A focus timer with website blocking, built into the browser you already work in. Name the sites that pull you away, start a session, and they stay closed while you focus - then open again the moment your break starts.
The problem
You open a new tab to look something up and your fingers have typed the first three letters of a feed before you have decided anything. Ten minutes later the study timer is still counting and the work has not moved. A timer on its own only measures that; it has no say over what opens. And an always-on blocker is too blunt for most people, because the same sites are fine at lunch and in the evening. What you want is the sites shut during the work and open again on the break.
How it works
Everything below is free, in Chrome, Edge and Firefox. This is the part that keeps the distractions closed; the timer it runs on has its own page.
The cycle, the badge countdown and what happens to your reminders while it runs are on the Pomodoro timer page. To see a blocked site before you install anything, run a session in the focus playground.
On a site you want closed, open Latr and choose Block this site during focus from the menu - one press, and blocking switches itself on. Or type them in Settings, under Focus and site blocking. Subdomains are included, so one entry covers a whole site. It blocks sites rather than single pages.
Block these shuts the sites you named. Allow only these opens the sites you named and blocks everything else - see the two modes below.
The Focus tab in the Latr popup. Twenty-five minutes of focus and five of break by default, a longer break every fourth round, and every length is yours to change. Start it about a page, or from a bundle of pages, and those pages always open whatever the list says.
The tab goes to a Latr page that says how long is left and what you are working on, with Back to my task when the session is about one, Close this tab (or Go back when there is a page to go back to), Save for later and End session. There is deliberately no button to let one site through.
Nothing is blocked during a break, so the five minutes are really yours. The sites close again when the next focus part starts - you never have to turn anything back on or off by hand.
Two modes
One list, read one of two ways. Most people start with the first and move to the second once they notice how long their list is getting.
Block these
Shut a few sites
Name the handful of sites you lose time on - the video site, the forum you keep refreshing, the news front page - and only those are blocked during focus time. Everything else opens as usual. Right when you know exactly where your attention leaks.
Allow only these
Open a few sites
Name the three sites the work needs and everything else is blocked, which is the stronger way to restrict social media while studying: you never have to list it. Allow search result pages keeps searching possible, and each result you click is checked on its own. An empty list blocks nothing, so switching this mode on never shuts the internet by surprise.
Discipline, not a lock
Every switch here is off until you choose it. Together they make leaving early a decision rather than a habit - without ever taking your browser away from you.
Make ending early take two clicks: during focus time there is no pause and no skip to the break, End session asks twice, and the site list is locked until the session ends - so you cannot edit your way round it either.
Save and close other tabs saves the rest of the window and closes it when the session starts, and reopens it when the session ends. Fewer tabs means fewer things to wander into.
The link someone sent you can wait. Save for later on the block page keeps it in your library, or give it a time and it reopens on its own after the session.
Honest limits
Latr's blocking is built for one job - keeping your own attention on the work during a focus session, in one browser. It is worth knowing exactly where that job ends.
What it does
Use something else if
If what you need is a study timer that keeps the feed shut during revision, this is it - here is how students use it. For a working day of meetings and deep work, see Latr at work.
Questions
Yes. Add youtube.com to the block list and start a focus session: every YouTube page is sent to the block page for the rest of the focus time, and opens normally again on your break. Subdomains are covered, so one entry is enough.
Yes - list each site once (reddit.com, and any social sites you drift to) and they stay shut during every focus part of a session. Nothing is blocked outside a session, so the same sites are there as usual at lunch.
That is the only time Latr blocks anything. The sites on your list are held shut while a focus part of the session is running, and the rest of the day your browser behaves exactly as it always did. There is no all-day mode, because a list that is always on is a different tool - see the section above on when you want one.
Yes. Nothing is blocked during a short or long break, and the sites open normally the moment it starts. When the next focus part begins they are shut again. The break is also when any reminders that came due during focus time are delivered.
Switch the list to Allow only these and name the sites the work needs - your course site, the documentation, the shared document. Everything else is blocked during focus time, social media included, without you having to list it. Allow search result pages keeps a search usable, and the result you click from it is still checked against your list.
It is a focus-time blocker inside one browser, not a network filter. Latr sends the tab to its own page once a blocked address starts to load, so the site can flash for a moment, and something embedded inside another page is not covered. Other browsers and other apps on your computer are not touched. In exchange, Latr’s install dialog carries no permission warnings at all.
Switch on Make ending early take two clicks. During focus time you then cannot pause the timer or skip to the break, End session needs a second press, and the site list is locked until the session ends. You can always end a session - Latr will never make your browser impossible to use - but you cannot end one by reflex.
The block page has Save for later. It keeps the page in your Latr library and tells you it will be there when the session ends, so the link is not lost and you do not have to open it now. Close this tab, or Go back when there is a page behind it, are the other ways off the page.
No install warning, ever. Blocking needs access to your tabs, which is an optional permission Latr asks for at the moment you switch blocking on - and declining it leaves the rest of the extension working. It does not need access to the content of the sites you visit, because it never reads a page; it only redirects the tab.
Free, no account, and nothing leaves your device. About ten seconds to install, and one keystroke to use.
Also on Brave, Vivaldi, Arc and Opera - straight from the Chrome Web Store listing.
