News and feeds · a new tab for Chrome

Every feed you follow.
One list, newest first.

Add a feed, a site’s address, or a search on Google News, Hacker News, Reddit, or Bing News. Fogar merges them into one list on your new tab, newest first, with a dot on what arrived since you last looked. No account. Each feed is fetched by your browser, straight from its own site.

Free. Open source. The Feed widget is optional; Chrome asks for each site when you add it.

chrome://newtab
Morning reading
Show HN: A feed reader in 300 lines of JavaScriptHacker News: rss reader · 12 min ago
Heat pumps now outsell gas furnaces in the NortheastInstallers say demand doubled this year as rebates arrived and winter prices climbed.Google News: heat pumps · 40 min ago
Why I still write a weekly letterNine years, four hundred issues, and what an inbox teaches you about attention.Field Notes · Ana Reyes · 3 h ago
My starter finally doubles in four hoursReddit: sourdough starter · 5 h ago

20 items from 4 sources · updated just now · Refresh · Mark all read · Sources

What it reads

Paste a feed, a site, or a few words.

Each source is one line in the widget. Every request goes from your browser to the address in the right-hand column, and nowhere else.

You addFogar readsFetched from
A feed addressRSS 2.0, RSS 1.0, Atom, or JSON Feed.Title, link, date, author, and the first couple of lines of the summary as plain text.That site
A site addressThe feed the page advertises in its head.Found once, then remembered, so later refreshes go straight to the feed.That site
Google News searchHeadlines matching your words, newest first.The US English edition.news.google.com
Hacker News searchNew stories and comments that match.hnrss.org
Reddit searchNew posts across Reddit that match.reddit.com
Bing News searchAnother news index, with different outlets.bing.com

The merged list is kept in Chrome’s extension storage on this device. There is no Fogar server to proxy through, so there is nothing to log your reading.

How it works

Add sources. Open tabs. Read the top.

Add the Feed widget

Add widget, then Feed. Pick “Feed or site address” or one of the four searches, type, and press Add. Chrome asks to let Fogar reach that one site. Feeds that already allow cross-origin reads work even if you say no.

optional permission · one site at a time

One list

Items from every source are merged newest first, and a link that shows up in two feeds is listed once. Show 10, 20, or 40. Each line says which source it came from.

click a headline · it opens on its own site

A dot on what is new

Anything dated after your last “Mark read” gets a dot. The widget refreshes when you open a new tab and the list is more than fifteen minutes old, or when you click Refresh.

several Feed widgets if you like · work, news, hobbies
Straight talk

Headlines, not a reading app.

The rest of Fogar is a new tab that answers from a model running in your browser. See what leaves in each mode.

  • It shows titles and a line or two of summary. Clicking opens the article on its own site. There is no built-in article view.
  • Read state is one moment in time: “Mark read” clears every dot. There is no per-item read, star, or archive.
  • No OPML import, no folders, no full-text search of past items. The list holds the newest 10, 20, or 40.
  • It refreshes only while you open new tabs. Nothing polls in the background.
  • Hacker News searches come through hnrss.org, a free third-party service. If it is down, that source shows an error and the rest still load.
Questions

Fair questions, short answers.

Do I need an account?

No. There is nothing to sign up for and no Fogar server. Your browser fetches each feed directly from its site and keeps the list on this device.

Which feed formats work?

RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0, Atom, and JSON Feed. If you only know the site, paste its address: Fogar looks for the feed the page advertises and remembers it.

Why does Chrome ask for permission when I add a source?

An extension can read another site only with permission for that site. Fogar asks for the one site you just added, at that moment, and never for all sites up front. Some feeds allow cross-origin reads and work even if you decline.

Can I follow Hacker News or a subreddit?

Yes. Pick “Search Hacker News” and type the words you care about, and new matching stories arrive through hnrss.org. For one subreddit, paste its feed address, such as reddit.com/r/sourdough/.rss, or use “Search Reddit” to watch all of Reddit for your words.

How does it know what is new?

It remembers when you last clicked “Mark read”. Every item dated after that gets a dot. The first time, everything is new.

Can I import my subscriptions from another reader?

Not yet. There is no OPML import, so sources are added one at a time. A site address is enough for most of them.

Install

Add to Chrome

Fogar is on the Chrome Web Store. One click to add it, and it updates itself from there. Then open a new tab.

Free, from the Chrome Web Store. Brave, Arc, and Edge install from it too.

On your phone, or not on Chrome? The same Fogar runs as a web app at app.fogar.ai. Open it once with a connection, add it to your home screen (Safari: Share, then Add to Home Screen; Chrome: the menu, then Add to Home screen), and set it up from there; after that it works offline. The widgets that need Chrome’s own APIs, Sessions, bookmarks, Inbox, Feed, Jira, and Agenda, stay on the desktop.

Loaded the zip before the listing went live? The store copy has a different extension ID, so your data will not follow on its own. Three steps move it over.

  1. In your current Fogar, open Settings and click Download a backup.

    Todos, notes, recipes, widgets, sessions, and settings go into one file.

  2. Add Fogar from the store.

    It opens on your next new tab, empty.

  3. Open its Settings and Restore from a backup.

    Once it looks right, remove the old copy in chrome://extensions.

Can't use the store? The same build is here as a zip: unzip it, turn on Developer mode in chrome://extensions, and Load unpacked. It will not update itself.