If you ever told me that my little piece of software would get its own MacWorld review…

Ah, the Internet: Fountain of information, smorgasbord of entertainment, nexus of social networking. Oh, and bane to productivity.

As anyone who’s procrastinated in the past decade knows, the Internet’s vast stores of instantly accessible content are nigh irresistible…especially when you’ve got work that needs doing. A few years back, I covered Think, a utility that visually blocks out all but the current program, and there’s also WriteRoom, a full-screen word processor for focusing on your writing. But while these utilities can help hide other programs, they can’t save you from yourself. That’s where Freedom comes in.

3.5 mice.  Not bad, but I’d argue Freedom is a 4 mouse program at least!

Freedom also got a little coverage in the USA Today article Some ditch social networks to reclaim time, privacy, a front page feature.

One antidote to the always-on life is Freedom, free software that disables any Apple computer’s Internet access for up to eight hours. About 100,000 Web users have downloaded Freedom since 2008, says Fred Stutzman, a graduate student in information sciences at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the program’s creator.

“Freedom is a statement that it’s OK to push back from this tide of technology and find some space to really think,” he says.

I need to update the sidebar!