Decaffeinater

You probably know all too well how easy it is to lose track of time and spend hours playing a game or browsing the web when there are more productive things you could be doing. It isn’t always easy to limit yourself, but you can turn to a specialized app to make things easier.

Decaffeinater is a straightforward program that can kill any process after a certain amount of time has passed. It can get the job done, but it offers no other features and seems to lack polish.

This is not a complex program by any means, as it is only designed to do one simple thing – shut down a certain process after a specified amount of time has passed. If you find it difficult to leave a game or turn off your browser, it can be quite helpful.

Once you have set the timer, you just need to select the process in question. Unfortunately, some users may have a bit of trouble with this, as you are required to enter the name or the process, not the application. It would have been great if Decaffeinater offered a list of programs for you to choose from.

Sadly, this utility still needs a lot of work. Aside from the fact that selecting a process is quite difficult, no warning is provided before an app or game is shut down. Progress is tracked, but this means that you need to switch to Decaffeinater every once in a while to make sure the timer is not about to run out.

The user interface is very simplistic, and it is not possible to send the application to the system tray once a timer has been launched.

On the whole, Decaffeinater just doesn’t seem like it would be very helpful for most users. While it can certainly prevent you from spending too much time gaming or browsing the web, you may end up losing important content when these processes are killed.

Moreover, the application does not offer any other useful features, and it sports a simplistic UI that will likely not appeal to potential users.