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Comment by throwawaygh | Hacker News Reader

> However, I don't need Facebook, Twitter or TikTok or any social app.

So... don't install those apps?

I guess that's easier said than done. I keep an `/etc/hosts` list of distracting websites (includes HN) and route them all back to my hobby trello task board. Message to myself being, "hey, distractions from work are fine, but wouldn't you rather be working on one of these things than screwing around in a comments section?" And I have a shell script that will wipe a given line of the /etc/hosts for 30 minutes in case I decide "nope, I really do want to screw around in the comments section this time."

Maybe someone should build an app that does something similar -- redirects you when you try to either visit or install fb/twitter/tiktok... not sure if possible without jailbreaking or using an alt app store, though.

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Ahhh I love this. I tried to do something like this for an app I built for self-reflection. Basically anytime FB or Twitter would send me a notification on Android, I would have the phone also send a notification for iFeelio and ask if I would rather check in with myself than with others. It seemed to work for a while, by I was really dancing around Android permissions and I don't know if that's still possible today on Android, and most certainly not on iOS.

Cal Newport in “Digital minimalism” has a plan of attack for addictive loops.

1) force yourself to use the mobile web site vs the dedicated app

2) at the end of the session log out, increasing the friction of using the app mindlessly

Another thing I've started doing that works for me is removing a page from the history on my browser. It's easy to mindlessly browse something like reddit when I can just type 'r' and hit enter because the browser autocompletes sites in my history, but even the 1 second it takes to type out 'reddit.com' gives my brain time to realize there's nothing in particular I wanted to look at, and I was just going there out of habit because I was bored.

I have the same problem! I'd really like to turn off autocomplete completely to resolve it, but Chrome doesn't allow that. :( Remembering to manually remove the site from my history every time isn't gonna happen.

On mobile or desktop?

If you’re on desktop just go to settings and search for “autocomplete” - it might be under Google sync settings or advanced -> privacy settings for “use prediction service to help complete searches and urls”

If I’m wrong, it’s only because I’m using MS Edge and this was a question it asked during setup :)

Desktop. This stops Google from using online predictions, but there’s still an offline autocomplete sadly.

I do this with Firefox on Android, with enabling the setting to clear all history & cookies on Quit action. And then I regularly quit the app. I add a bookmark for sites I do want to access easily for whatever reason. I feel this adds a pretty balanced amount of friction.

This reason is why I personally would like separate app stores. I'd _really_ like to see an iOS app store, curated by the FOSS community, focused on privacy and productivity -- actual productivity, not mind-numbing dopamine fix loops!

Running a local "pihole" equivalent might be possible then; really the sky is the limit if we regain control of our devices.

> Running a local "pihole" equivalent might be possible then;

Did you try adguard?

I currently use 1blocker. I also run a local pihole on my network for dns blocklists and rarely is my phone away from wifi. Seems ok.

Not exactly what you're looking for, but I found Intention to be very effective at periodically interrupting and also capping my daily "mindless" browsing:

https://www.getintention.com/

Is this etc/hosts on Android?

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