Cat Bounce
Bounce cats around the screen. Gently, they cry.
- 30 seconds
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
88 sites · every link checked daily
Websites to waste time (5 minutes or less)
Some boredom is five minutes long. You are in a queue, waiting for a file to upload, or avoiding an email. You do not need a rabbit hole, you need websites to waste time that pay off right away. This is that list.
The rule is simple, and the page builds itself from it: every site here takes 30 seconds or about 5 minutes to enjoy, and works on mobile. No installs, no signups, no tutorials. That is why the long-haul stuff, like idle games and archives, lives elsewhere.
Start with Cat Bounce, where tapping launches cats around your screen. Eel Slap is exactly what it sounds like. Is it Christmas? answers its question, usually with a no. If you have a bit longer, The Password Game will happily eat a few minutes, Spend Bill Gates' Money is a smart way to feel the scale of a billion, and Pixel Thoughts turns a worry into a star that dissolves in about a minute.
The first eight are the best value per second. Past them, the list gets wider: maps, science, art and word games, all short and all quick to understand. If you would rather not choose, "Surprise me from this list" picks for you, and the main random button does the same across the whole directory.
The sites
All the sites
The list (88)
Is it Christmas?
It tells you NO, almost every day of the year.
- 30 seconds
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Draw a Perfect Circle
Trace a circle and get scored on how perfect it is.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Spend Bill Gates' Money
Blow $100 billion on everything from Big Macs to an NBA team.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Silk
Draw flowing, symmetrical ribbons of light with your mouse.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Pixel Thoughts
Type a worry into a star and watch it dissolve in sixty seconds.
- 30 seconds
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Passive Aggressive Passwords
A password machine that is brutally honest about your choices.
- 30 seconds
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Bouncing DVD Logo
Watch the DVD logo bounce and wait for the perfect corner hit.
- 30 seconds
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
This Person Does Not Exist
Every refresh shows a human face that never existed.
- 30 seconds
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
This Word Does Not Exist
AI invents a word, a definition and an example sentence.
- 30 seconds
- Works on phones
- Mature themes
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Absurd Trolley Problems
The trolley problem, escalated until it stops making sense.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Antipodes Map
Dig a hole and see where you would come out the other side.
- 30 seconds
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Koalas to the Max
Click through a pixelated mosaic until the picture appears.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
random.dog
A random dog picture, every time. Hello World, this is dog.
- 30 seconds
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Days Since Incident
Live counters for days since the last earthquake, eruption and more.
- 30 seconds
- Works on phones
- Alive
The Deep Sea
Scroll down through the ocean and meet what lives at every depth.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Wonders of Street View
Funny buildings, strange costumes and other oddities caught by Google.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Space Elevator
Ride a virtual elevator through the atmosphere and into space.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Asteroid Launcher
Design an asteroid and fire it at any spot on Earth.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Earth Reviews
A review site for Earth itself, to help improve the simulation.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Who Was Alive?
Type a year and see which historical figures overlapped.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Dark Patterns
A guided tour of the tricks websites use to manipulate you.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Unusual Suspects
Sketch a suspect from vague, unreliable witness testimony.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Draw Logos From Memory
Try to sketch famous logos, then reveal how wrong you were.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Internet Artifacts
A museum of about 60 internet milestones, from 1977 to 2007.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Parable of the Polygons
A playable post on how small biases build segregated societies.
- 5 minutes
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Adventures With Anxiety!
An interactive story about living with anxiety.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
To Build a Better Ballot
An interactive guide to voting systems and why they matter.
- 5 minutes
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
How To Remember Anything Forever-ish
A comic-style interactive guide to spaced repetition.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
The Long Doge Challenge
A clicker game about making an ASCII doge unreasonably long.
- 5 minutes
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Space Jam (1996 website)
The original 1996 Space Jam site, preserved exactly as it was.
- 5 minutes
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
The Million Dollar Homepage
A million pixels sold at a dollar each, preserved in all its glory.
- 5 minutes
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Dinosaur Comics
A comic that reuses the same six panels and still updates.
- 5 minutes
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Always Judge a Book by its Cover
Satirical reviews of strange book titles and covers.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
JS Paint
MS Paint, faithfully rebuilt for the web.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
ASCII Art Archive
Thousands of ASCII drawings, sorted by subject.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Zoomquilt
An infinitely zooming painting that never stops falling in.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Zoomquilt 2
The sequel: another infinitely zooming image.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
LightningMaps.org
Watch lightning strike around the world in near real time.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
USGS Latest Earthquakes
A live map of every notable earthquake on Earth.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Where the ISS at?
