A free, open source alternative to BlockerX and Covenant Eyes
If you want a free, no-account, private option for blurring explicit images, NSFW Filter is a good alternative to BlockerX and Covenant Eyes, with one honest caveat: it does a narrower job. It blurs explicit images on any page using AI that runs on your device. It does not block whole sites, lock uninstalls, or report to an accountability partner. For image filtering that trade is a win. For full-site recovery blocking, it complements one of those tools rather than replacing it.
What BlockerX and Covenant Eyes do
BlockerX and Covenant Eyes are built for a specific job: helping someone cut off access to adult sites and stay accountable. They block domains, add password locks and uninstall protection, and in Covenant Eyes’ case send a record of your activity to a chosen accountability partner. That monitoring is the feature, not a side effect.
They tend to be freemium or paid, they usually require an account, and by design some record of what you do leaves your machine. For their intended use, recovery with accountability, that is the point.
Where NSFW Filter differs
NSFW Filter solves a different problem. It does not block sites or watch your activity. It looks at the images on the page you are on, classifies each one with an AI model in your browser, and blurs or hides the explicit ones. Nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and no one gets a report. Here is how the on-device filtering works .
Two differences matter most if you are comparing:
Mechanism. BlockerX and Covenant Eyes work at the site or URL level. NSFW Filter works at the image level, so it catches explicit images on any site, including ones a blocklist would never cover, but it does not take a site offline.
Privacy. NSFW Filter is open source and runs entirely on your device, so there is nothing to trust on faith. An accountability tool, by design, sends your activity somewhere. Different goals, opposite privacy models.
Honest scope
Be clear-eyed about this: NSFW Filter is not an accountability tool and not an uninstall-locked site blocker. If the thing keeping you on track is a partner seeing your activity, or a block you cannot easily switch off, keep the tool that does that. NSFW Filter is not a replacement for it.
What it is good at is being the free, private layer that blurs explicit images everywhere, with no subscription and nothing reported. Plenty of people run it alongside a recovery blocker for exactly that. If you want the full landscape, the free, open source comparison lays every option out side by side.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free alternative to BlockerX?
NSFW Filter is free, open source, and needs no account or subscription. It differs from BlockerX in what it does: it blurs explicit images on any page using on-device AI, rather than blocking whole sites. For image filtering it is a strong free option; for full-site blocking, a dedicated blocker still fits.
Does NSFW Filter track my browsing like an accountability tool?
No. NSFW Filter classifies images on your device and reports nothing to anyone. Unlike accountability tools such as Covenant Eyes, it does not monitor or send your activity to a partner. It is a private image filter, not a monitoring service.
Can NSFW Filter replace a recovery blocker?
Not entirely. It does not block whole sites, lock uninstalls, or provide accountability, which are the core of a recovery blocker. It works well as a free, private image-blurring layer alongside one.