The Nuclear Option for Android Users

This guide is my attempt to create the ultimate no-surf lifestyle change for repeat offender internet addicts. This is a nuclear bomb, scorched earth policy that will make your house a surf-free zone, with NO workarounds. These steps will block all possibility of using your phone or your PC to surf, and there won't be anything you can do about it in a moment of weakness. By the time you complete this guide, you will have performed some fairly extreme measures to block yourself from surfing, measures which border on absurdity. In my experience, they are necessary. (Note: This guide is for Android users, but if I had an iPhone and couldn’t figure out a similar method for the iPhone OS, I would switch to Android just to be able to pull this off. It’s that important for me.)

There are a few key features of the nuclear option:

• You will cancel your home internet connection. This is not optional.
• You will permanently remove social media apps and the browser from your phone.
• You will block wifi tethering on your phone, so that you can’t provide backdoor wifi access for your PC.
• You will delete the tools needed to reverse this process, making it very inconvenient to undo.
• You will still have wireless data on your phone, and a number of useful (but non-tempting) apps such as Google Maps, Wikipedia, email, etc., without having a browser or problematic social media apps. You can also do first-level google searches to find phone numbers of local businesses, quick facts, etc, without being able to open URLs. This should help address one major excuse for avoiding the nuclear option.

I’m going to assume you are already sold on the fact that you need to get off the internet. If not, go read the top posts on this subreddit (the irony), then come back here. There is a ton of very thoughtful writing on here by people more articulate than myself. I’m only going to try to sell you on why you should go full-blown ape on your internet access (instead of half-ape), and how to do it.

Why Half Measures Don’t Work

I am a 5-year No-Surf failure. This is a long-term project of mine that has failed at each attempt. I’ve tried app blockers, timers, exercising discipline and self control, etc., but nothing has stuck for more than a few weeks. The draw of porn, Youtube, social media, and worst of all, Reddit, have always tempted me to find workarounds. Every roadblock I’ve erected has been too easily removed when temptation presents itself. We are dealing with technology that has been engineered for easy access and addictive content. Like probably 99% of us on this subreddit, I’ve considered desperate measures, including asking the question...

...Why not switch to a dumbphone? Well, there honestly are legitimate reasons not to do this. My career prevents me from switching to a dumbphone. I need access to email, and my company uses an annoying security app for two-factor authentication each time my company laptop connects to an external wireless connection. There are also very real benefits that come with a smartphone that are limited or unavailable with most dumbphones: a high quality camera, music, Google Maps, Google Drive, Wikipedia, Weather, online banking, Venmo, looking up a phone number, etc. These tools are hard to abuse because they’re boring. The key is throwing out the bathwater but not the baby.

Why not just install app-blockers or usage timers for distracting apps? I believe this is like telling a crackhead to take his crack and put it in a little box on his kitchen table, lock the box, then hide the key from himself somewhere in the house. This may seem like a good solution to someone who has never met a crackhead. What we want to do is more like telling the crackhead to lock his crack in a box, drive four states over, ride a horse into the wilderness, get off the horse and walk over two mountains, then dig a hole and bury the box. Yes, in theory, he could go get his crack, but it’s going to be pretty inconvenient. In the real world, here’s what I’ve experienced with app-blockers:

• Within a few weeks of blocking Chrome, an “emergency” requiring internet access will arise, and Chrome gets unblocked. This is always done with good intentions of “temporarily” removing the block just long enough to solve my “emergency”. Historically, Chrome doesn’t get re-blocked after this. This is compounded by the fact that....
• ...Most app-blockers are trivial to unlock. Most use a 4-digit numerical password. If you have even a mediocre memory, it’s almost impossible not to instantly memorize a 4-digit password. You can’t lock yourself out of something with a password you have memorized, and a hundred bucks says you will disable the app blocker at the first moment of inconvenience.

Why not just use some discipline? This is by far the worst way to attempt no-surf. You will cave at the first moment you get horny, lonely, or just bored. I have proven to myself time and time again that this approach is completely ineffective for those of us with a real problem. Since you’re browsing No Surf and probably a Reddit user, I bet you know what I mean.

The only guaranteed no-surf solution is a scorched earth policy. There is no discipline required if you follow these steps, because it is extremely annoying to reverse. The only workaround for this method is a two-hour process that requires leaving my house: I have to take my phone and a laptop to a public place with a wifi connection, download android developer tools again, and tediously reverse all of the steps in this guide. This is great, because I have never been horny enough to justify driving to a coffee shop and spending two hours fucking around with PowerShell commands just to re-enable the ability to look at titties on a three inch screen.

