Time Anchor

About

Reading news from around the world means constantly converting timezones in your head. "Posted 3:42 PM EST" — what time is that for me? Was that this morning, or yesterday? Is this article fresh or three months old?

Time Anchor fixes this. It automatically detects timestamps on any website and shows them in your local timezone, right next to the original. No replacing, no breaking — just clarity, instantly.

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WHAT IT DOES

Time Anchor reads timestamps on articles using three reliable signals — HTML <time> elements, NewsArticle JSON-LD schema, and meta tags — then appends a clean capsule badge next to each one showing your local time and a relative indicator like "3h ago" or "2 days ago."

Every badge has a colored dot that tells you, at a glance, how fresh the article is:
- Green — published in the last 6 hours
- Yellow — within the last 24 hours
- Orange — within the last week
- Red — within the last month
- Gray — older than a month

The same age indicator appears on the extension's toolbar icon, so you can tell how recent the current article is without looking at the page itself.

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BUILT FOR JOURNALISTS AND RESEARCHERS

Silent Update Detection — When an article was edited well after publishing (often without any visible note), Time Anchor highlights it with an amber-tinted banner showing both the original publish time and the edit time. Essential for fact-checking and sourcing.

Stale Article Warning — Reading an article that's been resurfacing in social feeds? Time Anchor shows a clear warning when you're looking at content older than your threshold. Never accidentally cite outdated news as breaking.

Smart Compact Mode — On article list pages and homepages, Time Anchor uses tiny relative-time pills to avoid visual clutter. On the main article page, it uses full capsules with absolute time, relative time, and the freshness dot. The right amount of information for the context.

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KEY FEATURES

- Works on every website — no curated allow-list
- Auto-detects your timezone on first install
- Capsule badges appended next to original timestamps (never replaces)
- Color-coded freshness indicators
- Toolbar icon shows current article's age
- Silent update detection with amber highlight
- Stale article warnings
- Per-site pause (popup or right-click toolbar icon)
- 24-hour or 12-hour format
- Optional seconds, day of week, relative time
- Customizable thresholds for stale and silent-update warnings
- Settings sync across your devices via your Google account
- Works in light mode and dark mode automatically
- Built on Manifest V3 — fast, secure, no remote code

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PRIVACY FIRST

Time Anchor does not track you. It does not send any data anywhere. It does not load remote code. All processing happens locally in your browser, and your settings sync only via Chrome's built-in storage (which goes through your own Google account, not through us).

We do not collect, sell, or transfer any user data. Ever.

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HOW IT WORKS — IN ONE LINE

Time Anchor reads any machine-readable timestamp on the page, converts it to your timezone using your browser's built-in Intl API, and shows the result inline. No backend, no external service.

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PERFECT FOR

- Journalists checking sources across different timezones
- Researchers verifying when something was actually written
- Anyone reading international news regularly
- Remote workers tracking when colleagues posted updates
- Anyone tired of mental timezone math

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FEEDBACK AND SUPPORT

This is version 2.2.0. The project is actively maintained. If something doesn't work on a site you use often, send a screenshot via the support link — adapter improvements ship in days, not months.