Show HN: Leash, a low-dopamine mobile browser replacement(leash.ax)
leash.ax
Show HN: Leash, a low-dopamine mobile browser replacement
https://leash.ax
7 comments
Is it a full blown browser with support for all capabilities (basically a web-view with no title bar?) or does also it attempt to block all fatigue-related bloat, ads, moving parts, auto-play videos,...?
A web-view with no title bar - no blocking so far. I'm exploring that, but for now this does a really great job (combined with grayscale-mode phone)
Won't you simply 'look up' your social media sites via Spotlight or send the link to them to yourself, so you can tap them?
It will clear all cookies / logins very often, so you'd basically start from scratch, logging in and so on. It is cumbersome, and for me it was totally enough friction to not fall into old habits.
(So yes, there are potential loopholes, but they are uncomfortable to crawl through. Dopamine is all about friction, I guess)
(So yes, there are potential loopholes, but they are uncomfortable to crawl through. Dopamine is all about friction, I guess)
Does the iPhone recognize this as a ‚browser‘?
Yes! There was some paperwork to do with Apple (it is a manual approval process), and it got the entitlement to be the iPhone's system browser. For Android, things were a bit easier.
So after installing Leash and selecting it as the system browser, Safari can be deleted.
So after installing Leash and selecting it as the system browser, Safari can be deleted.
In an attempt to reduce my time spent on screens (and more time in real life), I uninstalled social media from my phone ages ago. The same for email: only on desktop for me.
At some point, I discovered that I would, however, not spend that much less time on my phone, but rather 'migrate' to other habits, such as impulse checking of news sites.
A mobile browser is like a fridge full of sweets if you're trying to stay on a healthy diet.
So I've been living without a mobile browser for a long time: I disabled Safari on my iPhone in parental controls (as you can't delete Safari without installing another browser), and it worked quite well for me: I indeed spent way less time on my phone (RSS for news works better, because the RSS feed has a defined ending).
But in some situations, this was a problem: Scanning a QR code to pay for a parking lot, tapping a link that a friend sent me over WhatsApp, or simply looking up something on the web (I even installed the Wikipedia app) – not possible.
So I decided to (vibe) code a simple browser myself, but:
- without an address bar - without 'favourites'
... so a browser that merely reacts to your life: QR code scanning works again (just scan via the camera app, will open Leash), so does tapping links and looking up stuff on the web.
I've been daily driving it for about 6 weeks now, and it works like a charm.
Of course, I'm also interested in any other 'low-dopamine' mods you're doing!