Now here’s an application I think everyone I know feels like they need: Leech Block.
It’s a Firefox extension that you can program to be your self-control gnome. It is a well-established fact that Google, IMDB, YouTube, and any social networking site were set up by the devil to suck your life away in pursuits which are neither related to the thing you came online to do, nor remotely useful. Leech Block, apparently, lets you block the sites you know suck your life away, at the times you know you should be doing something else.
For example, some people are most productive in the mornings, so they set Leech Block to block their time-sink sites until, say, 2pm.
But, if you’re like me, you’re already thinking, so what’s to stop me saying “Sod this”, and going into the options and unlocking the site I want to visit?
Well, apparently the developer has seen inside our heads, and knows it isn’t pretty. There is, in the options, a checkbox which allows you to tell Leech Block to deny you access to the options during the times it’s blocking you from sites.
Genius.
Have I installed it yet? Hell, no.