Not A Browser vs ScreenZen
· facts checked against public sources on that date
If you have not tried anything yet, install ScreenZen and close this tab. It is free, it is on every platform, and for most people it addresses a bigger share of the problem than we do.
That is not modesty. It is the order of operations.
- Platform
- ScreenZen: iPhone, Android, iPad, Mac
- Not A Browser: Android
- Price
- ScreenZen: Free, funded by donations
- Not A Browser: On Google Play
- Mechanism
- ScreenZen: Friction: a delay or a prompt before an app opens
- Not A Browser: Absence
- Can be waited out
- ScreenZen: Yes, by design
- Not A Browser: Nothing to wait out
- Website blocking
- ScreenZen: Yes
- Not A Browser: No, it is not a blocker
- Handles links and QR codes
- ScreenZen: No
- Not A Browser: Yes, that is the whole app
Free, and not the kind of free that has a catch
Worth being specific, because "free" in this category usually means a trial.
ScreenZen has no premium tier, no in-app purchases and no locked features. It is funded by donations, and its makers sell a separate paid product for people who want something different. The app itself is not a teaser for that.
It also has more configuration than most paid blockers: progressive delays that grow the more you open something, cooldown timers, custom messages, per-day and per-time-of-day rules, and website blocking. Comparing feature lists, several $20-a-month products come off worse.
Friction, and what it is good at
ScreenZen's mechanism is a pause. Before a chosen app opens you wait, or type a phrase, or answer a question. Then it opens.
That is aimed squarely at automatic behaviour: the reach that happens before you decide, the unlock you do not remember starting. A few seconds is genuinely enough to re-engage the part of you that has opinions about how you spend an evening, and for that specific failure mode friction works well and pleasantly.
Note the shape of the claim, though. Friction works because you did not really want to open the app; you were on autopilot. It has nothing to push against when you do want to.
Why that does not transfer to a browser
Opening a browser is usually deliberate. Someone sent a link. A code arrived. You need the menu. You had a reason and the reason was good.
Put a fifteen-second pause in front of that and you have added fifteen seconds to a legitimate task, several times a day, for no benefit, and you will wait it out every time, because you should. The pause is not doing any work.
The browsing that costs you an evening does not begin with an illegitimate action either. It begins with a legitimate one (reading the article you were sent) and then continues, because when you finished there was a search bar sitting right there and nothing to stop the next thing.
Friction at the door does not help when the problem is what is inside the room. Not A Browser takes a different position: the errand is fine and should be frictionless, and the room should not have anything else in it.
The verdict
ScreenZen is the first thing to try, and it is free. It adds a pause before an app opens. A pause before a browser you have every right to open does not help.
Choose ScreenZen if
- You have not tried anything yet, and it costs nothing and does a lot
- Your problem is reaching for an app on autopilot
- You want scheduling, cooldowns and per-app rules
Choose Not A Browser if
- The apps are already gone and the browser is what remains
- A pause you can wait out is not the obstacle you need
- You want links to work while search does not exist
The sequence we would actually recommend
- Delete the feed apps you can delete. Free, and the largest single effect.
- ScreenZen for whatever survived step one. Also free. Give it a month.
- The settings work: empty home screen, grayscale, notifications off. Free, about twenty minutes, and covered in the guide.
- Then, if you are still losing evenings to reading things you did not choose, the browser is what is left, and that is where we come in.
Most people do not need step four. The ones who do have usually done one to three and are puzzled about why it did not finish the job.
Questions people ask
Is ScreenZen really free?
The app is, with no premium tier and no in-app purchases, funded by optional donations. Its makers also sell a separate paid product, but ScreenZen itself is not a trial or a teaser.
Should I use ScreenZen instead of Not A Browser?
If you have not tried anything yet, start with ScreenZen: it is free and it addresses the larger problem for most people, which is apps rather than browsers. Come back to this when the apps are gone and the browsing has not stopped.
Keep reading
- The minimalist phone setup guideWhichever tool you pick, the settings work comes first.
- Not A Browser vs one secone sec interrupts an unconscious reflex, which is most of the problem for most people. Opening a browser is usually not unconscious: you had a reason, and the reason was a link.
- Not A Browser vs OpalOpal blocks apps and charges about $99.99 a year for the insight into why you open them. It does not run on Android, and it does not solve the browser problem on any platform.