instagram without reels. youtube without shorts.

5 platforms. One browser. Strips out Reels, Shorts, algorithmic feeds, and ads — then adds time limits, friction gates, and usage tracking so you stay in control. Everything runs on your phone, nothing phones home.

Download on the App Store free for 7 days. no card upfront.

iOS only on the App Store now works with real Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, X, Reddit

Settings
Instagram
Friction Gate
Instagram

Same apps. Same accounts. Minus the parts designed to keep you stuck.

Instagram
Reels gone. Explore gone. Suggested posts, gone.
Your feed, stories, and DMs stay.
YouTube
Shorts — the whole tab, every shelf, every suggestion. Removed.
Subscriptions, search, full videos all work.
Facebook
Reels and suggested content stripped out.
Groups, Marketplace, Events — untouched.
X
No For You. No ads. No trending. No Grok.
Just your Following feed, clean.
Reddit
Ads, Popular, All, and suggested posts — gone.
Your subscribed subreddits, nothing else.

Not one big restriction. A bunch of small, adjustable ones. Use what works. Ignore the rest.

DMs
Search
Subs
Feed
Intent
Pick a destination first
Before Instagram opens, you choose: DMs, search, or subscriptions. Turns “I’ll just check” into “I’m going to _____.”
Awareness
A clock that doesn’t nag
Live timer in the corner while you browse. Green, then orange, then red, then blinking. No pop-ups. No “you’ve been scrolling for...” guilt trips. Just a color you can glance at.
1h 12m
today
Access
Replace the apps on your home screen
One-tap widgets to open platforms through Dull instead. Lock screen widget shows today’s total. Same convenience, different path.

The real objections people have when their finger is hovering over the download button. Answered straight.

What happens when Instagram updates and breaks the filters?

Filters are manifest-driven — a single config file per platform maps to the CSS and JS that does the hiding. When Instagram ships a redesign, the fix is usually hours, not weeks. This is literally what I do all day. Dull is actively maintained because if it stops working, people stop paying.

Can I trust an indie app with my Instagram login?

Your session stays on your device. Dull doesn't have a server to send credentials to — there isn't one. Each platform runs inside its own isolated WKWebsiteDataStore, so Instagram can't see that you also use X, and vice versa. No account, no analytics, no telemetry. Delete the app and everything goes with it.

What about notifications and DMs? Do those still work?

DMs work. It's the real Instagram web, just with Reels cut out. Push notifications come through the normal Instagram/YouTube/etc. native apps if you have them installed — Dull doesn't need its own notification system and isn't trying to replace your phone's notification layer.

What if I actually need to see one Reel someone sent me?

There's a session bypass. Hit the ··· menu in the browser, tap bypass, filters are off for this session. A banner tells you it's on so you can't forget. Close the app and next time you open it, filters are back. It's designed to not punish you for edge cases — the default is strict, the override is one tap.

Will this slow my phone down or eat battery?

No. Dull is a browser — nothing more. No VPN, no system-wide hooks, no background daemons, no accessibility permissions. You open it, it runs. You close it, it doesn't. Battery footprint is roughly the same as mobile Safari.

What if I want to uninstall? Do I lose anything?

Nothing to lose. There's no account, no cloud data, no sync — everything lives on your phone. Delete the app and it's like it was never there. If you want your usage stats before you go, you can export them from Settings.

Why a paid app when other ones are free?

The free ones are free because they sell your data, run ads, or stop being maintained the minute Instagram changes a CSS class. Dull is none of those. $4 a month pays for one person to keep it working when Instagram redesigns. That's the whole business model.

Kaspar

made by a guy who kept opening instagram for no reason.

I tried every blocker. The wellness ones nagged. The gamified ones turned recovery into another streak to maintain. The hard blockers locked me out of things I actually needed — DMs, messages from family, the one useful account I follow. None of them solved the real problem, which was that I wanted the good parts of social media and none of the parts that hijack you.

So I built a browser that removes the hijacking parts and leaves the rest. Reels gone. Shorts gone. Algorithmic feeds gone. DMs, search, posts, stories — all still there, because those are the parts I actually opened the app for in the first place.

Turned out I wasn't the only one with that problem. Dull is a solo project, maintained by me, funded by people who pay $4 a month for it. No investors, no growth team, no roadmap written by someone who's never opened Instagram out of boredom.

— kaspar, solo indie dev · [email protected]

Every plan unlocks everything. No feature gates, no premium tiers, no "upgrade to access time limits." Pick what fits.

All plans start with a 7-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.

Monthly
$3.99
per month
Full access, every feature, every platform. Cancel whenever.
7-day free trial
Lifetime
$59.99
one-time, forever
Pay once. Every update, every new feature, every new platform. Yours.
7-day free trial
For context
FeedLite $9.99/mo
/
TimeCap $29.99/yr
/
Opal $99.99/yr
/
Dull $14.99/yr

social media. less of it.

Try it free for 7 days. If you don't notice a difference, cancel before it charges. You probably will though.

No account to create. Nothing leaves your phone. Works in about 4 seconds.

Download on the App Store iOS 16+
On-device only Reviewed on the App Store 5 platforms, one app