Stop refreshing when the page changes.

Practical guide

Website change detection, built into the refresh

Most people refresh a page because they are waiting for something. A page monitor does the waiting for you: after every reload it checks the page, and when your condition is met it stops and tells you.

Free Auto Refresh can track website changes in three ways, all free and all running locally in your browser.

Stop when text appears

Type a word or phrase such as In stock or Results published. Refreshing ends the first time it shows up.

Stop when text disappears

Watch for a message such as Sold out or No appointments available to go away.

Stop when content changes

Compare the page with how it looked on the first load. Add a CSS selector to watch one element only.

Get a website change alert you will actually notice

On a match you get a desktop notification, and the tab title flashes until you look at it. The toolbar icon shows an exclamation mark, and the on-page counter turns red and says a match was found.

Alerts stay on your computer. There is no email, text message or phone push, so the browser needs to be open.

Avoiding false alarms

• Watch one element. In Content changes mode, a selector such as #price or .stock-status ignores adverts, clocks and counters elsewhere on the page.
• Give slow pages time. It waits for the page to finish loading; raise Extra wait to 2 or 3 seconds if content arrives late.
• Use exact wording. Copy the phrase from the page. Matching ignores upper and lower case.

How it differs from a monitoring service

Online website monitors check a page from their own servers, on their schedule, and usually need an account. This checks from your own browser, so it works on pages behind your login and shares nothing with anyone. The trade-off is that your computer has to stay on.

A worked example: watch a page until it changes

A course registration page says Registration opens soon. You want to know when that line goes. Open Advanced settings, Watch the page, choose Stop when text disappears, and type Registration opens soon. Set Min 60 and Max 120, then press Start.

On the first load the extension confirms the text is there. Each refresh after that, it waits for the page to finish loading, waits your extra second, and looks again. The moment the phrase is gone, refreshing stops, a notification appears, and the tab title flashes.

Finding a CSS selector for one element

To monitor a website for changes in one spot, right-click that part of the page and choose Inspect. In the panel that opens, look at the highlighted line for an id (written id="price") or a class (class="stock-status"). An id becomes #price; a class becomes .stock-status. Paste it into the selector box in Content changes mode.

If the selector matches nothing, the extension treats the watched text as empty, so test it once before walking away.

Common mistakes when tracking website changes

• Watching the whole page on a busy site. Rotating banners and timestamps change on every load. Use a selector.
• A phrase that appears twice. If Add to cart is also shown for other products, watching for it to appear fires straight away.
• Content that loads late. Raise Extra wait until matches are reliable.
• Closing the browser. This is a browser-based page monitor; it needs the tab open.

Auto refresh until the page changes, then stop

That sentence is the whole feature. Pair it with random intervals for a gentle pace, keep the tab awake so the browser does not unload it, and a limit so it does not run forever.

At a glance

• Three ways to watch. Stop when text appears, when text disappears, or when anything in the page (or one part of it) changes.
• Watch just one element. Add a CSS selector such as #price so ads and clocks elsewhere on the page do not trigger a false alarm.
• Waits for slow pages. It checks only after the page has finished loading, plus an extra wait you can raise for content that shows up late.