Can't I just disable it?

You can, in three clicks, and we say so on the box. But that's an argument for friction, not against it. A hard block gives you an opponent: it says no, you say watch me, and the effort that could have gone into the question goes into beating the software instead — which you win, once, and then it's off for good. That's how people uninstall a blocker in week two. Friction never refuses you, so there's nothing to beat. Holding the button is always easier than removing the extension, so almost nobody removes it, and the holding is the part that works.

Your rules, in your browser. No history, no visited URLs, no analytics. There is no account, so nothing identifying you reaches us.

Does it work on other browsers?

Chrome and Edge today. Firefox is next; blocking is per-browser by design, so nothing follows you to another one.

Twenty seconds sounds like nothing.

The ring on this page runs for five seconds — a quarter of the real thing — and even that is longer than it reads. Twenty seconds is long enough for the question do I actually want this to arrive, which is the entire mechanism.

docs / rules

How a rule matches, and which one wins

Two kinds of entry, one tie-breaker. That's the whole system, and it's worth two minutes because it's how exceptions work.

the two kinds of entry

entry	kind	matches
reddit.com	domain	every page on the host and its subdomains, so `old.reddit.com` is covered without typing it
youtube	domain	no dot, so it is read as a brand: every subdomain and every country domain of it. Deliberately narrow enough that `apple` does not catch `apple.stackexchange.com`
youtube.com/playlist	path prefix	only URLs starting with that path
youtube.com/watch?v=…	path prefix	a single video, if you want that. The query is part of the prefix, and it keeps its capitals — video ids are case-sensitive

The more specific rule wins, and allow beats block at equal specificity. So block youtube.com, allow youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…, and the one playlist you actually need stays open while the rest of the site holds.

the tie-breaker, exactly

Specificity has two levels, not many: a path-prefix rule is more specific than a domain rule, and that is the whole ranking. Two path-prefix rules are equally specific however long they are — so between them, allow wins.

That is what makes an exception work at all. It also means a longer block does not override a shorter allow. If you have allowed youtube.com/playlist and you want one playlist inside it held, a longer block rule will not do it; move the allow down to the specific playlists you want instead.

Rules are evaluated per group, and a group's rules are read in full before one wins — the first match does not end the search.

two worked examples

Block YouTube, keep the one playlist you need for work

block youtube.com · domain
allow youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeiKm4sgNOknGvNjby9efdf · path prefix

The playlist opens without a hold. Everything else on YouTube, including the videos in that playlist opened from the watch page, holds — the watch URL does not start with the playlist prefix.

Hold the news front page, not the article somebody sent you

block theguardian.com · domain
allow theguardian.com/technology/ · path prefix

One section stays open and the front page — the part that is designed to keep you there — does not.

what is never matched

Browser pages are excluded before any rule is read: chrome:, about:, file:, view-source:, extension pages, data:, blob:, mailto: and tel:. You cannot lock yourself out of your own settings, and a rule that would match one of those simply never fires.

Back to how it works