Chrome Testing RSS-powered Follow Button

Google is now looking to try a “Follow” feature that more or less brings an RSS reader to the New Tab page.

As you browse websites, Chrome will show a “Follow” button when you open the overflow menu (from the top-right corner). It appears at the very bottom and includes the site’s favicon and name. Once subscribed, new content from those publishers will appear in the New Tab page as part of a “Following” tab that makes use of cards with cover images, headlines, and shows when something was published.

Compared to Discover (which is still available in Chrome as “For you”) and its topic-based approach, users are actively choosing what sites they want to see. That said, the algorithmic feed will use your follows to surface content.

Google’s Follow solution leverages the browser many people have installed, as well as the existing open RSS web standard. That said, if a site doesn’t use RSS, Google will fall back to its existing content index to keep users updated.

The company will provide more information to websites if that’s the case, but the only publisher guidance today is making sure a site’s RSS is up-to-date. Similarly, Google would not yet comment on whether it will come to iOS or desktop browsers.

This feature will appear over the “coming weeks” for Chrome Canary users in the US on Android.