Hello, friends! In this article we will look at an interesting and useful feature that, of all browsers, first appeared in Yandex - this is the Zen feed.
Zen is a special service that offers news and publications from various sites that will be of interest to you. The list of posts is generated based on the history of the web browser. That is, Zen analyzes what sites you view and what information you are interested in. And when there is enough material for analysis, then the Zen feed will appear in the browser.
What is Yandex.Zen
We constantly visit various sites on the Internet, including informational ones, with educational articles, news and humorous notes. Over time, favorite topics and web resources appear.
Yandex.Zen is a service in Russian that collects publications on issues of interest to us from the most visited sites and other similar pages. That is, we can view announcements of articles and notes from various resources in our personal news feed, and if we see something interesting, then we will follow the link and read the entire text.
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Pleasant features of this service:
- you can quickly find and read useful and interesting materials online for free;
- no registration is required, it is advisable to have an account in Yandex, but not required;
- individual selection of information based on your interests;
- easy setup;
- automatic filtering of duplicates and suspicious sites.
Zen reminds me a little of a news feed on social networks, where we see posts from our friends and from the pages we subscribe to, and no unnecessary information.
And for those who are looking for new sources of income, there is an additional bonus - you can make money on Yandex.Zen.
Profile Settings
I recommend setting up a Profile if you actively use the Zen feed. This page collects statistics on interests.
Activity by publications is tracked, that is, posts that you have liked are collected here.
And, frankly, a pressing question for users is how to find their comments in Yandex Zen? Your comments will also appear on the Activity tab. Comments are clickable, and through them you will be taken to the article where this comment was left.
To customize your Profile header, you need to click on the button of the same name in the panel.
In the new window you can change both your own name and add a photo. All this happens through the Edit buttons.
In the About yourself field, tell visitors to your profile “who you are, what you are,” etc.
And please note that you can set your profile privacy. This is implemented by disabling or enabling options:
- my interests are visible to everyone,
- my activity feed is visible to everyone,
- my subscriptions are visible to everyone.
From the same window, the profile can be deactivated.
How to enable the service on your computer
Zen takes data about visited pages from Yandex.Browser; this recommendation service does not work in other web browsers. So install this web browser first. Then open it and connect the service on the start page below.
Then you need to select at least 5 news sources to watch materials on interesting topics:
- society and politics;
- games;
- sport;
- business and finance;
- health;
- celebrity life;
- humor;
- culinary recipes;
- lifestyle;
- house;
- movie;
- music;
- technologies;
- cars;
- culture;
- the science;
- trips;
- family;
- hobby.
Then click on the “Continue” button at the bottom of the screen. After this, you will return to the start page and see a news feed at the bottom, which will include selected resources and other materials on similar topics. In the future, Zen will analyze your actions on sites and independently update the list of channels.
If you have been using Yandex.Browser for at least a week, the news feed will connect itself, no need to press buttons and select information sources. At the same time, you can adjust the operation of the service at any time.
Internet connection failure
The most basic reason why the tape disappeared is the lack of Internet. To check the version, refresh the page or open another site. If an error is thrown everywhere, then there is no connection. You can fix this as follows:
- Open troubleshooting. To do this, right-click the Internet icon and select “Problem diagnosis”;
- Reboot the modem. Often such manipulation is enough to restore the connection;
- Contact your provider. Perhaps technical work is being carried out, so there is no connection.
What to do if Yandex.Zen does not appear
If you open a new tab and don't see news from your favorite resources, then it's worth checking your settings. I have not encountered this, but I understand that there are different cases. Perhaps someone else is using the computer and has changed the original settings, or you may have done it yourself.
To fix this, click on the 3 bars at the top of the screen and select “Settings”.
Then, in the “Interface”, “New Tab” subsection, check the required box. Everything should now work.
Disable in Chrome
You can disable Yandex.Zen in Google Chrome in approximately the same way as in the previous paragraph. The difference lies in some features. Firstly, a personal feed is often installed in Chrome without the consent of the owner. Secondly, simply shutting down will not be enough. Additionally we do the following:
- As with the previous browser, we disable all Zen-related settings in the “Menu” item.
- We change the home page in the same panel.
- We go to the “Extensions” item and delete all installed Yandex-related utilities there.
