[Update Nov 15 2011] : Chrome Nanny is now Nanny for Google Chrome. It also has a new home. The link to Google Chrome extension gallery is https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cljcgchbnolheggdgaeclffeagnnmhno . Please spread the word !
Chrome Nanny is a leech block like extension for Chrome. I developed it as I started using Chrome extensively and there was no leech block like extension for it. It has been kinda successful beyond my expectations – Almost 2000 people are using it ! I have been for the last couple of months with my masters and did not add any features. Now that I am free I thought, I will add a page which will show the features that are in the works and also provide a way to request new features.
I plan to make this page a single location where you can see the features that are being developed and also to request/discuss new features. Till the end of August 2010, I plan to have a weekly development cycle and after that probably once in two weeks – assuming there are some features to develop.
If you are interested in sending your patches , please email me to saravananDOTthirumuruganathanATgmailDOTcom. The latest code can always be got from the repository here .
[Last Update] Update Jul 24 2011
Suggestions
One of the pain points is the initial setup. Chrome Nanny starts enforcing blocking behavior immediately after blocksets are created. If you make a mistake and you want to fix it, you have to enter the challenge text. Is there a heuristic that prevents challenge till the entire initial setup is done? ie I want to balance usability with the Chrome Nanny’s default behavior for productivity.
Features : In the next release
Vlad,Mathias : It is too easy to add a Whitelisted URL to the list. It can be done anytime, even when “You should be working”
I suggest to add the same check: if(chrome.extension.getBackgroundPage().BackGroundManager.checkIfBlockSetShudBeBlockedNOW(blockSetName)) challengeUser(blockSetName,’E’); to the function addUrlToWhiteList()
Jason : Perhaps it should be clear that the blacklisted sites are automatically tracked? Or perhaps the whitelist should just be a list of sites to track in addition (since isn’t the blacklist supposed to act like a whitelist too?)
Catherine : I have a suggestion, though. It would be nice if you had a feature that blocks ALL websites except those that the user specifies or puts in the whitelist–like the “Nuclear Mode” in StayFocusd.
Saravanan : Add purge option to Stats
Scott Allen : The main feature I miss, though, is a quick/easy way to block a site. What would it take to have a "block this" bookmarklet? Right now, I have to go through 3-4 mouse clicks, and then either copy/paste the URL or type it in. I’d like a one-click "Block domain" and maybe another "Block URL" one. After all, the whole point is to improve productivity, right? 
Discussion : When you click on the Chrome Nanny’s icon page, it will have an option to block the domain/url. Clicking on it will take you to the options page. Also have a link to go to options page directly and for lock down.
Saravanan
Stricter time validation .
Mustafa :
Add the option to hide the blocked sites but show the allowed remaining time for the other ones. 2 reasons behind it:
-Everytime I see that blocked list I wanna disable the add-on and visit the sites. -I want to be able to see how many minutes do I have left for the restricted sites.
Anonymous : Add an option to password protect viewing Chrome Nanny options
Features : In the near future
Marko, Rajiv, anonymous : I would only echo what has already been brought up, that when you first start Chrome, it will let you see a site that you have blocked. For example, I have blocked Facebook for certain hours during the day, but even during those hours, when you first start Chrome, Facebook pops up and you can see it until you click somewhere on the screen. Then the Chrome Nanny block page shows up. Still love it! Just maybe a little hole to fix
Jim,Ben and many others : Have a block behavior similar to leechblock. I know leechblock as the option of limiting my facebook usage to 30 minutes ONLY on saturdays, and to block it every other day of the week . Is there a way to add that onto this extension? I really need it to help me out, because even 15 minutes everyday is too much for me at this point.
David T : It would be cool to be able to block a site based on the number of visits. I spend way too much time checking gmail to see if there are any new messages. Even though I’m only briefly at the website because there are no messages, it’s interruptive when I should be focusing. It would be cool to limit gmail to 2 or 3 visits per day, but be able to stay there and write emails if I’ve actually received something.
Tianyi Cui : I propose a feature to use a custom JavaScript function to determine whether a website should be blocked.
The parameters of the user-input function are an URL and some statistics about this URL (e.g. The logged time intervals of that domain in previous 24 hrs). I’m not sure how much statistics should be calculated and provided to balance configurability, performance and the time to implementation. I’ll think about it later and we can discuss. The statistics should be calculated only if needed (i.e. the parameter is a function) since probably most time we only need the URL and current time. The return values of the JS function can be either “Block”, “Don’t Block” and “Pass” (i.e. let the default rules to determine).
This is an advanced feature which can be extremely useful for programmers (I bet a significant part of users are), as they can easily implement the feature they want by themselves, and the customized rules as JS function can be easily backed up, version controlled, and shared as it’s just plain text.
