I wrote a Chrome extension called Chrome Nanny. Sometime back, Google took it down as it was against their branding guidelines … So I have created another extension with the same code but with the name : Nanny for Google Chrome. You can find the extension at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cljcgchbnolheggdgaeclffeagnnmhno .
All new development will take place in this extension . I am still thinking about how to create a migration plan for Chrome Nanny users. I will post as I have more information . I will also update older blogs to point to the new url. Please spread the word !
It would be nice if the extension gave some warning before it blocks a site!! I was typing a pretty long comment, and bam the extension blocked the site while i was in the middle of typing. Extremely frustrating. I suggest you look at how StayFocusd does it. It warns you 5 minutes before the block occurs and it also has a countdown when block is in 1 minutes…
bizso09,
You are right. Currently, Chrome Nanny does not do any visible changes to the browser to indicate blocking. I will add this to the list of features to implement. I will do that once my semester is over in early december.
Hi, can you also add a feature wherein a parent can put in password so the kid won’t enable or disable the chrome nanny, Once it is disabled, the site that is blocked can be opened already. thank you
Candy,
Chrome does not allow an extension to prevent itself from getting uninstalled 😦 so this feature is not currently possible.
Thank you a TON for developing and publishing Nanny for Chrome! I’m a father and husband who struggles with porn online, as well as general time wasting on the internet. I’d tried other blocking and accountability software, but could circumvent it with a few quick commands. I love the huge (make it longer!) random string need to make any changes to the settings. This allows for more thought before carrying out an action and I pray will help me on the road to recovery from porn addiction.
Thank you, and keep up the great work!
could you also change where you can add url’s to different set names? for instance if i wanted different blocking times on the weekend compared to the week days
That is one of the high priority items. I will do it once my semester gets over around Dec 18.
Also, is there a way to prioritize blocking list. For example, I have two block set with regexes like this
reddit.com/r/politics*
reddit.com/*
Is it possible to set that when the first one is matched and the time is up, it doesn’t look for the second block set and matches the url with that thus unblocking the site reddit.com/r/politics. Basically what I’m saying is that can you match URL regexes greedily instead of lazily?
bizso09,
Thats an interesting idea. I will implement it sometime after Dec 16th.
Thank you so much for developing this! I have a facebook friend whose page I really need to avoid. Merely blocking their updates from my newsfeed didn’t do the trick because I could get to their page with a few clicks. With Chrome Nanny, however, I simply can’t see the page. I can’t even express how much grief this will save me!
Anonymous,
Glad Chrome Nanny is of help !
Is it possible to block sites so that I can still use them, for example, for 10 minutes every 2 hours? So that I can work for two hours and then get my facebook fix as a reward (or just to take a break).
Also, I agree with the first commenter who wanted some sort of warning before the allowed time runs out.
Great work!
Elina,
Yes. This feature does exist. You can use 0000-0000 as the block time and set max time as 10 minutes every 2 hours.
Is it possible to block something like chrome://settings/personal or chrome://settings/extensions
Joe,
Currently, Chrome Nanny intentionally does not block chrome://* pages. I will push out a fix next week that allows blocking these pages.
Right, I found the setting to do what I described earlier, and set my blocked sites to be available for 12 minutes every 2 hours between 9 am and 8:30 pm, but it blocked the sites for the entire day. No 12 minute breaks at any point. I must have done something wrong in the settings.
Elina,
Typically when you use it as x minutes per y hours, the blocktime is usually 0000-0000. (ie dont block at any time unless quoat exceeded). If the blocktime is 0000-2359, it blocks all the time regardless of whether you have spent any time on it.
If we want to use it as x minutes per y hours only during our specified blocktime (e.g. 0900 – 2030), how should we do it?
Sun,
Currently its not possible. Will add the feature soon.
Brilliant extension for helping me avoid time wasting sites and distractions whilst revising for my exams!
Bug report:
If you enter a space behind terms in the URLs box, it’s impossible afterwards to Edit or Delete this Block item.
Hans,
Will looks into it.
As a non-techie, I don’t understand all of your instructions, e.g., what is a “challenge test?” It’s probably something I don’t need to change but what would be the reason to change it? Also, I entered sites on the block list and put a couple in lockdown mode. The ones in lockdown mode were blocked but the others were not. Did I do something wrong? The regexp validated the sites. Also, the instructions say there is a way of blocking “incognito” pages but I don’t see an option or instructions to do so (I have the latest Chrome installed). I think this is a very promising and necessary app. but perhaps I am not understanding the instructions…
Hi there, I’m running into an issue when I try to block a URL in two different Block Sets:
“An URL can belong to only one Block Set. Please remove the duplicate URL from this Block Set”
I want the URLs in two block sets because I want to block them at different times on weekends vs weekdays.
Ben G,
I am implementing this feature right now !
Is this feasible? I’m trying to differentiate weekdays and weekends and I can figure it out…
Hi there,
I’ve found a small bug in Nanny. When a lockdown expires, I can’t visit blocked sites until I go into the settings and actually view the lockdown tab – i.e. I need to see it say “No lockdown is active currently” before I can view the previously blocked sites. Otherwise it works great!
NannyLover,
Thats strange. When I tried, it took a few additional seconds but the sites were unblocked without visiting the lockdown tab. Will cross check the code though.
Saravanan,
I have sent you a patch for this last week, works nicely for me.
Hiya, love the extension! Was wondering whether it’s possible to add a “Lockdown” feature, where instead of setting a schedule you can block your chosen sites for a few hours, starting immediately. My work schedule is pretty random so a feature like this would be fantastic!