This method leaves you with no choice but to adopt healthier lifestyle habits. The internet has always been an irresistible temptation for me, and it has consumed basically all of my downtime at the house for about a decade. In the weeks after I pulled the pin on this grenade, I was amazed by the lifestyle changes that occurred. Within hours of completing the process, I picked up a book for the first time in months. There was literally nothing better to do in my whole damn house. My sleep schedule went from 6-7 hours per night to 8-9 hours, because honestly, it’s boring to stay up late without the internet. To me, this was amazing, and I’m sure many of you can relate. I started to exercise more consistently. I started back up with an old meditation habit I had dropped a year or two ago. I’ve never been happier to be this bored.

The Nuclear Option

Disclaimer: Many of the following steps related to removing system apps are strongly plagiarized from this guide. Huge thanks to the original author.

1. Cancel your Internet subscription at home. If you really have a problem with internet use, this is when your brain will start listing reasons why this is a horrible idea. What about Netflix? What about streaming music? What about when I need to search for a recipe? How is my refrigerator gonna reorder from Walmart when I run out of nutterbutter?? What about my boo Alexa?!?!!? You got to stay strong fam, we need tough love here. Aspects of this are going to be a little painful, but that's kind of the point. Nuclear Option, baby. Treat yourself to something nice with the $75/mo you save on your internet bill. And go get a library card.
2. Uninstall all social media and other distracting apps on your phone. Again, your brain may protest this. How am I gonna know what’s happening with my friends if I don’t have Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, blah blah blah? I can’t uninstall Youtube, I use it to learn useful things sometimes! Nuclear Option, baby. If you want to know what your friends are doing, call them and talk to them. I did make one exception for myself: I kept Facebook Messenger Lite because a) you can’t use it to browse your FB feed, and b) some of my friends still use it instead of text messaging. Once this process is complete, you will be logging into Facebook very infrequently, and I didn’t want to accidentally ignore their messages. (Side note, I know there are privacy issues with the Messager app, so if that bothers you, don’t install it.) If you have any browsers installed in addition to Chrome, delete them now.
3. Try to uninstall the Chrome android app. You will notice that there is no uninstall option, since it’s considered a system app on the Android platform. There is a way around this (without needing to root your phone) which we will be covering shortly. This also applies to other system apps we want to delete, such as Google Play Store.
4. Install the Android apps “MacroDroid” and “App Lock”. You will need these later on.
5. This is the point where you need to install any useful apps you think you may eventually want on your phone. Suggestions with high usefulness and low abuse potential include the Wikipedia app, Venmo, Google Podcasts, Audible, a good weather app, etc. This is your last chance to install these as we will be deleting the Google Play Store app shortly.
6. Download the ADB binary for your particular OS (Windows, Mac, Linux)
7. Extract the Zip File into a folder you can quickly access.
8. On your phone, go to Settings and tap on About Phone. Find the Build Number and tap on it 7 times to enable Developer Options.
9. Now in your phone’s settings, enter Developer Options and find USB Debugging. Enable it.
10. Plug your phone into the computer and change it from “charge only” mode to “file transfer (MTP)” mode.
11. On your computer, browse to the directory where you extracted the ADB binary.
12. Launch a Command Prompt in your ADB folder. For Windows users, this can be done by holding Shift and Right-clicking then selecting the “Open Powershell window here” option.
13. Once you’re in the command prompt/terminal, enter the following command: “adb devices” (if that produces an error, try “.\adb devices” (omit the quotation marks))
14. You will see that the system is starting the ADB daemon. If this is your first time running ADB, you will see a prompt on your phone asking you to authorize a connection with the computer. Grant it.
15. Now if you re-run the adb devices command, the terminal will print the serial number of your device. If so, then you’re ready to move on.
16. Enter the following command: “adb shell” (if that produces an error, try “.\adb shell”)
17. Execute the “pm list packages” command (without quotes) to find package names.
18. ALTERNATIVELY: You can also easily find the package name of an installed system application by installing the App Inspector app on your phone. I prefer doing it this way so you know exactly what the app name is of the application that you are about to uninstall.
19. Execute the “pm uninstall -k --user 0 <name of package>” command (without quotes) to uninstall a specific system application. It is critical that you remove all surfing temptations here, so please be honest with yourself. Mathew 5:30: “And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”