I would like try to implement this feature by myself since I’m an experienced programmer. I don’t know JS very much and haven’t implemented browser extensions before. But it’s a great experience to hack and learn.
Please comment on this idea and tell me which part of the source code I should read and modify and any suggestion on the implementation.
Tianyi Cui :
The challenge test should be prompted after user clicked “Save URL” (not after user clicked “Edit”) if and only if the edit could make a previously blocked URL not blocked any more (e.g. user is deleting URLs or reduced Block Time). When user is just adding URLs or increase Block Time or edit Tags, she should not be forced to the challenge test.
Brian :
From: http://xkcd.com/862/
“After years of trying various methods, I broke this habit by pitting my impatience against my laziness. I decoupled the action and the neurological reward by setting up a simple 30-second delay I had to wait through, in which I couldn’t do anything else, before any new page or chat client would load (and only allowed one to run at once). The urge to check all those sites magically vanished–and my productive computer use was unaffected.”
I wonder if such a feature could be added to Chrome Nanny? Instead of blocking pages, make them load slowly?
Greg :
A suggestion: When I’m on a site that is being timed, the Chrome Nanny icon should change — ideally it should be very dramatic (like all bright red) so I will notice that I am using up my time. That would be a good warning not to stay on the site too long. (This would also help when I leave a tab in the background that is eating up my time.)
thanks!
Bevans : Could you give us a way to change when a new "day" begins? Right now, it’s set at midnight of course, but I sometimes work until 1 or 2 AM, and if I’m using a site at midnight I begin using up the next day’s time. I’d like to be able to set it to reset the timers at 3 or 4 AM instead of midnight.
Lukasz : Personally I like the "StayFocused" behaviour in this regard where you get icon that changes from blue to red if the current site is on the list and then counter once there is less than a minute left. It’s clear indication I’m on a site I shouldn’t and that the time is ticking 
Saravanan : Implement notifications feature. (http://blog.chromium.org/2010/05/desktop-notifications-now-available-to.html)
Discussion : Notifications are a cute little feature. It would be nice to warn users that they have only for eg : say 5 minutes left. (Should this be made configurable ? )
sarah : Suggestion: If I block, for instance, www.example.com, your extension also blocks www.differentexample.com, presumably because you strip it to "example\.com" and add a wildcard up front to ".*example\.com" This is really bad – you’re blocking a completely separate domain, when you probably just wanted to block "same.example.com" You could try using a url parser library to get the actual domain name. Thanks for an awesome extension!
Discussion : Good observation ! The current behavior was intentional so that user enters only "google" to block all of google’s websites. One possible compromise is to check if the block url resembles URL closely – If so block only the URL. If it is a substring/regexp, use the default behavior.
Ryan : add idle state task to roadmap – refer : http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/trunk/idle.html
Patrick,Allen : i think that websites should be able to appear in multiple block sets so that they can be blocked at different times on different days (eg. I want to block a website in a specific time period during the week, but in a different one on the weekends.) leechblock, on firefox, provides this option
Discussion : Another change that might result in major design changes. Depending upon the demand, will make the decision.
Firefly,Adam,Michael : Is it possible to implement the export / import feature from Leechblock? I have an extensive list of sites (about 150) that I use in firefox. I use this list across machines and I’d like to be able to use it in chrome nanny.
Discussion : If there is additional demand , will develop this feature.
Tom : Is there a way to set the time limit to only be active during specified time ranges? For example, from 6am-9pm I’d like the 30min time limit to be active when I visit a blocked site, but after 9pm I’d like the blocking to become inactive and be able to visit the site as long as I want. If I could request a feature, that would be it.
Scott : a) Could use natural text parser for time of day. (i.e., just enter 8am-5pm) b) If you have a long list of URLs in a blocklist without any word wrap breaking characters, it will make the block set box in the block sets tab really really wide so you have to scroll to see the "Edit" button.
KelAt :
It’s not a big deal, but my suggestion would be for either of two changes to be made. Maybe I was already clear about this, or maybe I wasn’t:
- Right now, if I have a window with multiple tabs being blocked. Each one, however says “You can click here to access the page once the site is no longer blocked.” but it gives the same link on each page. It would be good if each page could keep the correct link to go back to the page that was blocked.
- It would be even better if the blocked page could just be restored / refreshed automatically after the block period has ended, so that when I return to the browser, I’m not confronted with lots of "blocked" tabs that I have to just close out of or refresh automatically.
Haitrieu :
How could I sync this extension setting and statistics between home computer and my company computer?
Seth,Volker
one other thing. how about allowing javascript in the redirect URL – so, for instance, I could send anything that’s blocked to instapaper before it goes and read it later?
Volker
Right click might be hard for extensions like Chrome Nanny due to Chrome’s extension architecture. I will add an option in the popup page .
