pause.do is a browser extension that creates small moments of friction before attention-draining behaviors AI prompt offloading, mindless scrolling, and tab overload. It does not block websites. It inserts a brief pause so you can choose consciously, not by habit.

How does pause.do work?

pause.do runs entirely in your browser. It detects low-effort AI prompts (e.g. "rewrite this", "make it better"), rapid scrolling sessions, and tab overload. When triggered, a brief 5–30 second overlay appears with a breathing animation. You choose whether to pause, try it yourself, or continue. All processing happens locally no data leaves your device.

What is "Think First" in pause.do?

Think First is pause.do's AI-awareness feature. It detects when you type a low-effort prompt into AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini phrases like "rewrite this" or "make it better" and suggests spending a few minutes attempting the task yourself first. This helps maintain cognitive engagement and prevents habitual AI offloading.

Does pause.do work with ChatGPT?

Yes. The Think First feature works on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and any AI tool you access in the browser. It detects low-effort prompt patterns regardless of which AI platform you're using.

Does pause.do block websites?

No. pause.do does not block or restrict any websites. It creates small moments of friction a brief pause rather than a hard wall. This is intentional: the goal is awareness and choice, not restriction.

How is pause.do different from Freedom or Cold Turkey?

Freedom and Cold Turkey block websites on a schedule. pause.do works differently it does not block access or require scheduling. Instead, it inserts micro-pauses at the moment of impulse, targeting specific behaviors (AI offloading, rapid scrolling, tab spirals). The user always retains control.

Yes. pause.do is designed privacy-first. All data your attention patterns, pause history, and AI balance is stored in IndexedDB on your device. There is no telemetry, no cloud sync, no account required, and no data sold or shared.

How much does pause.do cost?

pause.do is free to install. A one-time license at £6.99 unlocks all five pause types, Think First for AI, the full Attention Map and insights dashboard, and all future updates. There is no subscription.

Tab Freeze is here and we've removed the free trial

Two things in this update: a new feature and a pricing change. Both are shipping in the same release, so here's what's happening.

Tab Freeze

Tab overload already steps in when you're holding too many tabs at once it pauses you, lets you save a snapshot, and offers to close everything so you can restart with a cleaner slate.

Tab Freeze works differently. It runs in the background, watches which tabs you haven't visited in a while, and quietly suspends them freeing the memory they were consuming without removing them from your bar.

How it works:

When a tab crosses your idle threshold (30 minutes by default), pause.do:

Overlays a ❄️ badge on the tab's favicon so you can see at a glance which tabs are frozen
Calls Chrome's native tab discard API to unload the tab's renderer process
Keeps it visible in your bar exactly where it was

Click the tab and it wakes up normally it just takes a moment to reload, the same as any tab you'd left for a while.

A few things are never frozen regardless of idle time: the tab you're currently on, pinned tabs, and any tab playing audio.

Where to find it:

Settings → Tab Freeze. You can choose between 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 2 hours of inactivity before a tab is frozen. The feature is off by default enable it when you're ready.

Tab Freeze requires a lifetime license.

Tab clears are now logged

When the tab overload prompt fires and you hit clear, that action disappears into the void there's no record it happened, no way to look back at the pattern.

That changes now. Every time tabs are cleared, pause.do logs the event: how many tabs were closed and which sites they were from. The entry shows up in the Attention Map alongside your saved session snapshots, with stacked favicons so you can see at a glance what you were holding when things got out of hand.

It's read-only history the tabs are gone and can't be restored from it. But over time it builds a picture of when and how often your tab count gets away from you, which is worth knowing.

Take a Break now blocks all your tabs

Previously, clicking "Take a Break" from a scroll or session nudge launched a breathing exercise on the current tab. That was easy to sidestep you'd finish the breathing animation and immediately switch to a different tab to carry on.

It's different now. Clicking "Take a Break" starts a 10-minute global break. Every open tab gets blocked simultaneously, each showing a live countdown: Back in 9:42 · twitter.com. There's no switching away because all tabs are covered at once.

The break runs for 10 minutes by default. If you need to get back early there's a "Continue anyway" button no friction beyond acknowledging the choice. When the timer hits zero every tab clears automatically and you're back to normal.

The duration is configurable in Settings between 5, 10, 15, and 20 minutes.

The 3-day trial is gone

When we launched the trial last year it made sense: let people experience the extension before committing. In practice the flow created friction you'd go to a checkout page, enter your email, wait for a key, paste it into the extension, and then get an expiry notice three days later asking you to upgrade.

That's a lot of steps for a £6.99 purchase. It also meant some people bounced at the checkout without understanding what they were getting, and others had trial keys expire while they were on holiday and lost access unexpectedly.

Starting now, pause.do is direct purchase only. You pay £6.99 once, you own it forever, no trial key flow, no expiry. If you already have an active trial key it keeps working until it expires nothing changes for you.

Existing trial users: Your key is still valid until its natural expiry. After that, you'll see a prompt to activate a lifetime key. The price is the same £6.99 you would have paid at the end of the trial.

Update

Chrome delivers extension updates automatically, so most users will have Tab Freeze by the end of the day without doing anything. If you want it immediately, go to chrome://extensions, enable Developer mode, and click Update.

The changelog is always at pause.do/blog. If you have feedback, reply to any email from us it reaches a real person.