selectively block distracting sites…
      jaysonelliot on HN
    • Have you tried "StayFocusd" for Chrome? The issue is it's too easy to disable a Chrome extension, and then you need to re-enable to get it back. It would be better if they…
      arikrak on HN
  • Concentrate

    From 2 comments
    • I've been using an app called Concentrate (http://www.getconcentrating.com/) for probably 5 years that does the same thing, but it also lets you define apps and services to block…
      james33 on HN
    • Nice touch showing a motivational quote when you try to visit the blocked website. I've been using Concentrate[1] so far with great results. It has a few more options (such as a…
      metabren on HN
  • SelfControl

    From 1 comment
    • There's an older app called Self Control that does this but for a specified time window and cannot be disabled once it's started, including by rebooting. http://selfcontrolapp.com/
      msy on HN
  • LeechBlock

    From 1 comment
    • I've been desperately looking for an app with this feature. Can you look at how "LeechBlock" for Firefox works? It's practically perfect but's only for Firefox. :)
      thecooluser on HN
  • RescueTime

    From 1 comment
    • I just use RescueTime's get focus functionality.
      chewxy on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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