I like the idea of an option to adding to a new url to existing list without raising the challenge . I will implement it in next iteration.
I’d like to have the blocked URL in the URL line, so the blocked URL can be bookmarked easily or used by other plugins (like read it later or similiar)
Max Time: add a option so I can only limiting the time between in a time range e.g. “X minutes every X hours between 0900-1200,1300-1700?
support for Complex rules
Jonathan:
Combine the idea of adblock plus’s "list" subscription (they keep a running list of known ad sites) with Chrome Nanny. But your lists could be news, social networking, , etc. Then one wouldn’t have to block the whole internet, but just, say, "news".
Tim :
Add an option to track time spent on links clicked from blocked pages.
Angelo :
I would like to be able to schedule a ‘break time’ each day, during which I can freely browse my blocked sites without accruing any minutes against my time limit. For example, I give myself 30 minutes a day to use up on browsing my blocked websites, but from noon until 1pm, I can browse as much as I want. Maybe, you could implement this as a "Active Time" setting in the general options, which defines during which times the Chrome Nanny extension is active. I could set up my "Active Time" as: "930-1200,1300-1700" for example.
Jared :
Great app, but if there was one added feature, I’d be happier. In Leechblock, whitelisted URL’s can be added to a particular block set, rather than only in an independent group that supersedes all blocked lists anywhere. Can you see the advantage in doing it that way? For example, the scenario that works for me at home is the following: one block site blocks the whole internet 24/7 EXCEPT for a select few sites I allow (email, google maps, wikipedia, etc) that I know not to be the major time drainers. A second block set blocks EVERYTHING starting at 10 pm so I must get off even email and go to sleep (and this block set supersedes the whitelisted url’s in the previous group).
It took me a while to figure this system out (it’s not necessarily intuitive to consider a hierarchical approach), but it is the best, most customizable way to do it for me. It’d be great if this feature could be added (could even leave the white lists tab as it is, but just add in the ability to white list within each block list)
Completed Features
This will include the list of features that were discussed previously. I will include the version number and date it was deployed.
Features : Set 1
Completed by August 22. Chrome Nanny version 0.964.
Arnaldo : I see what you are trying to do, but could this popup be a configurable option?
kunigas : Let the password requirement for editing as an option (and also the length of it too), I’m fine without pass, but I find it annoying to type it every time I decide to change the blocking rules (and I do it often in experimental periods).
Discussion :
In the general options, add a drop down to decide how the challenge has to be implemented. Possible values include a) No Challenge b) 32 character c) 64 character and d) 128 characters. By default challenge will be 64 characters. If you increase the challenge size, you will be allowed. If you decrease it, then you will be asked for a challenge . For eg , if you try to reduce a 64 character challenge to 32 characters, you will be asked a 64 character challenge.
If a block set is currently being blocked , then trying to edit / delete will trigger a challenge that is specified in general options.
Saravanan : sort blocksets by name atleast when displaying so that the order is consistent
Discussion : This is more of a usability issue rather than a bug.
Features : Set 2
Completed by September 20. Chrome Nanny version 0.98.
Peter,Lukasz,Scott : Would it be possible to have the option to ‘hide’ the list of blocked sites – so that not everybody who goes on my computer could idly click on the nanny icon and be presented with a list of all the sites I’m not visiting.
Discussion : Allow an option to make the information available in the Chrome Nanny icon optional. Should this be extended to control the list in options menu ?
Yavor : jquery’s datepicker – I cannot see the arrows on the top of the picker – they are blue on blue.
Discussion : This is a UI issue and might confuse some users. So, highlight the arrows in the calendar to change the months more clearly.
anonymous : I think the way it lists the times are kinda weird… if I have 5 more minutes on a site it says 00:05 hours. At first glance it is kinda confusing.
Discussion : If remaining time for a URL is less than an hour display as "x minutes left" . If greater than an hour display as "x:y hours left" .
Sarah : This extension can render the browser unusable (without running from the command line) if a user blocks their homepage with "close tab" selected as the block method. I suggest defaulting to loading about:blank instead to avoid this problem.
Craig Kingston : The mode of blocking defaults to closing the tab, which is surprising and confusing. While I am able to redirect it to some specified URL, it would be nice if a third option or at least a default specified URL was a "default -this pages is blocked- web page" (similar to leech block).
Discussion : I will check if it is possible to redirect to about:blank. If not I will redirect to a new page similar to leechblock’s. This will be the default option for new installations. The current settings will not be modified.
Features : Set 3
Completed by Jan 24 2011. Chrome Nanny version 0.984.
Tim, Saravanan : Allow a more expressive block times. For eg instead of block after 60 minutes in a day allow other options like block after 60 minutes in 4 hour/6 hour/ 12 hours etc. I think Leechblock has this feature. Emulate as closely as possible.
