Gazenest is a browser extension + web dashboard that helps you take control of your YouTube watching habits.

What it does

• Tracks every video you watch (title, channel, duration)
• Scores your sessions with three metrics: Self-Control, Clarity, and Diversity
• Alerts you when you're binge-watching
• Hides distractions (Shorts, recommendations, autoplay)
• Reports your weekly habits via email

How it works

1. Install the extension from the Chrome Web Store
2. Activate with your licence key
3. Browse YouTube normally - Gazenest works in the background
4. Check your dashboard for insights

Installation steps

1. Go to the Chrome Web Store and search for Gazenest
2. Click Add to Chrome
3. Click the Gazenest moon icon in your toolbar
4. Enter your licence key (received after purchase)
5. Done! The extension will now track your YouTube activity

Works on Chrome, Firefox, and most major browsers. See "Which browsers does the extension support?" below for the full list.

Tip: Pin the extension to your toolbar for quick access to stats and intent mode.

Chrome and Chromium-based browsers

The Chrome build works on any Chromium-based browser: Chrome, Brave, Edge, Arc, Opera, and Vivaldi. The install steps are the same for all of them -- just replace chrome://extensions with your browser's equivalent (brave://, edge://, opera://, vivaldi://). Arc opens chrome://extensions directly.

Firefox and Firefox-based browsers

The Firefox build is a Mozilla-signed .xpi that installs and auto-updates on Firefox, Librewolf, Waterfox, and Zen Browser. Pale Moon and Basilisk are not compatible (different engine and extension format).

Mobile

The Firefox build also works on Firefox for Android. No other Android browser supports extensions. iOS and iPadOS are not supported.

Official support

We test on Chrome and Firefox desktop only. Other browsers in the lists above should work, but edge cases may take longer to fix.

The extension only tracks your activity on youtube.com. Here's exactly what is recorded:

What is NOT tracked

• Other websites or tabs
• Search queries
• Comments or likes
• Incognito/private browsing
• YouTube account credentials

Gazenest calculates three scores for each session:

Self-Control (Focus Score)

Measures your resistance to YouTube's dopamine loops.

• Penalized by: Shorts, long sessions, binge watching
• A clean 30-minute session with no Shorts scores ~100

Clarity

Tracks whether you watched what you intended to.

• Requires Intent Mode: set an intention before watching
• If you stick to your goal: bonus points
• If you drift: penalty

Diversity

Shows how varied your channel consumption is.

• Watching 5 different channels: high score
• Watching 1 channel on repeat: low score
• Uses Shannon entropy for calculation

All scores range from 0 to 100. Higher is better.

The Customize Feed feature (Family + Pro plans) lets you customize YouTube's interface:

• Hide Shorts - removes Shorts shelves from the homepage and feed
• Hide Recommendations - removes the sidebar on watch pages
• Disable Autoplay - prevents the next video from auto-playing
• Focus Mode - dims sidebar, comments and suggestions while watching - only the video player stays bright. Hover to reveal hidden elements.
• Zen Mode - replaces the homepage with a calm widget showing your stats
• Subs Only - redirects the homepage to your Subscriptions feed

Configure these in the extension popup or Dashboard → Settings.

These two features help you watch YouTube with fewer distractions and less visual strain.

Focus Mode (Family + Pro)

When enabled, everything except the video player is dimmed to 15% opacity:

• Sidebar (recommended videos)
• Comments section
• Live chat
• End screen overlays

Hover to reveal - move your mouse over any dimmed area to temporarily bring it back to full brightness. The transition is smooth and instant.

A subtle vignette effect frames the video, creating a cinema-like experience.

AMOLED Black (Plus, Family, Pro)

Replaces YouTube's dark grey background (#0f0f0f) with true black (#000000).

Benefits:

• OLED battery savings - black pixels are completely off on OLED screens
• Reduced visual stimulation - less light = calmer experience, especially at night
• Deeper contrast - thumbnails and text pop more against true black

Both features work together - you can enable Focus Mode + AMOLED Black for the ultimate distraction-free experience.