20. e.g., for Chrome, you will use “pm uninstall -k --user 0 <com.android.chrome>”
21. If memory serves, Youtube is also a system app and will need to be deleted this way too.
22. Repeat for any other app you were unable to remove in step 2.
23. Delete the Google Play Store app to block yourself from reinstalling a browser or social media app in a moment of weakness. *CAUTION: THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO INSTALL ANY USEFUL APPS YOU MISSED IN STEP 5\*
24. Use “pm uninstall -k --user 0 <com.android.vending>” to uninstall the google play app.
25. Now, delete the ADB binary tools from your PC. This is critical, because the goal is to intentionally create a catch-22 for yourself. You will not be able to reverse the steps above without ADB binary tools, and since you have no wifi in your house (see step 1) and no browser on your phone, there’s no way to download ADB binary tools without leaving your house and going somewhere with wifi. For me, this is inconvenient enough that I won’t do it. You have now blocked all surfing capabilities on your phone and deleted the tools you would need to re-enable it. This does leave one work-around that we want to fire bomb next, which is hotspot/tethering.
26. Disable the hotspot feature on your phone, so you can’t provide a connection to another device. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out an ADB command to accomplish this, with no luck. But I am not a developer; I’m just a guy, so who knows. I have managed to come up with a workaround using an automation app that accomplishes what I need. You will use the MacroDroid app you downloaded in step 4 to make a simple macro that blocks tethering. In basic terms, we want a program that executes the following logic: “If hotspot is turned on, turn off hotspot”. If you try to turn on hotspot with this macro active, it will immediately toggle back off. It’s clumsy but it’s effective.
27. Open the MacroDroid app and select “Add Macro”.
28. Next you will select a trigger for the macro. Select “connectivity” to see available triggers in this category.
29. Select the “Hotspot Enabled/Disabled” trigger and select the “Hotspot Enabled” option.
30. Now that we have a trigger defined, we want to select an action. Select the “Actions” tab towards the top of the screen.
31. Select “Connectivity” again, and then “HotSpot On/Off”.
32. Select the “Disable HotSpot” option and hit OK.
33. Hit the check mark in the bottom right corner of the screen to save your macro.
34. Create a similar macro for USB or bluetooth tethering if that feature is available on your phone.
35. Now you want to use the other app you downloaded in step 4, “App Lock” to prevent you from disabling this macro (and using the hotspot feature in a moment of weakness). This is what I meant in the intro by the phrase “measures which border on absurdity”.
36. Open App Lock. I like App Lock because you can create a numerical password of arbitrary length. On a piece of paper, write down a random string of numbers 9 to 12 digits long, like “893619412876” or "368597241" and make this the password for App Lock. *[*Alternatively, If you want to, literally use on of the exact strings above, and don’t write it down on a sheet of paper. If you ever need to unblock this feature, you will have to leave the house, find a place with public wifi, pull up this reddit post on your laptop, and get the key off of it. It’s absurd, I know.]
37. In App Lock, scroll down the list of apps until you find the MacroDroid app, and lock it. You have now blocked hotspot and removed the possibility of unblocking.
38. If you wrote your password on a piece of paper in step 36, GET YOUR PASSWORD OUT OF THE HOUSE. Take it to your mom’s house, or go to the park and bury it in a bottle next to a tree. Yes, that's absurd. Do it.

Congratulations, You’ve Fucked Yourself!

You now have Amish level internet access! As a measure of comfort, these steps are reversible, but I’m going to leave it to you to figure out how. Better yet, don’t even try.

Let’s recap:

• You no longer have an internet connection in your house.
• You have removed all distracting apps from your phone, including your browser.
• You have removed the ability to re-install any of said problematic apps by removing Google Play Store.
• You have blocked the ability to wifi-tether to your PC.

From this point on, if you need to look for a job, or learn how to make a mimosa, or look at cute cat pics, you will have to go to a library or a coffee shop with a laptop, because you cannot access anything at home. What this means is this: if something really is important enough, like searching for a job, you will go to a library, which is actually a great place to focus on important stuff like searching for a job. What you probably won't do is go to the library just to look at cute cat pics for hours on end. Which is a good thing.

I would strongly encourage you to extend your firebombing campaign to offline games, any downloaded porn you have saved locally on your phone/PC, etc. In my opinion, the most entertaining thing in your house should be a book. YMMV

The world is your oyster now. Go to the Library. Try meditation. Start exercising for fucks sake. Cook some good food. Good Luck!