Discussion : These two features might need some major changes in the design of Chrome Nanny but looks like very useful features.
Features : Set 4
Completed by Mar 06 2011. Chrome Nanny version 0.988.
Matt : The ability to go into "focus mode", and block a specific set of websites for a specific amount of time.
Saravanan : Have a feature similar to Leechblock’s lockdown.
Discussion :
The idea of focus mode and lockdown are very similar – The only difference is that focus mode can involve arbitrary sites not in any of the blocksets. There must be some way to enter a set of websites and ask them to be blocked for the next n minutes. In lockdown, all the sites already in Chrome Nanny block sets are blocked for the next n minutes. In both the cases, the user will be specifying the block time.
Features : Set 5
Completed by Jun 19 2011. Chrome Nanny version 0.989.
Fixed a bug in lockdown.
Features : Set 6
Completed by Jul 24 2011. Chrome Nanny version 0.990.
Galen,Toni,EC,Neil,Corey Helfand : .* blocks, among other things, chrome:extension — this is probably bad behavior. Probably shouldn’t block any urls that purport to use chrome as the scheme. Do not block chrome:* and chrome-extension:// pages.
Eric : Prevent .*.* from being added to the whitelist.
Robust handling of erroneous regexp – When entering regular expressions in black or whitelist, it is validated. Existing incorrect regular expressions are also handled gracefully.
Prevent *.* from being added to Whitelist
Always allow access to Chrome internal pages even if *.* is blocked. This will allow access to , for eg, Chrome extensions page.
Dont strip www/http from url/blocked url. So www.ft.com will not block www.microsoft.com unless the url is ft.com .
If there is any other features you are interested in, please feel free to share in the comments or in the Chrome Nanny’s extension page !
Saravanan – great extension – can’t wait for the next update!
Arnaldo, the feature you requested is in the latest version (As of 23 Aug 2010). Please use it and tell me your opinion !
Uhm, I have a patch for Chrome Nanny and would like to email it to you. Unfortunately I found no other way of contacting you but to write a comment. Please get in touch if you’re interested in the patch.
Hannes
Hello Hannes,
Thats wonderful ! You can email me at saravananDOTthirumuruganathanATgmailDOTcom . I am bit busy for the next few days. So will test and apply the patch in the weekend !
[...] The features that are planned to implemented are listed at the page Chrome Nanny Road Map [...]
[...] : Chrome Nanny Roadmap [...]
Hi, and thanks for all your hard work. To make the conversion from LeechBlock smoother, I suggest following their more flexible block method: allow websites for X minutes every Y hours during hours A-B
So for example, I don’t mind reading Google Reader during the day, but I don’t want to read it too much, so I limit myself to 5 mins every 2 hrs during work hours. This means I won’t get caught up reading a ton, but that I can get a mental breather when necessary.
Thanks!
Me again – if I restart Chrome, the blocking seems to work again.
Hi Jeremy,
Apologies for the late reply. Somehow missed these comments. I think the issue is the entry for latimes. You have used “*.latimes”. The right one is “.*latimes.com” or even just “latimes.com”. “latimes.com” is the most preferrable as Chrome Nanny will do a substring (and not an exact) match in the URL and will catch any latimes URLs. Chrome Nanny has a validate regular expression tab in the settings page where you can test your regexp for potential issues.
Hope this will fix the issue.
Can you please consider making it easier to edit existing sets of URLs – it forces you to type a REALLY long CAPTCHA. Other than that, love the software
Eric,
The length of captcha is to make sure that people dont bend Chrome Nanny to keep using the site they want to block.
If that is not your use case, you can go to Chrome Nanny -> Options -> General Options . Set length of challenge text to 0. It will ask for a one time challenge entry and all future edit/deletes will not raise any challenge.
Please include a link to your blog in the extensions, or at least to relevant posts such as:
http://saravananthirumuruganathan.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/instructions-for-chrome-nanny-a-leech-block-like-extension-for-chrome/
I was able to find it, but I know that Googling everything is not as intuitive for many potential users of Chrome Nanny, as evidenced by xkcd.com/627.
Thanks for the excellent extension!
Hello Eric,
You are right. I will include the link in the next version of Chrome Nanny.
It would be cool to be able to block a site based on the number of visits. I spend way too much time checking gmail to see if there are any new messages. Even though I’m only briefly at the website because there are no messages, it’s interruptive when I should be focusing. It would be cool to limit gmail to 2 or 3 visits per day, but be able to stay there and write emails if I’ve actually received something.
Hi David,
I will include this to the road map and will implement it when I get time.
Hi, there are some sites that I visit far too often where I think I’d be better off visiting them every other day, or perhaps once a week. It would be nice if I could set things up so that, if I use them today, Chrome Nanny will block them for the next N days.
