A door you closed.
And then forgot the key.
Threshold is a small Chrome extension that helps you stop visiting the sites you've already decided are done with you. The lock is real. The key lives with one person you trust.
You decided
not to come here.
Hey Marcus — Sam stumbled.
They tried to visit reddit.com just now. The block held. You don't need to do anything — just know they might want a text in the morning.
Plain numbers, no spin.
What were you really after?
Three things, taken seriously.
A real lock
You set a 30-character random code, paste it once, and forget it. We hash it on your machine. There's no recovery email, no admin override, no support ticket that opens it. That's on purpose — the whole point is that you can't talk yourself out of it later.
A real person
One trusted friend — your spouse, sponsor, mentor. Not a leaderboard, not a coach, not a chatbot pretending to care. They get a quiet email when you slip and a calm one on Sundays. They have final say on every change you ask for.
A real pause
When you do hit a blocked site, the page is calm. There's no "I'm sure, let me through" button hiding under a misleading icon. Just a line you chose, your own pledge, and sixty seconds of breathing if you want it.
Our whole job is to make sure that version of you wins the fight against the version of you at 2 AM, on a hard day, looking for a hole.Threshold Team
Maybe you. Maybe not.
- You're an adult choosing recovery from addictive or compulsive content
- You're trying to rebuild focus after years of doomscrolling
- You've got one trusted person willing to read an email now and then
- You've already tried apps with snooze buttons and felt the catch
- You're a parent trying to block your kids — different tool, honestly
- You're an employer monitoring employees
- You want streaks to share, badges to earn, points to grind
- You're looking for an easy out when things get hard
One email,
the day it goes live.
That's it. No drip campaign, no "we miss you" follow-ups. Promise.
Eight things, done with care.
Each one is here because we couldn't make the product work without it. Nothing was added to look impressive on a feature comparison.
A blocklist that holds
Pick categories — adult content, gambling, social, news, video. Add specific sites by name or wildcard. Adding more is instant. Removing anything? That's the partner-and-72-hours flow. The asymmetry is the whole point.
Your accountability partner
One person — your spouse, your sponsor, a friend who picks up. They get a quiet email when you slip, a calm summary on Sundays, and the final call on anything you ask to change.
A block page that breathes
Calm, by design. No red, no alarms, no shouting. Just a line you chose, your pledge in your own words, and sixty seconds of breathing if you want them.
The 72-hour wait
When you ask to remove a site, your partner approves or denies. Even if they say yes, three days pass before anything actually changes. Plenty of time to reconsider — and they can revoke right up to the last second.
A journal only you read
Tag what you were feeling. Write what you actually needed. Patterns surface in your own time. Your partner sees that you wrote — never what.
Numbers, not theatrics
A 26-week heatmap of moments you chose differently. Late-night patterns. Streak resets, shown plainly. We don't hide a hard week behind a prettier graph.
A focus schedule
Late nights, Sunday mornings, finals week — pick windows where extra restrictions kick in. Adding rules is instant. Removing is, you guessed it, the partner flow.
A Sunday email
Both you and your partner get a quiet recap on Sunday at 9 PM. The week's patterns, plainly. Your streak. A small nudge that they can text you.
Restraint is a feature too.
— No leaderboards.
Recovery isn't a leaderboard sport.
— No "I'm strong today" override.
Past-you knew better than today-you, and we trust them.
— No streak freeze for vacations.
The number has to mean what it says, or it means nothing.
— No AI chatbot.
A real person who knows your name, or nothing.
— No therapist dashboard.
One trusted partner is the cap. We won't scale past that.
— No partner reading your journal.
Even if you ask. That toggle does not exist.
Six steps. One door.
From the moment you install to the moment you ask to change something — the whole arc, plainly told.
Install it. Five minutes, end to end.
You pick categories. Drop in any custom sites. Generate a 30-character random code, paste it, forget it. Name your partner. Write your pledge in your own words — whatever you want past-you to say to future-you.
