What is mind-shield?

MindShield is a browser extension created by Janis Flury that tries to slow you down when you ask AI tools questions you could probably answer yourself. The idea is that people have started relying on chatbots for simple tasks, like basic math or quick recall, instead of thinking through those problems on their own. The extension adds a small speed bump to that habit. When you type a prompt into ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, or Grok, MindShield checks what you wrote before sending it. It runs a small machine learning model directly in your browser to judge whether your question is a "lazy shortcut" or something more involved. If it thinks you are asking something simple, it locks your input for five seconds and shows a countdown. When the timer hits zero, your prompt sends automatically, so you do not have to retype anything. If your prompt is complex, like a debugging question or a step-by-step learning request, it goes through right away. The extension does all of this locally on your computer. Your prompts are not sent to any external server for evaluation, and the tool does not collect or store your browsing history or personal information. It uses a compact model called DistilBERT-MNLI, compiled to run inside the browser, and it schedules its background work during idle moments so it does not make typing feel sluggish. You can download it from itch.io. To install it in Chrome, you extract the downloaded ZIP file, open the extensions page, turn on developer mode, and load the folder. The source code is available on GitHub for anyone who wants to inspect or modify it.