Brian,
This is one of the features I am developing – Basically the unit of blocking can be as small as hour (eg 10 minutes an hour) to days (1 day in 10 days) etc. It is a bit tricky to nail it correctly and thats the reason the next release of Chrome Nanny is being delayed.
Hello! Chrome Nanny is such godsend! Now I won’t have to keep using Firefox (and LeechBlock) to keep myself from getting distracted.
I have a suggestion, though. It would be nice if you had a feature that blocks ALL websites except those that the user specifies or puts in the whitelist–like the “Nuclear Mode” in StayFocusd.
Thank you and more power!
Hello Catherine,
Looks like a nice feature. Will implement in next iteration (which is hopefully before end of November). Thanks for your comments.
I too am interested in support for providing a URL to a text list of blocked sites that is loaded at startup. I use this feature in LeechBlock and have a nice list compiled that I keep in some webspace. It would be nice to be able to just point Chrome Nanny at this list as well as LeechBlock on all my machines.
Hi,
My blocked sites don’t seem to unblock at the time I’ve specified. Is this because I’m in the wrong timezone (GMT)?
Any other ideas?
Thanks for the extension, I’m finding it really useful.
Frankie,
The date information comes from browser and most likely it is from your timezone. One potential culprit could be incorrect regexp . Can you test each of your blockurls in the test regular expressions tab , just to be sure ? If that does not fix it please comment back and I will take a look at it.
Thanks for the extension!
There is a bug that keeps me from using it, I’ll explain how to reproduce it:
If you have a set that blocks something very general, such as “*.com”, but is active only at a certain time, it will bypass any other sets when its not active!
For example, I have a set that blocks certain websites during work hours, but I also have a set that blocks every .com during the night. The last set overrides the first one, allowing me to access everything during work hours.
It would be cool if you can fix that, thanks again!
Hello Juan,
“*.com” is not a valid JS regular expression. You can rewrite it as “.*.com” and it should work. The reason why it is not working is that when JS is given an incorrect regexp it throws an error and causes system to ignore rest of the entries.
Alright, I don’t know how to use regexes so I didn’t notice that, thanks!
Hi,
Great extension. I am wondering if you can password protect access to the extension so I can use it to prevent my kids from accessing various sites and also prevent them from unblocking them.
Thanks,
Luis
Some sort of option to scan and import your bookmarks would be pretty nice. It would be much easier to remove a few unwanted sites or change them to the blacklist than it is to add all your the sites you need manually. Because if it’s a site you visit often, it’s most likely in your bookmarks.
Another random thing that would be nice is if the “TIME SPENT ON WHITE LISTED URLS TODAY” list in the popup menu was organized by time spent in descending order. Sometimes I check to see what I’ve been doing the most today and I have to scan through the list to find it. Also the links in the “ABOUT CHROME NANNY” section of the popup menu don’t work. It’s kind of a strange place for a about paragraph too. Sorry I’m suggesting so much, I should be studying for finals and I’m doing everything I can do avoid it, I should block your blog for awhile.
My dad blocked me facebook -.-´
Because my grades go down :/
but now my gradees grow up
So, my dad said me that i can desblock FACEBOOK(:❤
So how can i unlock facebook?
Sofia,
Glad that your grades are up ! You can right click on the Chrome Nanny icon (one with a clock sign) and select options. Now select the facebook item and select edit/delete. You will be asked a challenge. Once you finished it successfully, you can modify it.
Hi, Nanny help me a lot but i just have a question
¿How can I configure Nanny to avoid disable or uninstall it from google chrome?
Pablo,
Currently , there is no way for an extension to prevent itself from disabling.
I propose a feature to use a custom JavaScript function to determine whether a website should be blocked.
The parameters of the user-input function are an URL and some statistics about this URL (e.g. The logged time intervals of that domain in previous 24 hrs). I’m not sure how much statistics should be calculated and provided to balance configurability, performance and the time to implementation. I’ll think about it later and we can discuss. The statistics should be calculated only if needed (i.e. the parameter is a function) since probably most time we only need the URL and current time. The return values of the JS function can be either “Block”, “Don’t Block” and “Pass” (i.e. let the default rules to determine).
This is an advanced feature which can be extremely useful for programmers (I bet a significant part of users are), as they can easily implement the feature they want by themselves, and the customized rules as JS function can be easily backed up, version controlled, and shared as it’s just plain text.
I would like try to implement this feature by myself since I’m an experienced programmer. I don’t know JS very much and haven’t implemented browser extensions before. But it’s a great experience to hack and learn.
Please comment on this idea and tell me which part of the source code I should read and modify and any suggestion on the implementation.
