Most news products compete on how much they can show you. I built iQiosk to compete on how little.
It's a free Chrome extension that turns the news into a short list: every story as a short headline plus a one-sentence summary, one click from the toolbar. That's the whole product. Here's what I cut to get there, and why.
Cut 1: Images
News images are chosen to make you feel something, not to inform you. They also make a feed heavy and slow to scan. iQiosk has no images at all. A story has to earn your click with its headline and one honest sentence.
Cut 2: The infinite feed
The feed refreshes on a cycle and only keeps the last 24 hours of stories. When you've seen the list, you've seen the list — there is no "load more" and no algorithm deciding you should keep scrolling. It's built for people who check the news in the gaps of their day: legible in seconds, dismissable in one click.
Cut 3: Breaking-news noise
No push alerts, no red banners, no live blogs. A small signal tells you when new stories are ready; you look when you choose to.
What stayed
- 12 topics to pick from on the free tier, no account, no card
- Three ways to read the same feed: a toolbar popup, a side panel docked next to your work, or a full page
- 4 themes and adjustable density, including a compact table view
- Your choice of sources, plus search and saved stories
- A privacy stance that is a feature, not a policy page: no ad trackers, it never reads your browsing history, and it never sells data
The one Pro idea: a sentence instead of settings
Pro replaces the topic picker with a prompt. You describe what you follow in your own words — my favourite example is "AI regulation in the EU, no opinion pieces" — and a digest arrives daily at the time you choose, in your language (7 supported, including right-to-left layouts). Plus boost/mute keywords and sync across Chrome.
The unglamorous part: selling it as a solo builder
I'm bootstrapped — no investors. My previous project taught me that tax and compliance for a tiny product can become a second job, so payments run through Paddle as merchant of record: they handle sales tax and VAT, and I handle the product. Pro is $19.90/year or $2.99/month, and the first 100 monthly users get their first 3 months for $1 in total while I learn what people actually want from it.
iQiosk is live and free: https://qlarkstudio.com/iqiosk/
If you check the news ten times a day and hate that you do — I'd genuinely like to know what you'd cut next.
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