App blockers: blocking the app, not just the website

Why website blocking alone leaks

Blocking instagram.com does nothing about the Instagram app. Blocking the app and leaving the site open just relocates the habit to the browser. Doing one without the other is a common and frustrating way to conclude that "blockers do not work".

The other leak is in-app browsers. Tapping a link inside a social app opens a browser view you never chose and never configured, which is why device-level filtering beats anything browser-specific.

How it works on each platform

• Windows.A background service can prevent applications launching outright, and protect its own uninstaller. This is the one platform Kellet runs on today.
• Android.The platform permits app blocking, device lock and scheduling alongside device-wide network filtering. Kellet for Android arrives at the end of September 2026.
• macOS.Broadly the same capabilities as Windows. Kellet for macOS arrives in Q4 2026.
• iOS.Considerably more limited by what Apple permits any third-party app to do. Worth knowing before you buy anything that claims otherwise. Kellet for iPhone and iPad is planned for Q1 2027.

Blocking is not the same as deleting

Deleting an app removes it until you reinstall it, which takes fifteen seconds and costs nothing. Blocking leaves the obstacle in place after your resolve has faded, which is the entire point.

If you have deleted and reinstalled the same app more than twice, deletion is not your tool.

What the built-in screen-time limits actually do

Both phone platforms ship something in this space, and it is worth being precise about what they are for, because they are frequently recommended as a substitute and they are not one.

They are built for awareness. They count your usage, show you a weekly figure, and put a dialogue in front of you when you pass a threshold you set. For somebody who has simply lost track of where the hours go, that is often genuinely sufficient, and it is free and already installed.

What they do not do is resist you. The dialogue has a button that dismisses it, the limit has a control that raises it, and both are one tap away at the moment you least want to be stopped. There is no delay anywhere in the design, because delay was never the goal.

The useful test: if you have already been dismissing that dialogue without reading it for a fortnight, you have run the experiment. The limit is not the thing that was missing.

The apps people forget to include

App blocking tends to be set up against a short list of obvious offenders, and the habit reappears somewhere adjacent within a week or two.

• The browser.Every blocked app has a website. Blocking the app and leaving the browser open relocates the habit rather than ending it.
• The app store.Left open, reinstalling takes fifteen seconds. This is the single most common gap in an app-blocking setup.
• The second social app you do not think of as one.Messaging apps with feeds and stories attached absorb exactly the same time as the ones you blocked.
• Games and shopping.The same infinite-loop design, and rarely on anyone's list until the evenings start going somewhere new.