Tianyi,
Looks like an interesting feature. I will be out of town for the next couple of days . Will think about it and will email you soon !
Feature request:
The challenge test should be prompted after user clicked “Save URL” (not after user clicked “Edit”) if and only if the edit could make a previously blocked URL not blocked any more (e.g. user is deleting URLs or reduced Block Time). When user is just adding URLs or increase Block Time or edit Tags, she should not be forced to the challenge test.
Hey, just installed your chrome nanny program….Oddly enough I can’t find a reason as to why it’s just not blocking the sites. I’ve tried re-installing it and i’ve read over the faq section… not exactly sure what to do. No other chrome extensions…using Mac OSX Here’s what i’ve entered:
Time Wasters
http://www.facebook.com, www.skysports.com, http://www.ebaumsworld.com, http://www.reddit.com, http://www.collegehumor.com, http://www.premierleague.com,
0000-0000
0
Hi,
I will take a look at this issue.
Andrew,
I just came back to this comment when compiling list of bugs – The settings you have chosen means this : block urls from 12:00 AM to 12:00 AM. If the max time is 0, then it allows unlimited time outside your block time.
So to limit it between say 9-10 AM, enter it as 0900-1000.
By the way, thanks for the program!!
I think this extension rocks. One question: When I disable the extension when it’s blocking a site I need to get to, it closes the site. Is this by design? It can be annoying.
Also, I believe the interface (options) page could be fixed to be more intuitive. I didn’t know what white list was for, even though I knew what it means, and learned that it tracks usage of those sites, so naturally I included all of the sites I want to block, as they are the ones that take up the time! And suddenly they weren’t blocked anymore, since they were on the white list. Perhaps it should be clear that the blacklisted sites are automatically tracked? Or perhaps the whitelist should just be a list of sites to track in addition (since isn’t the blacklist supposed to act like a whitelist too?)
Anyway, just some thoughts.
Thank you very much for a great product… Love it.
Hi there,
I have all sites set to be blocked from 9pm until 9am, so that I do non-Internet work during that time (like sleeping). Please could you make it so that the sites that were blocked at 9pm automatically re-appear at 9am, instead of leaving the “Site Blocked” pages up perpetually. Right now, it says “You can click here to access the page once the site is no longer blocked.” but Chrome Nanny shows the same link on all of my tabs, and so it is not easy to return to the page that was previously active.
Thank you for the extension!
KelAt,
I am not sure what the exact issue is – Instead of blocking 2100-0900 ,block it as 2100-2359,0000-0900 ? I think Chrome Nanny is getting confused due to end time < start time. This is a bug which I will fix in the next release.
Thank you for your reply
Actually, I do already have my block times in the format you describe: 2100-2359,0000-0900.
It’s not a big deal, but my suggestion would be for either of two changes to be made. Maybe I was already clear about this, or maybe I wasn’t:
- Right now, if I have a window with multiple tabs being blocked. Each one, however says “You can click here to access the page once the site is no longer blocked.” but it gives the same link on each page. It would be good if each page could keep the correct link to go back to the page that was blocked.
- It would be even better if the blocked page could just be restored / refreshed automatically after the block period has ended, so that when I return to the browser, I’m not confronted with lots of “blocked” tabs that I have to just close out of or refresh automatically.
Shows Nanny installed, but I dont see it?? It just disappeared, how do I find it and open it?
This might happen if you have quite a few extensions installed. In that case, Chrome will collapse all extra extensions to conserve the size of address bar. if you see a “<<" shape in your address bar, clicking it will display other extensions.
From:
http://xkcd.com/862/
“After years of trying various methods, I broke this habit by pitting my impatience against my laziness. I decoupled the action and the neurological reward by setting up a simple 30-second delay I had to wait through, in which I couldn't do anything else, before any new page or chat client would load (and only allowed one to run at once). The urge to check all those sites magically vanished–and my productive computer use was unaffected.”
I wonder if such a feature could be added to Chrome Nanny? Instead of blocking pages, make them load slowly?
Brian,
The idea is very intriguing – I am not fully sure how to do it as Chrome Nanny uses browser action internally rather than using content scripts. I will add this feature to the wishlist and think how to implement. I am sure this will be a fun feautre to have
Great product!!
I agree with the need for a weekend/weekday option…
Let me first say that this product is great! My only tiny quark was a security issue with the challenge text. I’m not sure if this has been mentioned, but there is a easy way to get around the long challenge text by inspecting the element and removing the class=”no-select”. Once removed the long challenge text becomes rather easy to copy and paste. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if there are any ways to prevent short of using a generated image instead of plain text. Maybe that is something to consider if you plan on updating this product in the future.
P.S. Thanks a ton for making this wonderful product.
