The hardest part of random-web discovery was making randomness feel useful

Search is great when you know the question. Feeds are great when you want more of what already held your attention. I wanted a third interaction: surprise me, but give me enough control that it does not feel like pure chaos.

That became Web Wander, a free browser extension that opens an unexpected corner of the internet with one click.

The first prototype proved that “pick a random URL” is easy. The difficult work was making the results feel varied and worth opening. The current build rotates across 24 discovery sources, changes provider types and destination domains, rejects obvious hubs, login gates, unsafe downloads, spam patterns and recent repeats, and lets one source fail without breaking the whole experience.

People can wander broadly, choose from 56 categories, enter a deliberate keyword, explore different web eras, or switch to focused video and music modes. Preferences and recent-destination history stay local, and there is no Web Wander account.

I am running a simple Three-Wanders Challenge for early users:

1. Install the extension.

2. Wander three times.

3. Tell me which destination was the best, strangest or weakest—and why.

Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/web-wander/bokckcinimhknjoejjbolbmocmcfkdob

I would especially value blunt feedback on discovery quality, onboarding and positioning. Does “a button for the open web” communicate the idea better than “a modern StumbleUpon alternative”?