IMPORTANT. If you delete Visual Layouts, it will be impossible to restore them. We advise you to double-check manually and delete only what is necessary.
- Next, we change the start pages when adding new tabs. You can do this in the “Open at startup” tab and add the specified addresses in the appropriate item.
- You also need to remove the Yandex service from the specified search engines. To do this, remove everything from the search settings except Google. Click “Finish”.
- Close the browser and remove Yandex from the taskbar using the basic “Uninstall Programs” utility.
Now you can restart Google Chrome and check if the problem persists.
Why Zen doesn't appear or update, and what to do about it
If your news feed has disappeared and you cannot turn it on, there are no settings to activate it, or publications have stopped updating, then the following reasons are possible:
- The web browser is out of date.
- Yandex services are prohibited in your country.
- An incomplete version of the program, downloaded from third-party resources and not the official website.
- Error in the service or browser.
- Infecting your computer with a virus.
These are the most common problems. They need to be solved in order, since the first reason is the most likely. To update, open the menu by clicking on the 3 bars at the top of the screen. Hover over the word “Advanced” and click on “About Browser”.
If after this you see the message “You are using the current version of Yandex.Browser,” then this is not the problem. If, instead of such text, you see a message that updates are available, click on the word “Update”.
If Yandex services are blocked in your country, then to use them you will need a VPN, a special browser extension or an anonymizer that will hide your real IP address.
To rule out the third reason, go to the Start menu and uninstall the web browser. Then go to the official website browser.yandex.ru, download and install the current and verified version of the program. If you have any difficulties, please refer to the article about Yandex Browser. It contains instructions for reinstalling without losing data.
To resolve the fourth reason, try closing and opening the application. If this does not help, wait a little, the developers may be busy fixing the problem and it will work soon.
If there are all sorts of oddities in the operation of the device, it opens Internet pages on its own, multiplies some files or makes them hidden, displays annoying advertisements on top of other windows, then there is a high probability that you have a virus. Scan your computer with an antivirus program.
Cleaning Opera and Mozila
The algorithm for disabling Zen in Opera and Mozilla is identical, since the feed appears in these browsers only with the installation of visual bookmarks. Most often, this happens automatically when downloading some software, which adds bookmarks on its own during installation.
ADVICE. To avoid such situations, remove all unnecessary checkboxes from the installation items.
We are taking the following measures:
- Open the “Settings” menu.
- As in the previous stages, we remove the check mark from the personal recommendations item.
- Disable or completely remove all unnecessary extensions. In the Mozilla browser you can do this in the “Advanced” tab, in Opera - “Manage extensions”.
You can also use a universal method - the Adguard ad blocker.
How to customize Zen for yourself
If you see that your news feed is showing uninteresting and irrelevant content, you can fix it. First you need to understand that for each user the list of channels is selected individually and is constantly updated. If several people use your computer, this may explain the fact that you see unexpected notes in the recommendations list.
To avoid this, create an account in Yandex, add a user in the settings and log into the browser under your account.
On each news item we see two ratings: thumbs up and thumbs down. If you liked the topic, put “Like”, if not, then “Dislike”.
After a negative mark, the service will inform you that you will see less such materials. Also in the window that appears, you can complain about the content and completely block the channel so as not to receive news from it.
If the announcement interests you and you go to the source page, a “Subscribe” button will appear in your feed. By clicking on it, you will receive more materials from this web resource.
So, by periodically checking and subscribing to current channels, you will customize the service to suit your interests.
Subscriptions
For further setup you will need the link https://zen.yandex.ru. You will be redirected to a page with a news feed that is updated online.
There is a small menu at the top bar of the page. If you want to find your subscriptions in Yandex Zen, you will need this page.
The Subscriptions section displays the topics that you specified in the first step of setting up Zen. Now through the Add button you have the opportunity to add new channels. If you need to find a topic you're interested in or reconfigure your feed, use this option. Here you can either delete or add subscriptions.
When adding channels, the TOP channels by category appear. You can use the topic and channel search, or the rubricator.
Clicking on any of the presented categories takes you to a page with available channels. To subscribe to the channels you like, just click on the plus sign on the right side.
All links to channels in this list are active. Therefore, you can follow the link and see the channel’s publications, main topics, presentation of material by the author, etc. And, of course, subscribe.