Jimmy,
I was aware of it but decided to use it anyway as the work around is pretty geeky. My original choice was to use captcha or image challenges. But was not able to find a good js local library.
thanks so much for sharing this extension!
Dear Saravanan Thirumuruganathan,
How could I sync this extension setting and statistics between home computer and my company computer?
Haitrieu,
Currently there is no in-extension way to sync the settings. I am not sure if Chrome’s built in sync , syncs the extension settings too. I will bump priority of developing a settings export/import feature.
I think its possible by saving the configuration as bookmark. AFAIR I have seen it with in a plugin before, too.
great extension, especially as I’ve just discovered how to block access to extensions…
one other thing. how about allowing javascript in the redirect URL – so, for instance, I could send anything that’s blocked to instapaper before it goes and read it later?
Seth,
That seems to be an intriguing idea. Can you expound more on that ? I will check how best to allow that .
I do not know if everyone has this problem, but the LockDown feature is not entirely working. It lets me only set the LockDown by minutes (leaving me with a max of 55 min). If I use hours it does not do anything when I hit “Begin LockDown”, and hours are ignored if I use a combination of hours an minutes.
If you could please fix this it would be very appreciated. This is the most important feature for me.
Thanks, and I love the extension!
@Pete, I will push out the fixed code tonight.
For got to thank you! THANKS!
Suggestions:
1. No requirement for “Block Time” if “Max time” is set
2. Right-click on a page or click on the button: give option to Lock Down for X minutes
3. Option to turn off the annoying request airspeed-velocity-request if you want to edit a currently blocked rule. I know a) how to turn of the extension if I want to get around and b) it’s annoying to add a new URL to an existing and currently working blocklist.
If this option is not in debate, then a option to add a new url to an existing list without this annyoing request would be nice.
4. Mode of blocking: I’d like to have the blocked URL in the URL line, so the blocked URL can be bookmarked easily or used by other plugins (like read it later or similiar)
5. Max Time: add a option so I can only limiting the time between in a time range e.g. “X minutes every X hours between 0900-1200,1300-1700″
Volker,
Apologies for delayed reply ! Thanks for your thoughtful comments !
(1) Block time and max time can be used concurrently. For eg, I may want to block facebook between 9-5 but also limit it to 1 hr rest of the time. I will default populate it to 0 though.
(2) Right click might be hard for extensions like Chrome Nanny due to Chrome’s extension architecture. I will add an option in the popup page .
(3) I like the idea of an option to adding to a new url to existing list without raising the challenge . I will implement it in next iteration.
(4) One workaround is to use the option of “Redirect To URL” which is set to some read it later. I will check if there is some other cleaner way.
(5) That feature might take some time develop. I will see how best to implement it !
I second Volker’s no. 5 feature. I’d really like to limit the limiting to office hours but let all hell brake loose off-hours.
plus – how about offering another hurdle: Let me define a friend (spouse, boss, etc.) That will serve as admin on my settings. Thus, changes and edits will take place only once a confirmation URL in clocked-upon in an email sent to my friend.
@Itay,Ido,
I will add these features to the road map.
According to Tom, more complex rules are not possible. An example to give a good view how it currently acts:
1. Block .* from 0000-0500
2. Allow 60min/day of $URL
3. Block $URL2 from 0900-1200
What happens? Between 0000-0500 everything is blocked. But 2nd and 3rd rule doesn’t match, because it looks like the default behavior is that the weekest rule (which allowes most) match. I think it should be opposite: the strongest block-rule should match.
Rules like the following seem not to be possible, too (e.g. a URL is only be allowed in more as one block sets):
1. Allow 20min/6hour from 0900-1200 of $URL
2. Allow $URL from 1200-1400
3. Allow 20min/6hour from 1400-1600 of $URL
The problem increase if I want to allow 10min in the morning but 20min in the afternoon.
I guess focusing on the strongest block rule and allowing a URL to be in more as one rule would be the easiest fix.
After that it would be nice to allows multiple block/limitation rules of a block set.
Volker,
IIRC, the code disallows a url if any of the conditions mismatch. I will look into the code again. I will try to look into how to add multiple urls to same blockset.
I would like to second, (third, forth etc.) this
Patrick,Allen : i think that websites should be able to appear in multiple block sets so that they can be blocked at different times on different days (eg. I want to block a website in a specific time period during the week, but in a different one on the weekends.) leechblock, on firefox, provides this option
@Anonymous,
Thats the feature I am implementing now. I am hoping to make it ready by mid Aug.
FANTASTIC !! I LOVE IT!!
Well,i would like to have some kind of pass to access Chrome Nany extension.
It´s not a big deal because my child dont understand what is an extension.
but curious as I will someday…
@Ger,
I will bump the priority of password feature.
Thanks for making such a wonderful extension, it’s done wonders for me!
