Scroll Brake — Focus & Website Locker

Tired of opening Twitter, Reddit, or YouTube on autopilot? Scroll Brake breaks your unconscious browsing loops using intentional cognitive friction. Solve progressive mental math problems to unlock distracting sites, track true active screen time, and establish firm daily limits. Most website blockers fail because they are binary: either they lock you out completely (so you get frustrated and disable them), or they give you a passive 5-second delay (which your brain ignores while waiting). Scroll Brake gives you conscious agency: solve an arithmetic problem to earn a focused session, or close the tab and return to what actually matters. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🧠 HOW COGNITIVE FRICTION WORKS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Doomscrolling is a subconscious habit loop (System 1 thinking). When you feel momentary boredom or work fatigue, your fingers automatically type distracting URLs before you even realize it. By introducing a 5-second mental math barrier, Scroll Brake forces your prefrontal cortex to engage (System 2 thinking). That brief arithmetic effort snaps you out of the trance, giving your rational brain the moment of clarity needed to ask: "Do I really want to spend the next 40 minutes scrolling right now?" ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚡ KEY FEATURES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🧮 Progressive Arithmetic Friction • Step 1 begins with foundational multiplication tables, clean division, and two-digit addition or subtraction. • Every subsequent unlock on that site increases in difficulty by adding digits to the numbers. • The more times you try to access a site in a day, the harder your brain has to work to unlock it. • Built-in anti-cheat: switching tabs, copying, pasting, or opening devtools immediately scrambles and regenerates the problem. ⏱️ True Active-Time Session Tracking • Configure custom session limits (from 1 to 120 minutes) for each blocked website. • Unlike dumb timers that tick away in background tabs, Scroll Brake monitors real user activity (mouse movement, keystrokes, and scrolling). • If you leave the tab or switch windows, the timer pauses immediately. You only spend the time you actually use. • Sleek, unobtrusive floating HUD widget keeps you aware of your remaining session countdown. 🛡️ Daily Solve Quotas & Hard Locks • Set a strict daily unlock limit per site (e.g., maximum 5 unlocks per day). • Once you reach your quota, access is firmly locked until midnight. No negotiations, no snooze buttons. 🎯 Precision Domain & URL Path Matching • Block an entire domain and all its subdomains (e.g., reddit.com). • Or surgically target high-distraction algorithmic feeds (e.g., youtube.com/shorts* or instagram.com/explore*) while keeping informative articles and tutorials accessible. • Full support for custom wildcard patterns (*). ⚡ Instant Quick-Add Popup • Click the extension icon on any webpage to instantly lock it with custom parameters. • View remaining session time, solve counters, or lock the site on demand with a single click. 🎲 Interactive Math Playground • Test your mental arithmetic agility in a dedicated training sandbox. • Preview difficulty steps 1 through 10 before setting your rules. 🔒 100% Private, Local & Offline-First • All rules, session durations, and solve counts are stored 100% locally on your computer via chrome.storage.local. • Zero telemetry, zero analytics, zero external network requests. • Operates completely offline with zero browser performance overhead. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🛡️ PERMISSIONS TRANSPARENCY ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Scroll Brake adheres strictly to the principle of least privilege: • Storage: Saves your custom rules and daily solve counters locally in your browser. • Tabs: Detects the active URL to check if the current webpage is on your blocklist. • Alarms: Triggers a lightweight check every 15 minutes to automatically reset daily solve quotas at midnight. • Host Permissions (<all_urls>): Needed solely to display the protective barrier and timer widget on the websites you choose to block. No browsing history from unblocked sites is ever read, collected, or transmitted. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💬 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Q: Can I use a calculator or inspect the code to cheat? A: No. The math challenge is rendered inside an isolated, closed Shadow DOM. Any loss of window focus, tab switching, or paste event invalidates the problem and generates a new one instantly. Q: Will this slow down my browsing or drain battery? A: Absolutely not. Scroll Brake is written in pure vanilla JavaScript without heavy external frameworks. Event listeners use throttled heartbeats and consume near-zero CPU. Q: What if I need a site for work? A: You can configure generous session times (e.g., 60 minutes) or use URL pattern rules to block only addictive feeds while keeping work tools accessible. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Reclaim your attention, eliminate autopilot procrastination, and make your screen time intentional with Scroll Brake.