Your partner says yes.
They get an email, see what they're actually agreeing to in plain English (no surprise responsibilities), and click the button. Until they accept, the lock stays off — we won't pretend you're protected when you're not.
Ten seconds of countdown. Then it's on.
You can still walk away. After it engages? The only path through is your partner and seventy-two hours. We make this clear so there are no surprises.
Most days, you don't see us.
The extension lives quietly in your toolbar. Open the popup and your streak is there. Otherwise, we stay out of your way.
When you stumble, the page stays calm.
A line you chose. Your pledge. Your streak. The fact that your partner just got an email. Sixty seconds of breathing if you want it. No shouting, no shame.
When you need a change, both of you slow down.
You submit a request. Your partner approves. Seventy-two hours pass. They can revoke any time during the wait. We made this slow on purpose — most "I need to unblock this" feelings don't survive three days.
A determined person can always switch browsers, devices, or accounts. We won't pretend otherwise. Threshold is for the version of you that wants to be locked out — not the version that's looking for a workaround.
Things people actually ask.
If your question isn't here, write to us. We answer ourselves.
After 48 hours of silence on an open request, the backup partner you named at setup gets pinged. If you didn't name one, the request stays open — there is no auto-approval, ever, no matter how long it sits.
Yes — Chrome doesn't let any extension prevent its own removal. No one's does, and we won't lie and claim ours can. What we do: when you start to uninstall, your partner gets an email with the time and your last 7 days of activity. The cleaner path is submitting an uninstall request through the popup, which triggers the same 72-hour wait.
No. They can see that you wrote entries, and how many. They never see what you wrote. We don't even build a toggle for it — the trust boundary is drawn at the design level, on purpose.
During setup, we ask Chrome for incognito access. If you decline, the lock stays off and we keep reminding you on every browser launch. We'd rather be a little annoying than quietly let coverage have a hole.
Yes — through the same unlock flow with the 72-hour wait. Your current partner is told the change was requested, so it's never a surprise to them.
You can always add to it instantly. Removing anything requires the partner-and-72-hours flow. That asymmetry is the whole reason this works.
A mobile companion app is on the roadmap — it'll pair to the same partner and code. For other desktop browsers, we're honest: a determined person can switch. Threshold is for the version of you that wants to be locked out, not the one looking for a hole.
Your blocklist and hashed code stay on your machine. Your partner's email and timestamps live on our servers, encrypted. Your journal entries are encrypted with a key only your machine has — we genuinely cannot read them. We don't sell, share, or aggregate any of it. The Privacy page has the longer version.
Not exactly — but it works for Christians. At setup you choose what shows on the block screen: scripture, Stoic quotes, general affirmations, your own notes, or just plain text. Pick what helps.
What stays where.
Short version: the smallest amount of data that makes the lock work, encrypted as much as we can manage, shared with no one but the partner you picked.
On your machine
Blocklist, hashed code, journal text (encrypted), pledge, settings.
On our servers
Partner email, timestamps, attempt counts, encrypted journal blob (we cannot read it).
Nowhere, ever
Sold to third parties. Aggregated for analytics. Shared with anyone besides your named partner.
What we collect
The minimum that makes the product work — your email, your partner's email, the hashed commitment code, attempt counts (the domain you tried plus a timestamp, never the URL or page contents), and an encrypted blob holding your journal entries.
What we don't collect
Browsing history outside blocked sites. The contents of any page. Anything you type on a non-blocked site. Analytics about how you use the popup. None of it. If we don't actively need it to keep the lock honest, we don't take it.
What your partner sees
Your streak. Your attempts (domain only). Open unlock requests with the reason you wrote. The fact that you wrote journal entries. Nothing else, ever — even if you ask, we don't build that toggle.
Deleting your account
Submit an uninstall request — 72 hours later, your data is wiped. No "soft delete" hanging around. No marketing list survives.