A browser blocker for health anxiety.

Rowan lives in your browser and blocks reassurance seeking via search engines and AI chatbots like ChatGPT. It also monitors pages for triggering content and blocks specific URLs you choose.

Get Rowan for £9.99

One-time purchase, no subscription. Each licence has two activations.

google.com/search?q=can+anxiety+cause+chest+pain

Real block screen on a Google search.

Built for people trying to stop.

Symptom searches you can't stop

You google the same fear under different words, multiple times a day.

AI chatbots replacing your doctor

You ask ChatGPT or Claude to interpret your symptoms. You rephrase the question until you get the answer you want.

Health anxiety doesn't improve from Googling

Each search gives a few minutes of relief, then the urge returns stronger. The searching itself is what keeps the loop going.

Why this matters.

The relief each search gives is real, but it never lasts.

For people with health anxiety, online reassurance seeking becomes a quiet compulsion. A single symptom search turns into an hour of scrolling. One AI prompt becomes five rephrased versions of the same question. A site you promised yourself you'd stop opening appears in a new tab without you quite deciding to open it.

The relief each search gives is real, but it never lasts. The urge comes back, often stronger — because the last search almost always turned up something new. It's a damaging loop that feeds itself.

Reducing reassurance seeking is a core mechanism in CBT for health anxiety. A 2014 trial in The Lancet found CBT significantly reduced symptoms with effects sustained at five-year follow-up. Rowan is built on that principle — a blocker that puts friction between wanting to search and actually searching.

Get Rowan

One-time purchase with no subscription. Each licence has two activations. Licence key arrives by email.

Get Rowan for £9.99 Read the full FAQs

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  • Stops symptom searches before they load
  • Intercepts AI prompts before they send
  • Blocks the sites you keep going back to
  • All future updates included

What's next.

Real user feedback drives the detection improvements in v1.x. Every false-block or missed query someone emails in feeds the next training round.

Larger items being considered: French, Spanish, and German support, strict mode, and deeper activity insights.