Google Reader no longer exists, but you can now “follow” RSS feeds in Chrome on Android

Google Reader is still gone, but its spirit lives on in a “follow button” for Chrome that Google first began experimenting with in May. The RSS tracking feature was limited to the experimental Canary versions of Chrome on Android, but today the company has started enabling it on stable versions of the browser, according to Adrienne Porter Felt, a director of engineering on Chrome.

You can follow a site through the browser’s three-dot menu to subscribe to its RSS feed and update it in your Chrome app. The sites you follow will appear in a tab called “followed,” which is located next to Google’s “for you” tab for recommended articles. The feature isn’t available on iOS yet, so I’m not able to verify it on my phone, but Felt has shared some screenshots of what it looks like on Android so you can get a feel for it. .

Picture: Adrienne Porter Felt

It’s unclear how many people already have access to the new feature by default, but you can enable it yourself by entering chrome: // flags in your address bar and enabling it under web feed, writes Felt.

Chrome’s follow button is currently a mobile-only feature (iOS and desktop versions Arrive), which will surely disappoint some experienced Google Reader users. Still, it’s at least nice to see Google keep the RSS fire alive somehow. This makes the Chrome app even more cluttered in terms of features, but if you’ve been looking for a free and easy way to track some of your favorite sites, it looks like Google is ready to be that option again.