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Rowan is a browser blocker for people with health anxiety.
It interrupts reassurance-seeking on search engines, AI chatbots, and any sites you flag. With page warnings turned on, it also warns you when a page you're already on contains triggering health content.
Everything runs on your device. There's no account and no server.
No, it is a tool. It isn't therapy and doesn't replace seeing a doctor or therapist.
English detection only.
Rowan does two things.
The first is blocking. On search engines, AI chatbots, and any flagged sites, Rowan reads what you're about to send. If it looks like reassurance-seeking, the search doesn't load, the prompt doesn't send, or the site doesn't open.
The second is page warnings, off until you turn them on in Settings. Rowan reads the text of pages you're already on and warns you before reading anything triggering.
The timer adds a delay between wanting to search and being able to. It gives the urge time to pass.
Default is five minutes. You can change it in Settings.
Rowan doesn't try to block everything medical. It tries to leave these alone:
Yes. Open Settings to change the timer, your flagged sites, country, or the note shown on the block screen. The same page has a master off switch.
Yes. In Settings you can toggle any preset health site (NHS, WebMD, Cancer Research UK, BHF, and others) or paste in a domain or subreddit of your own. Your browser will ask for permission the first time you enable each.
Pricing & install
£9.99 one-time. The licence covers two activations and all future updates. There's no subscription.
One activation is used per browser install. You could activate on a laptop and a desktop, or on Chrome and Brave on the same machine. Settings has a release button if you want to move an activation.
If activation fails, email support@getrowan.app with your order number.
Yes. Settings has a Release this device button. Once released, the activation is free for another browser, machine, or person.
Privacy
A rolling log of the last 100 events. Each entry records:
Plus your settings and your licence key. All of it is on your device. Clear the log from Settings, or remove everything by uninstalling.
Go to Settings and click Clear activity.
To remove everything, uninstall the extension from your browser's extensions page.
Detection & limits
Detection runs in three stages.
A short allowlist of phrases that always pass: things like CPR, crisis lines, dose-safety lookups, booking NHS care. These never reach the model.
A small text-classification model that runs locally. It was trained on around 14,000 example queries to recognise reassurance-seeking by meaning, not by keyword. Paraphrases and unusual wordings get caught.
On flagged sites and (if you turn it on) any page, a scan of the page text for triggering language.
Rowan leans toward blocking, so some false positives happen.
Off by default. Switch them on in Settings.
When on, Rowan reads the text of pages you visit and warns you when a page contains a lot of triggering health content. The warning is dismissable.
Flagged sites are the ones you've chosen never to load. Page warnings cover the rest of the web.
Sometimes a query gets through that shouldn't. Email the exact wording to support@getrowan.app and it'll go into the next training round.
Rowan leans toward blocking. Common false positives are work-related medical queries and anything that overlaps with symptom-checking language. Email phrases that keep tripping it incorrectly to support@getrowan.app.
Yes. YouTube search and Google Images run through the same blocker as regular search — the block triggers before results load.
Rowan doesn't analyse the content of individual videos. If you open a specific YouTube video directly, it won't be blocked unless you've added YouTube to your flagged sites.
No, desktop only. Most mobile browsers don't support extensions.
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.
No. Detection runs locally and makes no network calls.
Yes, the blocking does. The model is bundled inside the extension, so detection works without an internet connection. Activating or releasing your licence does need the internet — it sends a request to the payment provider.
No. Rowan is a browser extension. It covers ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini on the web, but not their standalone desktop apps.