Feed Watch is a public log of how the social sites change their feeds. Every day a script visits the same pages on each site, signed out, and writes down what it finds. When something changes for real, such as a Shorts shelf showing up in YouTube search, the log gets a dated entry.
Why I run it
My extension shuts feeds by knowing where they live: the YouTube home page, /shorts, Instagram's /reels and /explore, TikTok's For You page, and so on. The sites change those pages often, and they don't announce it. If YouTube moved Shorts to a new address, the extension would let it through until someone noticed.
So I check every day, on purpose, and I publish what I see. It keeps the extension honest, and it answers questions like "did YouTube add Shorts to search?" with a date instead of a guess.
What it checks
| Site | Pages it visits |
|---|---|
| YouTube | Home, a search, a video page, Shorts |
| Home, Reels, Explore, a profile | |
| TikTok | For You, Explore, a profile |
| X / Twitter | Home, Explore, a profile |
| Home, r/all, r/popular, a thread | |
| Home, Watch, Reels | |
| Feed, a profile |
On each page it notes:
- Where the page lands after any redirects, for example a login page.
- Whether it asks you to log in before you see anything.
- Which feed pieces are there, such as the home grid, a Shorts shelf, Shorts in the side menu, or posts in a feed. Each one is saved as there or not there, never as a count.
- What my rules call the address: a feed the extension shuts, or a page it leaves open. See how it decides.
The same suite also runs the extension itself against the real sites and records whether it still shuts what it should.
How it avoids false alarms
- A new value has to show up on two checks in a row before it counts. One-off experiments and slow pages don't make the log.
- Counts are reduced to there or not there, so 18 videos one day and 24 the next isn't a change.
- Sites often show a bot check to automated visitors. A blocked visit is shown as a status in the table and never logged as a change. The table keeps the last real result.
- The check runs signed out, so it sees what a logged-out visitor sees. Your own feed, signed in, can look different.
Where to read it
- The page: ivehadit.app/feed-watch, with today's status for every site and the change log, newest first. Each entry has its own link.
- As data: /feed-watch.json.
- As a feed: /feed-watch/rss.xml.
Questions
How often does Feed Watch run?
Once a day. The saved snapshot updates when something in it changes, and at least once a week either way, so "last checked" is never more than a week old.
Does Feed Watch use my data or my browsing?
No. It runs on a server in a fresh browser with no account and no extension data. Nothing from your browser or your account is involved.
Why does a row say "Bot check"?
The site showed a challenge to the automated browser instead of the page. That says nothing about the feed, so I keep the last real result and don't log a change.
What happens when a site changes a feed?
The change shows up in the log with the date I first saw it. If the extension needs a new rule, I update it, and the extension's own checks confirm the fix on the next run.