What is Rowan?
Rowan is a browser blocker for people with health anxiety.
It interrupts online reassurance-seeking across search, AI chatbots, and the sites you keep going back to.
It runs locally in your browser, with no account, no server, and no AI.
Is Rowan therapy?
No. Rowan is a browser blocker grounded in CBT principles, but it isn't therapy and doesn't replace seeing a doctor or mental health professional.
Is Rowan only in English?
Yes. Rowan currently only detects English searches and prompts. The help screen includes numbers for the UK, US, Canada, Australia, and Ireland. Other countries see a general fallback.
How Rowan works
Rowan runs in your browser. When it detects reassurance seeking or symptom research across search engines, AI chatbots, and the sites you've flagged, it blocks the query before the search loads, the prompt sends, or the site opens.
You can close the tab, start the timer, or open a list of emergency numbers and a reminder to talk to your doctor.
What is the timer for?
The timer puts a delay between wanting to search and acting on it, long enough that you no longer feel the need to search. It's grounded in CBT techniques for health anxiety.
The default is five minutes. You can change it in settings.
What Rowan blocks and allows
Rowan blocks reassurance-seeking searches and AI prompts before they send, and opens a block screen on sites you flag.
It does not try to block everything medical. It tries to leave these alone:
- Emergency actions: CPR, choking, epipen instructions, naloxone, overdose information
- Mental health crisis support: crisis lines, suicide hotlines, self-harm help
- Learning about phobias: a search like what is cardiophobia is fine
- Clearly non-personal contexts: recipes, news, awareness campaigns, device support, school or work contexts, and queries clearly about someone else
Rowan is built for people with health anxiety who are trying to stop using search and AI for reassurance. So it leans toward blocking, and false positives can still happen.
What if I need help?
From the block screen you can open a list of emergency numbers for your country, alongside a reminder to talk to your doctor for non-emergency concerns.
Can I change it or turn it off?
Yes. From the settings page you can adjust the timer length, the list of blocked sites, and which country's emergency numbers to show. You can also turn Rowan off entirely from there.
How much is it?
£9.99 one-time, includes 2 activations and all future updates. No subscription, no recurring charges.
One activation per browser install, so you could activate on a laptop and a desktop, or on Chrome and Brave on the same machine. From settings you can release an activation any time to free it up for somewhere else.
How do I get set up?
You'll get a licence key by email within a few minutes of purchase. Rowan works in Chromium-based browsers such as Chrome, Brave, Edge, Arc, Opera, and Vivaldi.
- Open the Chrome Web Store listing and add the extension to your browser.
- Open Rowan and paste your licence key.
- Activate this device, then continue to settings.
No account or sign-in is required. If activation fails, email support@getrowan.app with your order number.
Can I move my licence to another device?
Yes. From settings, you can release a device's activation and use it somewhere else. This is useful if you get a new laptop, want to pass a spare activation to someone else, or lose access to a device.
What data Rowan stores
Rowan keeps a small local event log on your device. Each entry records:
- the source, such as a search, AI prompt, or blocked site
- the event type, such as blocked, continued, closed, or help opened
- a broad theme, such as cancer or chest pain, never the full query
- what triggered the block
- time
This powers the Data page. It stays on your device, you can clear it any time, and nothing is sent to a server, sold, shared, or used for tracking.
How to delete your data
Go to Settings and click Clear activity.
To remove everything, uninstall the extension from your browser's extensions page.
How it detects
Rowan uses a local rules engine, not AI. It looks at the text itself, including symptom words, self-focused wording, reassurance patterns, emergency-action phrases, and known safe contexts. It also checks the site you're on against your flagged list.
Rowan is built for people with health anxiety who are actively trying to stop using the internet for reassurance. So it leans toward blocking.
A search I expected to block didn't
Rowan is rule-based, so novel phrasings can slip through if they fall outside current coverage. If it matters, email the exact wording to support@getrowan.app. Real user feedback is used to improve the engine.
It's blocking things I don't want blocked
Rowan tries to leave recipes, news, awareness campaigns, device-support searches, and clearly non-personal school or work contexts alone. False positives still happen.
Common triggers are work-related medical queries, queries about someone else, and anything that overlaps heavily with symptom language. If it keeps happening with the same phrase or site, email support@getrowan.app. Real user feedback is used to improve the engine.
Does it block YouTube and Google Images?
Yes. YouTube search is covered. Type a symptom query into YouTube's search box and Rowan will block it like any other search. Google Images and Videos run on google.com/search and are covered by default.
Image prompts inside covered browser AI tools are analysed the same way as text prompts. This includes ChatGPT/DALL-E in the browser; coverage for other image tools depends on whether they use a supported browser prompt surface.
Rowan does not analyse the content of individual videos, so a video you open directly won't be blocked unless you've added YouTube to your flagged sites.
Does it work on mobile?
Desktop only for now. Most mobile browsers don't support extensions properly. A mobile version may follow based on demand.
Does it work in incognito?
Yes, but you need to enable it manually. Go to your browser's extensions page, find Rowan, click Details, and toggle on Allow in Incognito.
Will it slow my browser down?
No meaningful slowdown. Detection runs locally and does not make network calls.
Does it work in desktop apps?
No. Rowan is a browser extension. It covers search engines and browser-based AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini on the web, but not their standalone desktop apps.