Stopp

A command-line utility to help you stop procrastinating

Stopp is a simple network filter intended to be used to block yourself from wasting time on sites like Facebook, Reddit, and Hacker News when you're trying to get work done.

Stopp stands for Stop Procrastinating, and it works simply by adding entries to your system's hosts file, and routing them to (by default) 0.0.0.0 , which effectively renders the desired website useless.

Stopp is super easy to toggle on and off, just use the stopp on and stopp off commands. You may have to wait up to 5 minutes when enabling Stopp for your DNS cache(s) to update, but turning it off is usually instant (try doing a hard refresh in your browser — command + shift + r in Chrome — if it doesn't update right away).

You should note that when adding domains to the filter, subdomains are always treated as seperate domains. For example, adding reddit.com will not block www.reddit.com . This is just how the hosts file works.

Additionally, this application makes a backup of your hosts file each time it is modified, and stores it in ./backups/, so if anything goes horribly wrong, you should probably be able to recover. See issue 1.

Some planned (if I get around to it, or someone submits a pull request) features include:

Optionally set a timer for the filter, sgo that you can't turn it off until the timer expires

Import and export filter lists as JSON

Include default filter lists full of common time-wasting sites for easy plug-n-play

Automatically detect subdomains and offer to add them to the filter (e.g. if you enter reddit.com , the script will offer to add www.reddit.com , np.reddit.com , etc.)

, the script will offer to add , , etc.) Improved CLI design

Notes

Mac OS X is the only supported OS. (Tested on 10.10)

WARNING: Use at your own risk. This program modifies the HOSTS file on your system.

Author(s) assume no responsibility or liability for any damages that may occur as a result, direct or indirect, of the use of this software.

WARNING: It is not recommended to modify your HOSTS file while the filter is ON!

Install

npm install -g stopp

Usage

stopp <command> [args] (you may need to run it as root with sudo ) Example: stopp add reddit.com

help - Show help menu

on - Turn the filter on

off - Turn the filter off

status - Show the filter status

list - List all filtered addresses

add <domain> [<domain> ...] - Add specified domain(s) to filter (don't include http(s)://)

del <domain> [<domain> ...] - Remove specified domain(s) from filter

Contributing

Feel free to submit pull requests. Please adhere to the NPM coding style.

License

MIT license. See LICENSE.md

Misc

I wrote this application whilst procrastinating. :)