Lightweight Website Blocker
This Chrome extension blocks a list of user-specified domains. The initial motivation was to create a tool to help me focus while also learning about Chrome Manifest V3. However, I found this tool super helpful to prevent me from “automatically” navigating to distracting websites, so I wanted to share it with others. Built with JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Puppeteer, and Jest.
Download the free extension in the Chrome Web Store: Lightweight Website Blocker
Initial list of blocked sites is defined in INITIAL_SITES_TO_BLOCK at background.js:
- espn.com
- cnn.com
- foxnews.com
- facebook.com
- linkedin.com
- mail.google.com
- youtube.com
- instagram.com
- x.com
If this tool has helped you focus better, please buy me a coffee =).
How to run locally
git clone this repo to a local directory- Navigate to
chrome://extensions on the Chrome browser
- Toggle on “Developer mode”
- Click on “Load unpacked” and in the popup, navigate to the folder where this repo was saved and select the root folder
- Once the extension is loaded, it should be displayed under “All extensions”
- Locate and pin the extension
- Click on the extension, and add a new URL, formatted as domain.com (ex: espn.com or youtube.com)
- Navigate to the domain - it should be blocked
For any questions, refer to instructions on the Google Chrome page, Load an unpacked extension.
Version history
0.0.2, updated 2025-12-05
- added additional web request resource types to block: sub_frame, script, xmlhttprequest, images (see what this means here)
- added additional sites on initial block list:
youtube.com, instagram.com, x.com
- updated
gmail.com to mail.google.com on the initial block list
- compressed PNG logo images to reduce extension size
0.0.1, updated 2025-10-21
- initial release to Chrome Web Store
- users can specify website URLs to be blocked
- extension includes pre-loaded URLs