Toll

Every reel costs you. Toll makes it literal.

Toll is a small browser extension. Every time you try to advance a Short, a Reel, or auto-load more of your homepage feed, it asks you to solve a quick math problem first. Solve it and you pass. Get it wrong and you wait.

That tiny toll is the whole point. It breaks the reflex.

Features

• Reel gate on YouTube Shorts, Facebook Reels, Instagram Reels, TikTok. Scroll, swipe, arrow-keys, and the on-screen next/previous buttons are all intercepted.
• Feed cap on YouTube home + feed pages and the Facebook news feed. First two screens are free, then each unlock loads one more.
• Math gate: three problems per unlock, addition, subtraction, or multiplication.
• Escalating lockout on wrong answers: 5s, 15s, 30s, 60s. One correct answer resets the streak.
• Video auto-pause while the gate is up on reels; resumes when you solve or cancel.
• Control panel in the toolbar popup. Per-platform, per-mode toggles (Shorts vs. feed cap, and so on). Changes apply live, no page reload.
• Time counter in the top-right of each site. A small pill pops in on load and every few minutes of active use, showing today's time on that site. Only counts while the tab is visible and focused.
• Daily totals per site listed in the popup. Auto-rolls over at local midnight, keeps 30 days of history.
• Local-only. Everything lives in chrome.storage.local. No servers, no accounts, no telemetry. Permissions: storage and the four site hosts.

What it does

Reels and Shorts

Scrolling, swiping, or arrow-keying to the next reel is blocked. Instead you get a math gate. The video pauses while you solve.

Works on: YouTube Shorts, Facebook Reels, Instagram Reels, TikTok.

 

Home feeds

The infinite scroll on YouTube's homepage and Facebook's news feed is capped. You get about two screens of content, and to load more you pay a toll.

Wrong answers cost more

Get one wrong and you're locked out for a few seconds. Get the next one wrong too and it goes up: 5s, then 15s, then 30s, then 60s. Button-mashing is punished.

Install in about two minutes

Toll works in any Chromium browser: Arc, Google Chrome, Brave, Edge, or Opera. You do not need to be a developer to install it.

Step 1. Get the files

Option A: Download the latest release (recommended)

1. Go to the latest release.
2. Under Assets, download toll-vX.Y.Z.zip.
3. Unzip it. You should see a folder with manifest.json inside.

Option B: Clone with git (for developers)

git clone https://github.com/sohag-pro/Toll.git

Step 2. Open the extensions page

Type one of these into your browser's address bar and press Enter:

Browser	URL
Arc	arc://extensions
Chrome	chrome://extensions
Brave	brave://extensions
Edge	edge://extensions
Opera	opera://extensions

Step 3. Turn on Developer Mode

Find the Developer mode toggle in the top-right corner of the extensions page and turn it on. A row of new buttons will appear.

Step 4. Load the extension

1. Click Load unpacked.
2. Pick the folder you unzipped (the one with manifest.json in it, not the folder above it).
3. Toll should now appear in your extension list.

Step 5. Try it

Open any of these and try to scroll:

• youtube.com: homepage should stop after two screens.
• youtube.com/shorts: the next Short is blocked until you solve.
• facebook.com: timeline caps after two screens.
• facebook.com/reel/...: same behaviour as Shorts.
• instagram.com/reels
• tiktok.com

That is it. Nothing to sign up for, nothing sent anywhere.

How to use it

Browse normally. When the gate appears:

1. Read the math problem (for example 47 × 3).
2. Type the answer.
3. Press Enter or click Submit.
4. Do it two more times.
5. The reel advances, or the feed loads more.

Wrong answer: you're locked out briefly. Each wrong answer in a row makes the wait longer. Get one right and the timer resets.

Cancel: closes the gate without advancing. The reel stays where it is.

Uninstall: open the extensions page again and click Remove.

Frequently asked

Does it send my data anywhere? No. It runs entirely in your browser. No servers, no accounts, no tracking. The code is right here. Read it.

Why math and not a delay timer? A timer does not stop the reflex. You just wait it out and keep scrolling. Solving something forces your brain into a different mode for a few seconds. That is the whole trick.

Can I change the difficulty or number of problems? Yes. Open src/core.js and edit the constants near the top:

• PROBLEMS_PER_GATE: how many problems per gate (default 3).
• LOCKOUT_STEPS_MS: the wait times after wrong answers.
• CAP_INITIAL_PAGES: how many screens of feed you get before the first gate (default 2).
• CAP_STEP_PAGES: how many more screens you get per solved gate (default 1).

After editing, go back to the extensions page and click the reload icon on the Toll card.

Does it work on Safari or Firefox? Not yet. Chromium browsers only (Arc, Chrome, Brave, Edge, Opera). Safari and Firefox use a different extension format.

A site changed and it stopped working. Reels and feeds change layouts often. Open an issue and I will update the site detection.

Can I disable it on one site but not another? Yes. Click the Toll icon in the toolbar and flip the switch for that site (or that mode: for example, keep Shorts gated but let the YouTube homepage run free). Changes apply immediately on open tabs.

Where does the time-counter data live? In your browser's local extension storage. Nothing leaves your machine. Removing the extension wipes it.

Under the hood

• Manifest V3 content-script extension.
• src/core.js: event blockers (wheel, key, touch, click), math modal, video pause, feed-cap engine, reel advance via the site's own scroll-snap container or its next/prev button, and the on-page time-tracker pill.
• src/platforms/*.js: one per site. Watches the URL and picks a mode: reel, cap, or off. Facebook and YouTube also register a site-specific onAdvance that clicks the real next/prev button after you solve.
• src/popup.html + src/popup.js: control panel. Reads/writes settings in chrome.storage.local and broadcasts to open tabs so toggles apply live.
• Time tracker key: toll_time[platform][YYYY-MM-DD] = seconds. Only ticks while the tab is visible and focused.
• No permissions beyond storage and access to the four sites listed in manifest.json.

Contributing

Bug reports and site-detection fixes: open an issue with the URL and a note on what stopped working. Small PRs welcome. For larger changes, open an issue first so we can agree on scope.

Maintainers can produce a release ZIP with ./scripts/build.sh. The output lands in dist/ and is what gets attached to GitHub releases. Pushing a vX.Y.Z tag triggers .github/workflows/release.yml, which builds the ZIP and publishes a release automatically. The tag version must match version in manifest.json.

Landing page. The public site lives in site/ and auto-deploys to GitHub Pages via .github/workflows/pages.yml on every push to main that touches site/. To enable it once per repo: Settings → Pages → Source = GitHub Actions. Local preview: python3 -m http.server -d site 8000 and open http://localhost:8000.

License

MIT. See LICENSE. If it helps you scroll less, that is the point.