How to Block Reddit on Chrome (in ways that actually stick)

Reddit is the smart person's doomscroll. It feels like research: real discussions, real expertise, occasionally a genuinely useful answer. That intermittent usefulness is exactly what makes it dangerous, because your brain files the whole site under 'productive' while r/all quietly eats your afternoon. The front page is an infinite feed wearing a library costume.

Option 1: Block Reddit manually (free, but you hold the keys)

Chrome has no built-in "block this website" button for normal installs, so the manual route means editing your computer's hosts file: point the domain at 127.0.0.1 and the site stops resolving. It costs nothing and needs no software.

Blocking reddit.com entirely backfires for developers and students, because half of all useful search results live in Reddit threads. Old.reddit.com and the redesign also count as separate entries in naive blocklists.

The deeper problem is structural: any block you can set up in two minutes, you can undo in thirty seconds, and the moment you'll want to undo it is precisely the moment it exists for. Manual blocks are honor-system locks.

Option 2: A list-based blocker extension

Extensions like BlockSite or StayFocusd let you add the domain to a list, which beats the hosts file on convenience. Two weaknesses remain: the list is binary (the whole domain is blocked even when part of it is genuinely useful for your work), and the off switch is two clicks away in your extensions menu. List blockers stop the absent-minded visit; they rarely survive a motivated one.

Option 3: Block Reddit with an AI that knows what you're working on

Focus AI works differently: you type what you're doing ("finish the calculus problem set"), pick a duration, and lock in. During the session, the AI reads every page you open against that task. Reddit gets blocked when it doesn't serve the work, and the block page shows your own promise back to you, with an escape-attempt counter and a running tally of the time you've saved.

1. Install Focus AI from the Chrome Web Store (free, no account needed).
2. Type the task you're actually here to do and choose a session length.
3. Click Lock me in. Reddit now hits a wall for exactly that long, and quitting early means typing your surrender letter by letter.

Two details matter for forum / feed sites specifically: the AI evaluates pages rather than domains, so the useful corners of the internet stay reachable while the feed does not. And every time you walk away from the block page, the win is stamped and timed: resisting Reddit becomes a streak you can watch grow instead of a sacrifice you silently endure.