I Was Bypassing Every App Blocker, So I Built One That Fights Back
So a few months ago I realized I was actually addicted to my phone. Like, bad. I tried the built-in app blockers but they never worked for me because the "unblock for 5 minutes" button is too tempting. It always turns into an hour.
I got so mad I uninstalled Instagram. Then I just started scrolling Pinterest. Uninstalled that, then moved to YouTube. I tried apps like Forest and Regain but half of them didn't even work on my Android 15 setup or let me bypass the timer too easily.
The funny part is I decided to build my own app to fix this — but kept getting distracted by YouTube while coding the blocker. It took 4 months because of my own addiction lol.
I finally finished it and launched it on the Play Store. It's called FocuzPass. The main thing is it makes you solve quizzes to "earn" your screen time, so you can't just mindlessly click "unblock."
I've been using it for a few weeks and it's actually working better for me than anything else out there. But since I made it, I'm obviously biased. if you guys want give it a try and let me know your thoughts.
This is a good reminder that Android utilities need adversarial real-device testing, not only happy-path UX. I’m seeing the same with Kinetic Override: permissions, local-profile wording, and gesture timing all have to survive the first skeptical user, otherwise the feature list does not matter.
The irony of getting distracted by YouTube while building a distraction
blocker is peak indie hacker energy 😂
Genuine question — how do you handle the "I'll just uninstall the app"
bypass? That was always my escape route with other blockers. Is there
a device admin permission or something that makes FocuzPass harder to
remove in the moment?
The quiz mechanic is clever because it adds friction without being a
hard wall. It's basically forcing your brain to switch from autopilot
to conscious mode before you can scroll. Smart.
How's retention been so far — are users sticking with it after the
first week or do people find new workarounds?
Before adding to playstore it was unable to uninstall but they rejected it, so you can uninstall it but actually i am trying to hit the physiology of user to make them stay by showing their analytics how much they are using how much time they are adding and message that make them think again. the hardest part for me is getting user because i am so bad at marketing and promotion without marketing and promotion we have 63 users till now retention time is around 2-3 minutes because they only come back for playing the game rest of the time we are keep blocking app once the timer has reached it's set time. for now bypassing issue haven't been found in 63 basically like 5 users uninstall till now because previously onboarding was not so solid
i had a similar problem. i set limits for instagram, but i kept pressing “ignore limit for today” again and again. i also deleted youtube and other social media apps, but i would always find another way to waste time.
honestly, because of this problem, i sometimes feel like i developed adhd-like habits. but the only thing that really helped me was discipline and making a conscious decision in the moment. just telling myself: “no, my time is over. i need to go do something actually useful now.”
but your app definitely sounds useful because it adds extra friction instead of letting people bypass the limit with one easy tap.
yep, i can understand the pain i was suffering from the same issue i have notice one thing no blocker can actually help you but if you see it as a helper which is contributing to the user to make them better version they tend to stick with it, our work is just make user feel what exactly they are missing out spending time with your friends your important work or something else as your time will go low on phone other things will going to take over those empty things.
The hardest part of going solo isn't writing the code, it's managing the daily chaos. If you don't automate your customer onboarding and product delivery early on, you'll quickly drown in administrative work. Set up a rock-solid automation loop to handle the backend 24*7 so you can actually protect your sanity.
agree and most haunting work is to get user and marketing checking everything all the time bugs, complain all together its really chaos, but still for some reason this journey is fun like you are doing something you love and at least not going to regret later fail fast keep going and make it.
Interesting build.
The thing I'd be careful with is assuming the quiz mechanic is the reason people will stick around.
A lot of productivity tools end up competing on features when the real decision is what job the user is hiring the product to do for them in that moment.
I wouldn't make that call casually in-thread because it changes the positioning, onboarding, and what should actually drive conversion.
Happy to put the tighter version in writing if useful.