Ingenious Chrome Extension Keeps Chatty Coworkers Away

We've found your new best tool in fighting the war against distracting coworkers and others who eat away at your time.

Credit: Twentieth Century Fox

(Image credit: Twentieth Century Fox)


NOPE, a Google Chrome extension, will call your phone, saving you from those long, drawn out conversations.

Here's how it works. You install NOPE from the Chrome Web Store and click Add To Chrome. After following installation instructions, you click the N icon in the browser's menu bar to enter your phone number.

MORE: Best Chrome Apps to Try Now

After that, just click the N icon to receive a call, which consists of a pre-recorded voice instructing you how to act to pretend you're receiving bad news. The call is from New York's 646 area code, so take that into consideration if you think it could be useful.

We'd advise giving NOPE your office phone number, because by using NOPE, you're sharing your phone number with a third party. We don't know how NOPE is managing the phone numbers, but you probably don't want to give out your mobile number to everyone.

We've reached out to Breather, the meeting-space company that released NOPE for information about how phone numbers are stored. We will update this post if we receive a response.

UPDATE: A representative from Breather told us that it does not store numbers on its end, and that they're kept in the local storage of Chrome. The calls are made using Twilio, a cloud-based platform that allows software to make calls using APIs. The APIs that NOPE accesses are on an server secured with Certbot-based HTTPS.

Henry T. Casey
Managing Editor (Entertainment, Streaming)

Henry is a managing editor at Tom’s Guide covering streaming media, laptops and all things Apple, reviewing devices and services for the past seven years. Prior to joining Tom's Guide, he reviewed software and hardware for TechRadar Pro, and interviewed artists for Patek Philippe International Magazine. He's also covered the wild world of professional wrestling for Cageside Seats, interviewing athletes and other industry veterans.