The Lumber Room

"Consign them to dust and damp by way of preserving them"

The procrastinator’s nature

with 7 comments

I just started using LeechBlock yesterday, and already I know why “How can I block Google’s cached versions of sites as well?” is in the FAQ.


LeechBlock is wonderful. (Install)

There are no results on Google for “LeechBlock saved my life”, but there are testimonials like “Leech block has changed my life”, “Leechblock just saved my life”, and “This application is saving my thesis, and improving my social life”.

If LeechBlock isn’t working for you, you can try more extreme solutions like (on Mac) Freedom and SelfControl. (Found via this post.) But for me, right now, with my current level of work and self-awareness and other devices being employed, LeechBlock seems to be just about sufficient. (Although I do wish Safari were an even worse browser than it is.)

Semi-unrelatedly, also worth reading is Aaron Swartz’s experiment involving one month offline: Before/After.

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Written by S

Fri, 2009-08-07 at 23:51:05

7 Responses

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  1. I know aught about browsers, but despite that, and even though we are friends, I have to say “Pshaw!” and “Faugh!” at your comments on Safari! As a fan-boy, I can completely vouch for the fact that it is the best!

    S P Suresh

    Sat, 2009-08-08 at 01:22:59

    • * It does not have Firefox’s ‘Awesome Bar’, which I practically depend on

      * It often unexpectedly opens new tabs and even new windows when clicking on links

      * There’s no ‘Undo Close Tab’

      * Cmd-1, 2, etc. change the page to go to random websites, instead of switching tabs!

      * It opens PDFs in the browser, instead of downloading them

      * It doesn’t remember any of my form history, which is all in Firefox :-)

      (etc.)

      A couple of these I could easily change in the Safari preferences probably, or even get used to, but I’m glad I haven’t!

      Shreevatsa

      Sat, 2009-08-08 at 14:26:48

      • BTW, I found that it was possible to get somewhat used to Safari — so I’ve deleted it from my system. (And then I discovered the same with Google Chrome so I’ve deleted that too!)

        Shreevatsa

        Tue, 2009-08-25 at 21:33:24

  2. Ok, at the risk of sounding like everyone else, Leechblock is saving my life :P

    Thanks for blogging about it!

    -(hopefully) ex-Twitter addict.

    Sunayana

    Mon, 2009-08-17 at 04:08:44

    • Ah, excellent… glad to have helped. :-)

      (In the unfortunate event that it stops working for you, do let me know!)

      Shreevatsa

      Mon, 2009-08-17 at 08:32:49

  3. You didn’t reckon for the Shreevatsa factor when you claimed that there are no Google results for “Leechblock saved my life” — there are results, namely your own blog post :).

    A self-falsifying statement :-D.

    Vipul

    vipulnaik

    Tue, 2009-08-25 at 17:52:25

    • Yes… I thought of that when writing it :) I was also curious to see how with what delay Google indexes blog posts… apparently only an hour or a few.

      Shreevatsa

      Tue, 2009-08-25 at 21:35:38


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