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dimmer
a man in a cap sitting on a chair, alone in a wide green field, looking away

find yourselfonline again

dimmer is a free Chrome extension that makes distracting sites gray, slow and harder to open, with an accountability partner who gets told if you quit.

join the waitlist

turn down the pull of distracting sites.

not a blocker. the sites you choose turn gray, slow and a step further away, and you can always keep going. flip the switch on the feed and watch it happen.

a feed, as it is.the same feed, dimmed.

a sample feed of placeholder photos and posts. dimming it drains its color, hides its counters, slows its video to a third of the speed and makes its scrolling heavy.

flip dim to feel the difference.flip dim, then drag the feed to feel the difference.

how it works

four ways a site gets turned down. none of them is a wall.

  1. invisible

    visits often start with a nudge: a feed, a suggestion, a tab you left open. dimmer hides the feeds on the sites you choose and tucks their results away on Google, so there is less to set you off.

  2. unattractive

    a small badge shows how long you have been there today, and now and then a short check-in asks why you came. you can write a promise and add a friend, who gets a short email if you break it or quit dimmer. they see numbers, never pages.

  3. difficult

    a dimmed site opens after a short pause, and the pause grows a little each time you come back the same day. the way back to what you were doing is always the bigger button, and you can always keep going.

  4. unsatisfying

    the site turns gray, so the feed loses its shine. videos play slower, scrolling takes more effort and only the middle of the page stays in view.

dimmer, a blocker, or nothing

most focus tools are blockers: they stop you. doing nothing leaves it to willpower. dimmer sits in between: the site is still there, it just gets boring. here’s how it compares with specific tools.

dimmer compared with website blockers and with doing nothing
dimmerblockersdoing nothing
freeyes: the pause on two sites, gray and no feeds on every site you dim, and one partnermostly a free version, with the strongest features paidyes
works without blockingyes: nothing is ever blocked, sites just get duller and slowerno: blocking is the point, and some lock it until a session endsnothing to work
accountabilitya friend gets an email if you break your promise or quitnone of the ones we compared has a partnernone
privacythe pages you visit never leave your browservaries: read each one’s privacy policynothing to share
platformsChrome on a computer only. no phone appseveral also cover phones and desktop appseverywhere
changing your mindturning it up is instant; turning it down waits 24 hoursoften impossible until the block endsany time

dimmer isn’t out yet.

leave your email and we’ll tell you when it launches.