How to enable

1. Go to Dashboard → Settings
2. Toggle Focus Mode and/or AMOLED Black
3. Refresh YouTube - changes apply immediately

Doomscrolling is the habit of endlessly scrolling and watching YouTube content without a clear intention - clicking from one recommended video to the next until you surface an hour later unsure what you just watched.

Why it happens

YouTube's algorithm is optimised for watch time, not your satisfaction. It uses autoplay, personalised recommendations, and Shorts to keep you watching past the point you intended to stop. This isn't a willpower failure - it's a predictable response to a system designed to exploit attention.

How Gazenest helps

• Intent Mode: set a clear purpose before each session. Your Clarity score then tracks whether you followed through.
• Self-Control score: measures how well you resisted compulsive patterns (autoplay, Shorts, rabbit holes). A dropping score is an early warning.
• Hide Shorts: removes the highest-dopamine content from your path.
• Disable autoplay: restores the natural decision point between videos.
• Session heatmap: shows which times and days you're most vulnerable to unintended viewing.

The goal isn't to stop using YouTube - it's to watch what you chose, not what the algorithm chose for you.

Gazenest gives you an accurate, automatic record of your YouTube screen time across all your devices - something YouTube's built-in "Time Watched" tool doesn't provide.

What Gazenest tracks

• Every video you watch: title, channel, duration, timestamp
• Session length and count per day
• Which days and hours you watch most (activity heatmap)
• Total watch time per day, week, and month

Screen time tools

• Watch Budget (Pro plan): set a daily or weekly time limit. Get a warning at 80%, and choose between warn, strict, or block enforcement at 100%.
• Binge Detection (Pro plan): automatic alerts after 3, 5, or 8 videos in a row - escalating from a nudge to a full-screen pause.
• Session scores: your Self-Control and Clarity scores reflect whether your screen time was intentional or compulsive.

Why this matters

Most people underestimate their YouTube screen time by 40-60%. Seeing your real numbers - in a dashboard with weekly trends - is the first step to changing them.

Yes. Gazenest is built specifically around the problem of distracted YouTube viewing.

Tools that directly improve focus

Intent Mode (Plus, Family, Pro) Before each session, you type what you plan to watch. At the end, Gazenest scores how well your viewing matched your intention. This simple act of stating your purpose is one of the most effective focus interventions available - research shows people with stated intentions are 2-3x more likely to follow through.

Focus Mode (Family, Pro) Dims everything except the video player to 15% opacity - sidebar, comments, recommendations, end screens. Hover to reveal. Creates a cinema-like environment with far fewer visual distractions.

Hide Recommendations and Autoplay Removes the two biggest focus killers from your YouTube interface. When autoplay is off and recommendations are hidden, there's no pull to keep watching.

Clarity score Your ongoing focus metric. A Clarity score of 80%+ means you're consistently watching what you intended. Below 50% means the algorithm is winning most sessions.

The result

Users who use Intent Mode consistently report a noticeable shift within 2 weeks: sessions feel more deliberate, the "where did the time go" feeling decreases, and post-session regret drops.

Yes - on Firefox for Android. Gazenest fully supports m.youtube.com (the mobile YouTube site) on Firefox Android, with the same features as desktop: Intent Mode, Self-Control / Clarity / Diversity scoring, history sync, Hide Shorts, Zen Homepage, and cross-device sync with your dashboard.

How to install

1. Install Firefox from the Google Play Store (the regular release - Nightly is not required)
2. From your Android device, open the Gazenest homepage and download the signed .xpi file
3. Tap the downloaded file → Firefox prompts you to install
4. Accept the permissions and open m.youtube.com
5. Tap the floating moon button (FAB) to open the Gazenest panel and activate with your licence key

Note: the .xpi must be signed by Mozilla. We publish a signed build for every release - unsigned sideloads are blocked by Firefox Android.

Mobile-specific notes

• The extension is hardened for flaky mobile networks (optimistic writes + storage listeners), so the panel stays responsive even on weak 4G.
• The dashboard logout button moves into the hamburger menu on mobile/tablet to keep the header clean.