See exactly where the International Space Station is right now.
- 30 seconds
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Astronomy Picture of the Day
A new space photo every day, with an expert's explanation.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
The Scale of the Universe
Zoom from quarks to the edge of the observable universe.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
The Scale of the Universe 2
The original Flash-era zoom through everything, rebuilt for HTML5.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Solar Dynamics Observatory
Near-live images of the Sun in different wavelengths.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Light Pollution Map
See how bright the night sky is where you live.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Ptable
The periodic table, made interactive and genuinely nice to use.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
The True Size Of ...
Drag countries around the map to see their real size.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
NUKEMAP
Drop a nuclear weapon on a map and see the effects.
- 5 minutes
- Mature themes
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Worldometer
Real-time counters for population, births, deaths and more.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Internet Live Stats
Real-time counts of emails sent, tweets posted and sites online.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Google Ngram Viewer
Chart how often any word appears in millions of books.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Flexbox Froggy
Help frogs reach their lily pads using CSS.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Grid Garden
Water your carrots with CSS grid code.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Teachable Machine
Train an AI to recognise your face, sounds or poses.
- 5 minutes
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Moral Machine
Judge self-driving car dilemmas and compare with the world.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
xkcd
Randall Munroe's webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language.
- 5 minutes
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Typatone
Every letter you type plays a note, so your writing becomes music.
- 5 minutes
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
This is Sand
Pour colored sand into a jar and carve patterns.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
CSS Zen Garden
One HTML page, hundreds of wildly different designs.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
tixy.land
Make animated art with a single tiny JavaScript function.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Quick, Draw!
Doodle quickly while an AI tries to guess what you're drawing.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
WebGL Fluid Simulation
Swirl glowing fluid around with your cursor.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Powder Game
A classic particle sandbox: fire, water, gunpowder and more.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
The Wiki Game
Race from one Wikipedia page to another using only links.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Giant Panda Cam
Live panda cam from the Smithsonian's National Zoo.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Which Face Is Real?
Pick the real person from a pair of faces, one of them AI-made.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
This Rental Does Not Exist
AI writes and illustrates a holiday rental that isn't real.
- 30 seconds
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
RANDOM.ORG
True random numbers from atmospheric noise.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
How the list is built. This page follows a rule rather than a mood: if a site is tagged 30 seconds or 5 minutes in our database and works on a phone, it qualifies. That means the list grows by itself as we add and re-check sites, and a site drops off if its time-to-enjoy changes or it stops working. We hand-order the top so the best come first.
Why mobile only. Boredom does not always happen at a desk. A few desktop-only classics, like Pointer Pointer, are left off this page for that reason; you will find them in the useless websites list.
Tips for a good five minutes.
- Open three or four in separate tabs and make your way through them.
- Keep the sound off until you know a site's habits. Notes on loud audio appear on the card.
- If a site grabs you, treat it as a signal: the Internet Rabbit Holes list has longer experiences.
More ways to kill time. The fun websites list leans toward games, Funny Websites That Actually Work leans toward jokes, and the Games category lets you pick a genre. When in doubt, take me somewhere odd.
Frequently asked questions
What are some good websites to waste time?
For a quick fix, try Cat Bounce, Eel Slap, Is it Christmas?, Draw a Perfect Circle and The Password Game. They are fast, free and work on phones. The list below includes dozens more, all tagged as 30 seconds or about 5 minutes.
What are the best websites to visit when bored?
Choose by mood: Silk or Pixel Thoughts for calm, The Password Game for frustration, Spend Bill Gates' Money for curiosity, and Cat Bounce for pure silliness. The mood pages and filters on our random button can narrow it down further for you.
Are these websites to waste time safe at work?
Most are mild, but check each card. Some sites have loud audio or flashing visuals, and we flag those. We check links daily for parked or hijacked domains, though we cannot judge your workplace's rules, so use your own good sense.
Why does the list only include mobile-friendly sites?
Because boredom happens in queues, waiting rooms and on sofas. The rule picks sites that take 30 seconds to 5 minutes and work on a phone. Desktop-only favorites like Pointer Pointer appear in other lists, such as the useless websites list.
