Laugh
Look Productive
Fake terminals, fake updates, fake spreadsheets. Press any key, look extremely occupied. Best used responsibly, which nobody does.
13 sites
Recorded terminal sessions replayed as selectable text, genuinely useful to learn from and indistinguishable from real work.
- 10 min
- Desktop
Plays the notification sounds of Slack, email and Teams on a loop so it sounds like somebody urgently needs you.
- <1 min
- Sound on
Twenty-odd fake hacking interfaces — agency mainframes, terminals, satellite maps — with buttons that fill progress bars.
- 2 min
- Desktop
Mash any keys and perfectly formatted code appears character by character, exactly as in every hacking scene ever filmed.
- <1 min
- Desktop
A fake enterprise interface that rewards clicking dialogue boxes with more dialogue boxes, by an art-games designer.
- 2 min
- Desktop
A fake executive dashboard of charts and metrics that keeps updating itself while you stare thoughtfully past it.
- 2 min
- Desktop
A convincing macOS desktop rebuilt in Svelte, dock animations included, running entirely inside the browser.
- 10 min
- Desktop
A meticulous recreation of the falling green glyphs, with settings for every version of the effect across the films.
- <1 min
- Desktop
A fake desktop of virus warnings, satellite feeds and password crackers, all keyboard-mashable in full screen.
- 2 min
- Desktop
Pranx Studio
AltFFull-screen fake terminals, fake updates and fake system alerts. Harmless, closeable with Escape, and very funny on a colleague's screen.
- <1 min
- Desktop
Boots Linux, Windows 98 and other complete operating systems in a tab, via an x86 emulator written in JavaScript.
- 10 min
- Desktop
A working Windows XP desktop in a tab, with Minesweeper, Paint and the startup sound, for pure muscle memory.
- 10 min
- Sound on
- Desktop
Feeds your own video call bad audio — echo, crying baby, wind — until everyone agrees the connection is the problem.
- 2 min
- Sound on
- Desktop
How we picked these
Every entry in Detour is hand-sorted rather than scraped: filed under one category, given one to three moods, and placed in a time band for how quickly it pays off. The practical facts — cost, sign-up, sound, device and whether it is safe at a desk — are recorded per site and shown on every card, so you can rule things out before you click.
Look Productive: questions
How many sites are in Look Productive?
13 sites, each hand-sorted by category, mood and how long it takes to pay off. 1 of them is an AltF original that run right here.
Which of these sites are free with no sign-up?
13 of the 13 are free and need no account. None of them are paid.
Do these sites work on a phone, and are they safe for work?
1 of 13 work on a phone; the rest are desktop only. 13 are safe for work and 10 work with the sound off.