Navis on your computer
A browser extension, managed entirely from Navis
Start a session anywhere and your laptop stops being the way around it. The extension holds your chosen sites shut until the session ends, and has no settings, no login and no buttons of its own. Everything lives in Navis.
Installing it
Download and unzip
Use the button above, then unzip it somewhere you will not delete by accident. Your Documents folder is fine. Loading it points your browser at that folder, so moving it later means adding it again.
Open your browser's extensions page
Chrome or Edge: chrome://extensions. Turn on Developer mode, top right.
Load it
Click Load unpacked and choose the folder you unzipped. Navis appears in your extensions.
Sign in to Navis in that browser
That is the whole setup. The extension reads the session you already have, so there is nothing separate to log into. Open the popup and it should say it is watching.
Choose your sites in Navis
Settings, On a computer. The list syncs, so writing it on your phone is enough. The extension enforces whatever is there.
Allow the permission it asks for
Navis opens a page as soon as it installs and asks for one permission. Allow it. Browsers only let an extension replace a page for sites it has been allowed to reach, and that click is the only place the browser will accept the answer. Until you do, the extension is installed but not finished: a blocked site shows your browser's plain error page instead of one telling you how long is left, and the extension icon carries a warning badge.
If you dismissed it, click the Navis icon in your toolbar and press Show the Navis block page.
Installing it is not the last step
Navis cannot replace a blocked page until the browser permission is granted. The extension will keep a warning badge on its icon until it is, because an extension that looks installed and cannot do the thing you installed it for is worse than one that is obviously missing.
What it does, and does not
While a session is running, opening a site on your list shows a page saying so, with the time remaining and a way back to Navis. Nothing is locked away: end the session and it opens straight back up.
Outside a session it does nothing at all. It adds no rules, watches no tabs, and blocks nothing.
It cannot block desktop apps
A browser extension can only see the browser. Steam, Discord, a game, or the Instagram desktop app are outside what any extension is allowed to touch, and no amount of cleverness changes that.
Blocking those needs a program installed with permission to watch and stop other programs, which is a different kind of thing entirely and is not what this is. On a phone Navis does block apps, because Android and iOS both offer a way to do it that the desktop does not.
What it can see
- It reads your Navis sign in from the Navis site only, so there is no second password.
- It asks Navis two things: whether a session is running, and what your site list is.
- It does not read pages, history, or anything you type. Its permissions cover the Navis site and nothing else.
- It sends nothing anywhere. The only server it talks to is your own Navis.
If something is wrong
The popup says not signed in. Open Navis in that browser and sign in. The extension picks it up within a few seconds.
Sites are not blocked. Check a session is actually running, and that the site is on your list in Settings. The popup tells you which of the two is missing.
A site is blocked when nothing is running. Open the popup, then reload. Rules clear when a session ends, and a stale tab can hold an old redirect.