Kate,
Lockdown feature already exists in Chrome Nanny 🙂 (5th tab in options)
Awesome extension! Might I suggest a feature? I don’t know if it’s possible or not, but I think it would be useful to be able to add 1 site to multiple lists. For example I could have a dedicated facebook.com list which blocks facebook.com after using for 10 mins in 2 hours, then a more general Social networking that blocks after using any social networking sites for more than an hour a day. Possible?
Ryan,
I will add the feature soon !
Would like to edit a block. Can’t find the instruction to do so. Please explain. Also it would be able to allow a certain amount of time to an entry within a time block rather than just outside the time block.
Thanks,
Art
Found it! The Edit and Delete commands had rolled off the screen to the right. The Extension edit screen does not automatically size to the MacBook Air screen. Suggest that you move the Edit and Delete buttons to center or left near the block name.
Thanks for your great work!
Art
I downloaded it, its awesome but am still trying to have a full restriction to all sites and allow only one site.
Any Help
David,
You can enter .* as the block url and enter the one url in white list. This should solve your scenario.
I[‘ve chosen to make use of user accounts in Windows, where my work environment is tailored to work, and Sunday afternoon is tailored to putzing around.
Can I set up different blocking profiles for different user accounts? As it stands, I only see one set of extensions for all users accounts. On the contrary, Leechblock in firefox seems like an independent installation on each user account, which is exactly what I want.
Nanny for Google Chrome ya no funciona por favor restablescanlo por que es una excelente herramienta de bloqueo en Google Chrome
Nanny for Google Chrome no longer works please reset that is an excellent tool to lock in Google Chrome
Hi,
Thanks for developing this! I have a problem with Nanny as it now blocks the pages I’d like to block all the time and it does not allow for the 5 minutes per hour any more.
My settings:
URLs : [URLS]
Blocked During : 0001-0300,0700-2355
Max Time : 5 minutes every 1 hour
Apply On Days : Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday,Saturday
Tags:
Please consider keeping a release log available. You were busy back in December, and somewhat quiet since.
I believe I found a bug. When I set the “Length Of Challenge Text” to 0 and restart Chrome, the extension no longer blocks sites.
Hello Saravan. I was studying the problem I have with information addiction. Nanny is very helpful in fighting. However, the problem with me is that I’m hyperactive and I need to channel my distraction into something productive.
I tweaked Nanny to redirect to a Chrome Extension that allows me to write whatever I think of, instead of gazing at Facebook. I had to modify your options JS to allow another protocol. Next to about:// and http:// you could add chrome-extension://
That might help more people 🙂 The whole idea is not to block your distracting habit but to channel energy into something productive.
http://zenhabits.net/infoholic/
Anyway, thank for the great work you’ve done on this extension 🙂
Hi Saravanan,
I am unable to find a working download link for Chrome Nanny. Am I missing something obvious? Please help!
Thanks!
Hi, Great extension, but I want to do the following which does not seem to be possible.
1. During Monday – Thursday 0800-1900 limit access for 10 mins per hour
2. During Monday – Thursday 1901-2300 limit access to no more than 120 mins in total
I am pretty sure that 1 is not possible and that 2 may be possible but would appreciate confirmation as to how to do this.
Thanks a lot.
Have you thought about porting Nanny to Opera? I for one would really appreciate it
Regards
Isn’t there a way to achieve blocking as given in example #5 of LeechBlock?
http://www.proginosko.com/leechblock_examples.html
That is, if I want to allow site abc.com between 9am – 6pm to be accessed only for 10 mins every 3 hrs.
I can figure out a way to do that.
Thanks for creating Chrome Nanny (or Nanny for Google Chrome, as it’s been renamed). It’s a great extension! 🙂
Is there a way to block ALL websites on Nanny for Google Chrome? I tried putting in *.* in the URLs, but it’s not considered as a valid regular expression.
I’d like to be able to limit my “browsing” to five minutes per hour!
I wanted to thank you for this Extension. I have been struggling with trying to keep my time managed well, and I get lost in watching TV shows or movies online. I have tried simply avoiding Googling those things, but when I get board and want to procrastinate that next excruciating homework assignment from my professor, I can easily go back to Google. This extension has made it possible to block all searches starting with certain keywords, and anything after that. You have no idea how much of a blessing this is. Sometimes it is so hard to not give into the temptation, and that nice long string of code helps prevent further wasted time. Especially when you type it in wrong and have to do it multiple times! Thank you again!
What happen with challenge code? he doesn’t work because I can edit several times the blocks sets. Thanks. : /
Is it possible to block all sites with a certain keyword in it? For example, could I block all sites that contain “games”? If so, how do Ii do this?
I encountered an interesting problem on this blog. I wanted to “log in” (to post this comment) using the Facebook icon below, but Chrome Nanny redirected because I wasn’t allowed to access that domain. It took me a while to figure out why it was doing that, since “authenticating” via facebook is not (to me) the same thing as wasting time on facebook 🙂
I guess the work-around is to whitelist the intermediate authentication URL? Anyway, I see that the facebook authentication installs a stupid App that gives more info to WordPress than just my email address, so I tend not to like that kind of thing anyway.
A great URL to redirect to is one’s Google to-do list all by itself: https://mail.google.com/tasks/canvas?pli=1
i want to report a bug, but have no idea where…
i block several sites for each work day, during working hours. my block starts at 9:00.
now heres the bug. if i access the sites before 9:00 and leave them open, they do not stop working, which is just a minor problem, however, when i close those tabs after 9:00 and try to access the sites by clicking on their icon in the “last visited” splash screen that chrome gives, they WORK even during the block!
if you just type them out in the address line, they are blocked, but when you click their icons from the chrome splash screen, they work. 😦
I’m trying to block ‘VineHot’ because Vinescope keeps redirecting me and its so annoying but when I block it in the interface, I then close it and if I click on the taskbar icon it then says URL’s Allowed and vinehot is there