I do have on suggestion, though. Could you make it so that individual blocks redirect, instead of having all blocked sites redirect to the same place?
If I understand correctly, you want a customized option for each blockset to determine how they are blocked. So, blockset1 might redirect to url1, blockset2 to url2 and so on . Am I right ? I will add it to the roadmap.
Hi, thanks for your extension. I’m having trouble downloading it: the Chrome Webstore link leads to this error “Item not found. This item may have been removed by its author.”
Thanks!
Richard,
“Chrome” Nanny was apparent taken down due to the usage of “Chrome” in its name. I have resubmitted the app and it is under review. Hopefully, it will be up soon !
Any updates on this? I wont use Chrome till Nanny is available.
Ok folks … I really have lost patience with Google app review team. I will travelling tomorrow and will publish Chrome Nanny under a different name by evening . Thanks for all your patience
ITS BACK!
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cljcgchbnolheggdgaeclffeagnnmhno?hc=search&hcp=main
I very much liked Leechbloack and have been trying out Nanny for Google Chrome for a couple of weeks. However, I am struggling as I am unable to change the setting Maximum allowed minutes for blocked URLs in the General options tab. It is currently set at 2 minutes, but it is highlighted green and does not accept changes. This obviously makes the blocking feature almost useless. How can I change this setting?
Anne,
Apologies for the delayed reply. I am not sure, I understand the issue. If you set the maximum allowed minutes in the general options tab, it serves as a “global” limit after which no access to blocked sites is allowed. I tried modifying the setting to different values and it worked fine for me. One thing to notice is that , if the current days limit is exceeded, the field will be uneditable to avoid users to game the system by editing it to a higher value. Since the value is very small in your case, I suggest to change this value first thing in the morning. Hope this helps.
Thanks for the reply! I did actually wait a day to try to change it when my limit was not up, but without success. To solve the problem, I ended up reinstalling the extension and making sure that the limit was set high enough this time, and it is now working fine. However, I have the same issues as Jamie mentions below, and I would very much welcome this feature!
I’m sure this must have been requested before but I’ll echo the sentiment because I really think it’s core functionality!
My laptop is used for work and home. I’d like to be able to limit my browsing and distractions during work hours. However like many I get little periods of downtime and browsing distracting websites help to rest the mind. So I’d like to be able to limit access to a maximum time. Per hour, per day etc but only during work hours.
Then when I get home I can browse as much as I want or give myself limits if I desire.
Thanks,
Jamie
Jamie,
I agree. It is an important feature that is put on backlog due to some design decisions I took while developing Chrome Nanny. I plan to redesign it once my semester is over on Dec 18. Hope this helps.
For Nanny, one of the features from Leechblock that appears to be missing is the ability to set time periods and block after a certain time has been reached within those time periods. For example, I don’t want to completely block websites from 9am to 5pm. I want to give myself 5 min per hour on those websites, and then block, in that time period. I just want to browse freely after 5pm. Is there a way to do this that I didn’t see? Leechblock has an and/or setting for the time periods and time limit.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, because I haven’t fiddled around with Nanny very much and I just read the instructions
. It’s a cool extension!
Haha, please ignore my previous comment. After fiddling around with the settings it looks like it is doing exactly what I need. Thank you! I wish your extension came up higher in the rankings. It’s much better than stayFocused.
And nevermind….it isn’t doing what I want. It’s blocking after 5 min/hour outside of the time period. Is this a feature you are going to put in eventually? It would be very helpful! Thanks. Sorry for clogging up the comments
.
Amani,
That is the top priority item that I plan to work after Dec 16.
Hey I’m having an issue blocking facebook. I type in facebook.com, https://www.facebook.com/, and http://www.facebook.com. I set the time from 0000-2400, and even when it says the sites are blocked it doesnt.
Anonymous,
Can you try 0000-2359? If tht works, I will fix this bug in next release.
Just wanted to drop by and say, thank you SO MUCH for developing this extension! I’ve been sorely missing leechblock ever since I switched over to Chrome, and Stay Focusd just wasn’t doing it for me.
The only thing I might request though, is something others have brought up before: that there should preferrably be something like a timer option we can see for Chrome Nanny as soon as we start spending some of our allotted time on a blocked site: I’m often in the middle of commenting or working on something, and I don’t want to get cut off in my work because I’ve been blocked. I remember this being a feature of leechblock, and hope to see it added sometime in the near future (if it’s not already planned, or if I’m just being really silly and missing something huge!)
Anyway, thanks so much for all your hard work!
Laitma,
I will add the feature some time soon !
there is a glitch or something, it takes minutes even if im not using the blocked websites
Evgueni,
Thats strange. I am not able reproduce it. Can you give some example where it causes a delay ? you can send an email to me if dont want to post it publicly.