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Screen time apps vs link-only browsers

25 August 2026

We make an app in this general space, so treat this with the scepticism it deserves. What follows is an attempt to be useful anyway, including a section on when not to use ours.

Prices and features were checked in August 2026 and change frequently. Verify before paying for anything.

Two different problems wearing the same clothes

Nearly everything sold as a screen-time tool solves the app problem: you open Instagram forty times a day and lose two hours to it.

A much smaller category solves the browser problem: the phone in your pocket contains a text field that will take you anywhere on the internet, instantly, at any moment.

These sound like the same problem. They are not, and they fail differently. Delete Instagram and it is gone. Delete your browser and your phone stops opening parcel tracking links, QR menus, calendar invitations and password resets, so you put it back, and the text field comes with it.

Most people have both problems. Almost every tool addresses only the first.

The four mechanisms

Strip away the marketing and there are four things any of these tools can actually do.

Friction. Make the app slightly harder to open: a pause, a breath, a countdown, a question. one sec, ScreenZen and Clearspace work this way. Friction is pleasant to use and works on autopilot, which is most of the problem. It stops working the moment you actually want the app, because you can always just wait ten seconds.

Blocking. Make the app unavailable during a window. Freedom, Opal, AppBlock. This is real enforcement, and the interesting question is what happens when you want to unlock. Freedom's Locked Mode cannot be undone by deleting the app, which closes the usual escape hatch. Most others can be talked out of it.

Physical friction. Put a real object in the loop. Brick is an NFC puck you tap to unblock; Unpluq is a key-like tag. Leaving the object at home is a decision you make once, in the morning, while calm, rather than at 11pm, while not. That is a genuinely good idea and the reason these products have fans.

Absence. Remove the capability rather than restricting it. Deleting an app is the everyday version. A link-only browser is the same move applied to the browser: an app with no address bar and no search cannot be talked into showing you one, because there is nothing to show.

The first three ask you to make a decision under pressure. The fourth removes the decision. Neither is better in general; they suit different problems.

The landscape

Prices as advertised in August 2026.

Three things stand out in that table, and none of them are about features.

Everything is a subscription except Brick. In a category about spending less on your attention, a recurring charge is a slightly odd shape. Brick's one-off price is a real differentiator and it is currently owned by a $59 piece of plastic.

The most-marketed tools are iOS-only. Opal and one sec, the two you see everywhere, do not serve Android. Android users in this space are used to being an afterthought.

Only two rows address the browser problem at all. That is not because it is a small problem. It is because the fix is structurally awkward: you cannot solve it by blocking something, since blocking the browser breaks the phone.

Where each one is genuinely the right answer

Pick ScreenZen if you have not tried anything yet. It is free, it does more than most paid apps, and there is no reason to spend money before you know whether friction works for you.

Pick one sec if your problem is unconscious: the phone is in your hand and you do not remember picking it up. A forced pause is aimed precisely at that, and it is a nicer daily experience than a lockout.

Pick Freedom if the problem spans devices. Blocking a site on your phone while your laptop sits open two feet away is theatre. Freedom is the mature answer to that, and Locked Mode is the feature to look for.

Pick Brick or Unpluq if you have already tried software and undone it. Putting a physical object between you and the unlock is a different kind of commitment, and for some people it is the thing that finally works.

Pick Opal if you want the data. It is the most expensive option here by some distance, and analytics and coaching are the thing you are buying. If you will not read them, you are paying for a blocker at four times the price of one.

Pick a link-only browser (Anti Browser on iOS, Not A Browser on Android) if you have already deleted the apps and the browser is what is left. If your honest answer to "where does the time go" is reading things I did not set out to read, this is the tool for that, and a blocker is not.

When not to use ours

We would rather say this plainly than have you install it and be annoyed.

Do not use Not A Browser if you need to look things up on your phone. Not "prefer to". need to. If your work involves answering questions while away from a desk, an app with no search will get in your way several times a day and you will be back within a week.

Do not use it if your problem is the apps. Not A Browser does nothing about Instagram. It is not a blocker, has no timers, no schedules and no reports, and it will not touch a social media habit. Delete the apps, or use one of the blockers above.

Do not use it if you want data about yourself. It collects nothing, which means it can never show you a chart. That is deliberate, and for some people it is exactly the wrong trade.

The combination most people actually want

Nothing here is exclusive, and the setup that works for most people is not one product.

1. Delete the feed apps. Free, and it is most of the benefit. Nothing on this page substitutes for it.
2. Add friction or blocking to whatever you could not delete. ScreenZen first, since it costs nothing.
3. Fix the browser problem so that step 1 holds: a link-only browser as default, every other browser disabled.
4. Grayscale and an empty home screen. Free, takes five minutes, and surprisingly effective.

Steps 1 and 4 cost nothing and do most of the work. Worth doing those before paying anyone a subscription, ourselves included.