Leash, a low-dopamine mobile browser replacement
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Hello!In an attempt to reduce my time spent on screens (and more time in real life), I uninstalled social media from my phone ages ago. The same for email: only on desktop for me.At some point, I discovered that I would, however, not spend that much less time on my phone, but rather 'migrate' to other habits, such as impulse checking of news sites.A mobile browser is like a fridge full of sweets if you're trying to stay on a healthy diet.So I've been living without a mobile browser for a long time: I disabled Safari on my iPhone in parental controls (as you can't delete Safari without installing another browser), and it worked quite well for me: I indeed spent way less time on my phone (RSS for news works better, because the RSS feed has a defined ending).But in some situations, this was a problem: Scanning a QR code to pay for a parking lot, tapping a link that a friend sent me over WhatsApp, or simply looking up something on the web (I even installed the Wikipedia app) – not possible.So I decided to (vibe) code a simple browser myself, but:- without an address bar - without 'favourites'... so a browser that merely reacts to your life: QR code scanning works again (just scan via the camera app, will open Leash), so does tapping links and looking up stuff on the web.I've been daily driving it for about 6 weeks now, and it works like a charm.Of course, I'm also interested in any other 'low-dopamine' mods you're doing!
HN · launched Jun 10, 2026 · 5 upvotes (top 87%) · 0 views
Niche: specialized and developer web browsers · 84 launches, 10 in the last 7 days ▲ +11% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Communication
- B2C
- Not AI
- Commercial product
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 84 launches in specialized and developer web browsers →
Could you build this?
Yes A distraction-free minimalist mobile browser can be built using standard iOS (WKWebView) or Android (WebView) wrappers with reader-mode styling and domain blocklists.
Discussion
6 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Safari, Spotlight (for accessing blocked sites)
Concerns raised: Users can easily bypass via Spotlight or link shortcuts, Frequent cookie/login clearing is cumbersome friction, Unclear if it blocks all fatigue-related bloat or just restricts access
Feature requests: Full ad/auto-play video/moving parts blocking capabilities, System browser entitlement on Android (easier than iOS)
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 108 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #99 of 109 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 223 days after the earliest competitor.
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