StayFree - Screen Time

Review by eFreeware

The most distinctive thing about StayFree is how far its screen time picture reaches. Rather than stopping at one phone, it pulls usage from desktops, browsers and a watch into a single view, so the hours you spend on a laptop are counted alongside the ones on your handset. That is a broader scope than most trackers bother with.

It is free, carries no ads and has no in-app purchases, which is unusual for a tool in this category. The developer, ST Pulse, has built it around two jobs: showing you where your time goes and blocking the apps and sites that take too much of it.

This suits people who suspect their phone use is higher than they would like but have no real evidence either way, and people who already know the problem and want scheduled blocking rather than willpower. If you simply want a number on a screen, the stats side covers that too.

Reading your usage before you change anything

The app's foundation is a usage history shown as charts and statistics. You get a breakdown of how much time each app takes, which is the starting point for deciding what deserves a limit. The developer describes the reporting as highly accurate, a claim worth treating as marketing rather than a measured fact.

Website usage goes a step further than most trackers. Instead of logging time against your browser as one lump, it records which sites you actually visited, so an hour that looks like browsing can be separated into the parts that mattered and the parts that did not. For anyone whose distraction lives in a browser tab rather than an app, that distinction is the whole point.

If you like working with the numbers yourself, usage can be exported as a CSV file. That opens the door to your own spreadsheets and comparisons, which is a small feature that matters to people who track other parts of their lives the same way. A widget keeps your most used apps and total time visible without opening anything.

Blocking apps and scheduling time away

Blocking is where the app moves from observation to intervention. You can block any application you are over-using, either temporarily or permanently, which covers both a short pause during a work session and a lasting decision about an app you have decided to drop. Over-use reminders act earlier, notifying you when a single app is taking too much of your day.

Focus mode handles the scheduling side. You set blocks for specific times, so distracting apps close themselves during the hours you have chosen rather than waiting for you to decide in the moment. Sleep mode takes a blunter approach and disables everything at the end of the day, which is useful if the difficulty is not one particular app but the habit of reaching for the phone at all.

There is a deliberate obstacle built in for people who know their own resolve is unreliable. Changing any app setting can require a password, which puts a step between an impulse and undoing the limits you set. Limits can also be synced across a group of connected devices, so a rule made on one machine applies to the rest.

One account-free view across your devices

StayFree extends beyond Android. There are desktop apps for Windows, MacOS and Linux, browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari, and a Wear OS app for a watch. Connecting them produces a total screen time figure that reflects your whole day rather than one device's share of it, and the developer notes that this can be done without creating an account.

The browser extensions are what make the website-level reporting possible. The desktop apps extend tracking beyond the phone. The developer's advice is to connect devices rather than run the phone app alone, and that is a fair description of how the product is designed to work.

The Android app relies on Accessibility Services. According to the developer, those permissions are used to detect which website you are on so the sites you have chosen can be blocked, and they also improve how reliably usage limits are enforced. Consent is described as active and the handling of that information follows the developer's privacy policy. That is a meaningful permission to grant, and it is worth understanding before you enable it.

What it costs you

StayFree is free to install and shows no ads. There are no in-app purchases either. That combination is rare enough in this category to be worth stating on its own, because it means the usual questions about what a free tier withholds or what a subscription unlocks simply do not apply here.

The app asks for a permission rather than your money. Using Accessibility Services for website detection and limit enforcement is a real grant of access. You are deciding whether the blocking is worth that, not whether it is worth a monthly fee.

Where a dedicated blocker or a built-in tool fits

Android already includes a digital wellbeing section with basic screen time figures, and for plenty of people that is enough. A built-in tool shows you the headline numbers. The case for StayFree rests on what sits beyond that: website-level detail, scheduled blocking, a password lock, CSV export and a cross-device total that a phone-only tool cannot produce.

The other alternative is a single-purpose app blocker. That is simpler, but you lose the usage history that tells you whether the blocking is aimed at the right target. Starting with evidence and then setting limits is a more defensible order of operations.

A paid productivity suite is the third comparison. StayFree is narrower than that; it is about measuring and restricting screen time, and it does not pretend to organize your work for you. Whether the narrower tool is better depends on whether screen time is the actual problem.

A free, ad-free fit for people who want the numbers first

StayFree has been on Google Play since August 2017 and has passed 10 million installs, with a 4.5 average across a large number of ratings. The most recent update is described as bug fixes and experience improvements, which is the ordinary maintenance you would hope to see.

I would point this at two groups. The first is anyone who wants to know where their time actually goes before deciding what to cut, and who values seeing desktop and browser time in the same place as phone time. The second is anyone who has already identified the problem apps and wants scheduled blocking with a password standing between them and a moment of weakness.

What makes it easy to suggest is that it is free. No price, no ads, no purchases. The thing to weigh instead is the Accessibility Services permission. If that trade makes sense to you, there is little else to hesitate over.

What's new

Smashing bugs and improving your experience