Marinara: Pomodoro Assistant was a fixture for a lot of people — a plain countdown in the toolbar, no account, no noise. Then it disappeared. A couple of similarly named extensions have surfaced since, of varying provenance, which makes the search more confusing than it should be. Here’s how to replace it without downgrading.
What Marinara got right
Worth being clear-eyed about, because it’s the bar a replacement has to clear. Marinara was reliable and it was small. It counted down, it stayed out of the way, it didn’t ask you to sign up or upsell you a subscription. That restraint was the appeal. Any replacement that adds a to-do list and a dashboard to “improve” on it has missed the point.
What to look for in a replacement
Four things, in order:
- A timer that doesn’t drift. Modern extensions get suspended in the background, and a timer built naively will freeze or lose time when that happens. This is the single most common complaint across pomodoro extensions, and it’s the thing to test first.
- A small permission set. A focus timer has no business reading your browsing history or your open tabs. Fewer permissions is both safer and a sign the developer kept the scope honest.
- No forced account. A timer that makes you sign in has confused itself with a service. You should be able to install it and press start.
- No clutter. Site blockers, task managers, ambient soundscapes, and gamified streaks are all reasons a timer becomes another thing to manage.
An honest option
We’ll be upfront: Passata is ours. We built it on the same values that made Marinara worth using, not as a copy of it. It’s a free, minimalist Pomodoro timer with no account and a deliberately tiny permission set. The countdown is stored as a timestamp rather than a ticking loop, so it survives the browser suspending it, your laptop sleeping, and the clock changing — the exact failure that makes lesser timers drift.
The one thing Passata does that Marinara didn’t: it can live on your new tab, so the timer is there every time you open one. That’s opt-in, asked once, with a real “No” button. If you just want the popup, that works on its own.
You don’t have to install anything to try it. The web timer runs in the browser right now. If it feels right, the extension puts it a keystroke away for good.
Common questions
Why was Marinara removed from the Chrome Web Store?
It was taken down in early 2026. The store doesn’t publish detailed reasons for individual removals, so treat any specific explanation you read as unconfirmed. What’s clear is that the listing most people used is gone.
Is Marinara coming back?
Nobody can promise that. A few similarly named extensions have appeared since, but their origins vary and some may not be from the original developer. If you rely on a timer daily, waiting on a maybe isn’t much of a plan.
Are the "Marinara 2025" and "Marinara New" extensions safe?
Check before trusting one. Look at the developer, the permissions it asks for, and how recently it was updated. A name alone isn’t proof it’s the extension you remember.
What is the best Marinara alternative?
Whatever gets the fundamentals right: a timer that doesn’t drift, a minimal permission set, no forced account, and no clutter bolted on. Several extensions clear that bar, including ours.
Will I lose my old stats?
Almost certainly. Local timer data lives in the extension that created it and doesn’t transfer. The upside is that a clean timer holds nothing hostage — nothing to export, nothing to lose next time.
Losing a tool you used every day is annoying. The one upside: it’s a chance to pick a replacement on the fundamentals rather than habit. Reliable, minimal, free, no account. That’s the whole checklist.