Launching an app is one thing. Getting those first users is a completely different challenge.

Instead of spending money on ads, I d rather give the app to people who are willing to try it and share their honest feedback.

I m giving away 100 lifetime licenses for PanicMode.

Just use the coupon code PRODUCTHUNT at checkout to get a 100% discount.

We ve released macOS version 1.2.1, which is the same app build as 1.2.0 but signed with our developer certificate. This should reduce macOS security warnings during install and first launch.

If you re on macOS, we recommend updating to 1.2.1. Windows release 1.2.1 will also be available soon.

I recently started testing a very small Google Ads campaign for PanicMode. That also meant adding a minimal Google attribution script to the website, which honestly felt a bit ironic for a privacy-focused project.

I still wanted to handle it in the most transparent way possible. The website now asks for consent before loading anything advertising-related, and PanicMode itself still runs fully locally without recording or uploading anything.

Small update since launch day: I added a live interactive preview directly into the PanicMode website so people can instantly try the concept before downloading the desktop app.

You can now press /Ctrl + Shift + O anywhere on the website to trigger a browser-based overlay preview of PanicMode.

Just shipped PanicMode 1.2.0.

This update brings support for French, German, and Spanish, a redesigned macOS installer, a proper settings panel inside the launcher, customizable shortcuts, and multi-display support.

I also spent time polishing the experience across both macOS and Windows with better theme integration, performance improvements, and a few UI fixes.

Thanks to everyone who tested the app and shared feedback over the past weeks, it genuinely helped shape this release.

Launch day is over

Really enjoyed the discussions around PanicMode during the launch. Funny to realize almost everyone already has their own version of a "panic shortcut":

• alt-tabbing into a terminal

• minimizing everything manually

• using privacy screen filters

• pretending to debug something important

After launch day, one thing became very obvious to me:

people generally understand and relate to the idea behind PanicMode, but many still don t feel convinced enough to install or buy it.

So I started iterating on the website experience itself.