What is Deepmode?
The Deepmode manifesto is located here: https://www.deepmode.app/manifesto, please take a read. This repository is for the Chrome extension, although it also contains some overview of the "why" for Deepmode.
What is the Deepmode Chrome extension?
The Deepmode Chrome extension is an intelligent website blocker that intends to understand how any new web page relates to the user's specified task and block pages that are deemed to be a distraction. It should also remove other distracting features on web pages - related links, comments, and anything else that distracts a user from their primary motivation for visiting a web page. Ad-blocking is beyond the scope of Deepmode however, primarily because it is already handled well by many other extensions and there is no need to replicate that work.
In its current form, Deepmode achieves some of basic functionality above but it is inadequate. This project was originally started with the intention of creating a commercial product. However, the initial release produced a high percentage of both false positives and false negatives when determining what was and wasn't a distraction, and the user experience was poor as a result. The users who tried the extension didn't stick around for long.
There's still a lot of potential to make a great product and help solve these digital distraction problems. Deepmode is being restructured as an open source project in the hope that people with a wider range of skills, who also recognise the issue of distraction online, will improve it to the point where it fulfills its objectives as a product and helps knowledge workers avoid distraction.