GONE

Here’s where the time went.

GONE is a private attention mirror for Chrome. It replaces the New Tab page with a factual view of where your active browser time went—without reading page contents or judging what you were doing.

What you see

• Last hour, Last 3 hours, and Today views.
• One plain-language reflection using recognizable site favicons.
• First and last observed activity times.
• Total observed active-tab time, places, and average time per place.
• A domain breakdown with Chrome-cached site favicons.
• Previous-period comparisons, an activity timeline, and a factual visit-shape breakdown.
• Activity combined across every Chrome window as focus moves between them.

Only the focused Chrome window is counted. Background windows are not treated as simultaneous attention.

Install the release build

No Node.js or build tools are required.

1. Open the latest GONE release.
2. Download GONE-MVP.zip from Assets.
3. Extract the ZIP to a permanent folder. Do not delete that folder after loading it.
4. Open chrome://extensions.
5. Enable Developer mode in the top-right corner.
6. Click Load unpacked.
7. Select the extracted folder containing manifest.json.
8. Open a new tab, click Continue, and approve tab and favicon access.

Build from source

You need:

• Chrome or another Chromium-based browser;
• Node.js 20 or newer;
• npm.

1. Download and build GONE

git clone https://github.com/randomness11/gone.git
cd gone
npm install
npm run build

The production extension is created in dist/.

2. Load it into Chrome

1. Open chrome://extensions.
2. Enable Developer mode in the top-right corner.
3. Click Load unpacked.
4. Select the generated gone/dist/ folder—not the repository root.
5. Confirm that the GONE card shows version 0.6.2.
6. Open a new tab.
7. Click Continue and approve tab and favicon access.

3. Let it observe normal browsing

Browse regular websites for a few minutes, including switching between windows if you use more than one. Open a new tab to see the reflection.

The page updates automatically as new timing data is stored. A first-time installation cannot reconstruct activity from before it was installed.

Updating an unpacked installation

Pull and rebuild the project:

git pull
npm install
npm run build

Then return to chrome://extensions and click the Reload button on the GONE card.

Important: the reflection data updates automatically, but Chrome does not automatically reload changed extension code. After pulling or editing source files, rebuild and use the extension-card Reload button.

How timing works

After tab access is granted, GONE records timestamped active-tab intervals locally. It reacts to:

• tab activation and navigation;
• Chrome window focus changes;
• tab closure;
• browser startup;
• a one-minute safety checkpoint.

GONE excludes its own New Tab page, Chrome-internal pages, unsupported URLs, and time when Chrome has no focused window. If the background worker sleeps, a single unchecked segment is capped at five minutes to prevent inflated totals.

Intervals are retained locally for eight days. The displayed values are conservative observed active-tab time, not proof that every second was spent reading the page.

Privacy

The attention mirror runs entirely on the device. It does not call OpenRouter, an AI model, a third-party logo service, or any external API.

Stored locally:

• normalized domains;
• redacted tab titles;
• timestamped active-tab intervals;
• a compact current-tab snapshot used by the extension.

Favicons are read from Chrome's local cache when the breakdown is displayed; GONE does not send domains to a logo provider.

GONE never reads:

• page contents;
• form inputs, messages, cookies, passwords, or keystrokes;
• Chrome browsing history.

There are no content scripts, host permissions, or browsing-history permissions.

Permissions

Permission	Why it is used
storage	Stores the local attention ledger and extension state.
alarms	Runs the one-minute timing checkpoint.
tabs (requested at runtime)	Reads the active tab's URL and title so time can be assigned to a normalized domain.
favicon (requested at runtime)	Displays Chrome's cached site icons in the breakdown.

Troubleshooting

The page says nothing has been observed

• Confirm you clicked Continue and granted access.
• Browse normal http:// or https:// pages while Chrome is focused.
• Wait at least one minute or switch tabs once, then open a new tab.
• Chrome settings pages and the GONE page itself are intentionally excluded.

Activity from another window is missing

GONE counts the window you are actively using. Switch focus to the other Chrome window and browse normally; its activity will join the same local timeline. Tabs left open in an unfocused window do not accumulate time.

Source changes are not appearing

1. Run npm run build again.
2. Verify Chrome loaded the dist/ folder.
3. Click Reload on the extension card at chrome://extensions.
4. Open a fresh New Tab.

The extension reports a service-worker error

Open chrome://extensions, find GONE, and inspect the error shown on its card. Make sure the selected folder contains manifest.json directly; if it does not, you selected the wrong folder.

Support GONE

If GONE has helped you see where your browser time goes, you can buy me a coffee.

Development

npm run dev        # local Vite preview
npm run typecheck  # TypeScript validation
npm run lint       # ESLint
npm test           # Vitest suite
npm run build      # production extension in dist/

Before submitting a change, run:

npm run lint
npm run typecheck
npm test
npm run build

Project map

public/manifest.json                              Manifest V3 configuration and permissions
src/background/index.ts                          active-tab tracking and checkpoints
src/dashboard/DashboardApp.tsx                   onboarding and New Tab states
src/dashboard/components/AttentionMirrorView.tsx reflection, ranges, and domain chart
src/lib/attention.ts                             interval ledger and range summaries
src/lib/privacy.ts                               title and URL sanitization