Not supported on Android

• Chrome, Brave, Opera, Samsung Internet - none of these support extensions on Android.
• Android TV / Nvidia Shield - Shield users watch YouTube via the native YouTube TV app (not a browser), so the extension has no surface to inject into.

No - Gazenest is not available on iPad or iPhone. This is an Apple platform limitation, not a Gazenest decision.

Why

• Firefox on iOS/iPadOS has no extension support at all. Apple required all iOS browsers to use WebKit, so Firefox iOS is essentially a WebKit shell with no add-on runtime. Firefox Nightly on iPad is the same - there is no way to install an .xpi.
• Safari Web Extensions technically exist (iPadOS 15+), but they must be packaged inside a native iOS app, built with Xcode, and distributed through the App Store. That requires a paid Apple Developer account and ongoing App Review.
• For a small indie tool like Gazenest, the cost and maintenance burden of shipping a separate Safari/iOS build is not justified.

What we recommend instead

• On the go: use Firefox for Android on your phone - Gazenest fully supports m.youtube.com.
• At home: use Gazenest on desktop Chrome, Brave, Edge, or Firefox - that's where the extension shines.
• Your scores, history, and settings sync across all your devices via the dashboard, so you'll see your stats from your iPad's browser even though the extension itself isn't running there.

Good question. The short answer: Gazenest does things no free tool does.

What free alternatives don't offer

• Cross-device sync: free tools (like Watchmarker) store data locally in your browser. Close that browser, switch devices, or reinstall and your history is gone. Gazenest syncs your full history across every device automatically.
• Behavioral scoring: watch time tracking alone doesn't tell you whether your watching was intentional. Gazenest scores each session on Focus, Clarity, and Diversity so you can see patterns, not just totals.
• Web dashboard: a full private dashboard with channel analytics, activity heatmap, behavioral profile, and session history. Not a popup.
• Intent Mode: the core feature. Set a purpose before watching, get a score for how well you stuck to it. This is what changes habits, not just measuring them.
• Data you own: your history lives on your account, survives browser reinstalls, device changes, and extension updates.

The honest trade-off

If you only want to mark videos as watched across a single browser, a free tool may be enough. If you want to understand your YouTube habits, score your sessions, and actually change them, the paid model is what makes the product sustainable and full-featured.

Not sure yet? The 30-day money-back guarantee means you can try it with no risk.

All prices are excl. local VAT, which is added at checkout. You can upgrade or downgrade at any time.

No. All displayed prices are excl. VAT (tax-exclusive).

Local VAT is automatically calculated and added at checkout by Lemon Squeezy based on your country. For example, a French customer paying for the Solo plan (€9/mo) will see VAT added at checkout (€9 + 20% = €10.80 total).

VAT rates vary by country. Lemon Squeezy handles all VAT compliance automatically - you don't need to do anything.

Only your YouTube account name.

We use it for two things:

• Licence binding: your licence is tied to the account you bought it for, so it cannot be transferred to another YouTube account.
• Account-switch detection: if you sign out of YouTube and sign in as someone else, Gazenest detects the change and signs you out to prevent data from two accounts mixing.

The account name is stored on your device and on our server. We never sell it, share it with third parties, or use it for anything else.

Full details on how we handle your data: Privacy Policy.

Gazenest takes privacy seriously:

Encryption

• Your email is encrypted with AES-256-GCM (per-user key)
• Lookup uses HMAC-SHA256 hashes (we never store your email in plaintext)

No tracking

• Zero cookies for analytics or tracking
• Only a session cookie for authentication (strictly necessary)
• No consent banner needed - we don't track anything requiring consent

Your rights (GDPR)

• Export: Dashboard → Profile → Export Data (JSON)
• Delete: Dashboard → Profile → Delete Account (irreversible)
• All data is permanently removed within 30 days of deletion

Infrastructure

• Hosted on dedicated servers in France (OVH)
• Encrypted backups with GPG (RSA 4096)
• Fail2ban + UFW firewall + rootless container isolation

Device limits by plan

Your watch history, scores, and settings sync across all your devices. You can manage active devices from Dashboard → Profile.

If you reach your device limit, you can revoke access from old devices to free up a slot.