A Cleaner Way to Read the New York Times

A former Times developer re-creates the web site he wished he built

Think The New York Times homepage is getting a little too cluttered? Michael Donohoe, a former product engineer and developer The Times, has created a utility that cleans up the look and feel of the Gray Lady's homepage. It's an extension for the Google Chrome browser called Ochs. As its description at the Chrome Web Store explains, the extension "takes a less-is-more approach and removes content. Donohoe, who now works for RealNetworks in Seattle, gives a full list of tweaks on his Tumblr but it primarily comes down to this: "I tried to adhere to some of what we were reminded of as Times devs--ads should not bleed into content, things like that --but mostly did what I would have loved to have done for real on the site.

It certainly brings the site's articles into clearer focus. Here is an article on the current site:

And here's that same article with Ochs. Everything still looks like The Times, just cleaner.

If you like it, you can download it here.