Google says Chrome's Follow button, for sites that support RSS, is now available to all Android users
Google hasn't completely given up on RSS. Earlier this year, it started testing a Follow button in Chrome on Android, which allows users to get updates from websites on the new tab page.
EngadgetKris Holt
Context & Ripple Effects
Google began testing the Follow button in May 2021 with Chrome Canary users, and after roughly five months of experimentation it is now shipping the feature to all Android users. The button lets people subscribe to any site that still publishes an RSS feed, with updates landing on Chrome's New Tab page rather than in a separate reader.
The rollout extends a long-running pattern rather than breaking one: Google already runs an algorithmic news feed in its search app with topic follows, so the Follow button adds a publisher-declared, chronological channel alongside the algorithmic one — inside the browser most Android users already have open.
First-order effects
Android Chrome users get a one-tap way to follow RSS-supporting sites directly from the New Tab page, no third-party reader or app install required.
Second-order effects
Publishers with existing feeds gain a distribution surface inside Chrome without negotiating placement in an algorithmic feed — but Google controls where those updates appear, keeping the presentation layer proprietary even though the subscription format is open.
Third-order effects
If browser-native following holds, RSS survives as invisible plumbing beneath platform-owned surfaces — a recurring outcome for open formats absorbed by gatekeepers, consistent with how Google has layered features onto Chrome for Android over the years.
The trend: Browsers are absorbing the reader-app function, with open formats like RSS persisting as infrastructure underneath platform-controlled content surfaces.
Starting today, we're experimenting on Chrome stable with a Following feature. You can choose websites to follow, and their RSS updates will appear on Chrome's new tab page. We've been working on this for a while & I'm super excited to hear what people think 👇 https://twitter.com…
Why do I suspect that Google is bringing back some Google Reader functionality just so they can kill it again? https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
If you were to package this into web app, it could even be a standalone Google product. And you could workshop the name a bit, but maybe you could call it Google Read or something? https://twitter.com/...
So it is like Reader but grafted directly into your browser, like that poor monk in Lexx who had his head grafted into the brain of a planet-sized insect? https://twitter.com/...