portaltext
portaltext
portaltext

Every link is a portal

01 the reading layer

Contextualize
the open web.

portaltext is a small, open-source browser extension. Hover any link, image, or PDF for a context-aware summary. It knows where you are and what you’re about to look at, before you ever click!

Add to browser
02 the live demo

Desktop only.

Come back on desktop to try out the features for yourself before installing!

02 try it live

Hover any link.

The Garden of Forking Paths

Jorge Luis Borges · 1941

"The Garden of Forking Paths" (Spanish: El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan) is a 1941 short story by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. It opens as the World War I confession of Yu Tsun, a Chinese professor working as a spy for the German Empire, and ends — through one of Borges's most elegant feints — as a meditation on time, contingency, and the labyrinth.

The story's central conceit is a "novel" left behind by a forgotten Chinese governor, Ts'ui Pên: a manuscript in which, at every junction, the protagonist takes every possible path simultaneously. Decades before the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, Borges had imagined a universe of forking timelines — anticipating themes later picked up by Italo Calvino, Hugh Everett, and hypertext fiction.

2 Timothy 310–17

A Final Charge to Timothy · NIV

10You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, 11persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Turn the web into a museum

Today on Hacker News

  1. Loading the front page…

References

  1. Abubakar M et al (2024) GLP-1/GIP agonist as an intriguing and ultimate remedy for combating alzheimer’s disease through its supporting DPP4 inhibitors: a review. Curr Top Med Chem 24(19):1635–1664. DOI·PubMed
  2. Acevedo-Fani A, Singh H (2021) Biopolymer interactions during gastric digestion: implications for nutrient delivery. Food Hydrocolloids 116:106644. DOI
  3. Adams SH et al (2020) Perspective: guiding principles for the implementation of personalized nutrition approaches that benefit health and function. Adv Nutr 11(1):25–34. DOI·PMC·PubMed
  4. Adan RA et al (2019) Nutritional psychiatry: Towards improving mental health by what you eat. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 29(12):1321–1332. DOI·PubMed
04 support

Free. For everyone.

portaltext is made by one person, Alaska Hoffman, poet, artist, and solo dev.

In order to keep all of this stuff free and open-source, she pays out-of-pocket for all the hosting and inference being run. If you like portaltext, if it becomes a part of your everyday browsing habits, please consider helping her keep the lights on. Supporters get unlimited access to every feature with no daily limits, as a thank-you for keeping it free for everybody else.

Become a supporter →

Pay what you want · one-time · unlimited access, forever

A polaroid of two cats, captioned: made by alaska!
05 questions

Good questions.

Is it really free?

Yes! No account, no card, no trial. There’s a daily limit to keep hosting costs down, but every feature is available, and that limit goes away for Supporters.

Which browsers?

Anything Chromium: Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera. Firefox soon.

How does it work?

portaltext reads the page you’re on, and the page on the other side of the link you’re about to click on. It gives you a summary of the latter, contextualized by the former, so no information is invented or hallucinated. Think of it like a gel connecting the web together.

Is my reading private?

We send only the URL and a small page excerpt. No tracking, no hover history, no ads.

Who made this?

portaltext is made by Alaska Hoffman, a poet, artist, and solo dev. Always online @145k4.

Add it to
every site.

Free for everyone. No account, no setup, no trial, it just works!

Add to Chrome →

Install on your computer.

portaltext is a browser extension — open this page on desktop to add it to Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, or Opera.