In general, to customize the recommendations feed, just use this option. But if you want to go straight to subscribing to Channels, bypassing those to which you are already subscribed, select the Channels section. Although in fact these 2 sections are no different!
The Download application section will only be needed for those who want to install Yandex.Zen on their phone. This option also allows you to work with the Zen editor from a mobile device. I will talk about this in more detail in one of the following articles.
On the right is the Profile for those who want to become the author of the site.
In principle, the work with Zen is completed. But I will give you one more tip on how to set up a zen feed - click on the posts that you like, like and leave comments. You won’t even notice how quickly your feed will be filled with topics based on your interests.
How to view Zen on your phone
First you need to install Yandex Browser on your mobile device and open it. You no longer need to click anything, the mobile version of the web browser will immediately offer materials from popular channels.
The tape is configured in the same way as on a computer. But don’t rush to give ratings; first, I recommend working in a browser and letting the program make recommendations. You can also sync your account with all your devices so you can see the same information on your PC, laptop, tablet, and phone.
At any time, you can “Like” or “Dislike” a topic to increase or decrease the number of similar posts. Also, by clicking on the 3 dots in the right corner of the announcement, you can quickly block the channel, complain about the content, or subscribe.
Switching methods
If you decide that the utility is useful and you want to use it, enabling Yandex.Zen will not be a problem. To do this, just install the Yandex browser on your computer or smartphone, and Zen will appear automatically. If this does not happen, then perhaps the tape is simply disabled.
How to enable Zen on PC
- Click on the “Menu” icon.
- Open the settings tab.
- Launch “Appearance Settings”.
- ABOUT.
ADVICE. If such an item is missing, then the issue may be in the updated browser interface. In this case, enable the new interface and re-enter the browser.
In some cases, you initially need to download browser updates. For this:
- Open the “Menu”.
- We are looking for the item “About the browser” (it can also be called “Advanced”, “About Yandex” and the like).
- Update using the appropriate button.
After restarting the program everything should work out.
How to disable the news feed
Above I told you how to connect the service if it does not appear on the start page. If you don't want to see Zen, you can turn it off just as easily. Go to the settings, section “Interface”, subsection “New Tab” and uncheck the corresponding item.
In the mobile version of the browser, on the new tab there is a subtitle “Recommendations Feed”, and next to it there are 3 dots. Click on them and go to settings.
In the list of options that opens, move the lever next to the topmost item.
Disconnection methods
If you decide that you don’t want to personalize the feed and are ready to remove it from your PC screen, you need to take a number of steps to clean up your browser.
How to remove Yandex.Zen from the start page
- Open the browser settings.
- We are looking for the “Personal Recommendations” tab.
- Uncheck the box.
How to remove an extension from your computer
- We remove all Yandex utilities.
- We clean the registry using any convenient program.
- Logging out of your account
Everything is quite simple, but each browser used has its own nuances. Let's take a closer look at where to click and what to do.
Where is Zen
Zen was originally developed for mobile devices. Post cards are adapted for phones so that the user, scrolling through the feed, goes to publications, marks interesting things, and subscribes to channels. But after that the service was added by default to all Yandex browsers, both mobile and PC.
We also created the ZEN application separately; there are Yandex plugins that can be installed in other browsers, and, accordingly, with them the user receives a personal recommendation feed. Zen is also built into the Yandex launcher for Android smartphones.
Another reviewer
If the user has another browser installed, then the “Visual Bookmarks” extension is not installed or disabled. To fix this, you need:
- Go to browser settings;
- Click “Installed Permissions”;
- If the application is not installed, then you need to download it;
- If it is installed but not enabled, you need to activate it.
If the feed has not returned, it is worth checking the version of the browser you are using. To do this, in its additional settings, open the “About the browser” line and check the relevance of the version. If a working one is running that does not require updates, this will be indicated in the notification.
If the version is expired, information will appear about the possibility of installing the latest browser modification. Click the “Install new version” button and check for the presence of the tape.
Usually the browser updates automatically, but you should rule out the possibility of a technical error. The system may crash, then the browser will remain with the old version.
Technical difficulties
Sometimes problems can arise due to technical problems on the part of the service - in such cases you just have to wait. As a rule, such breakdowns are fixed by developers quickly - just be patient.
As a last resort, you can write to support. You can contact service representatives as follows:
- Open the link https://browser.yandex.ru/feedback/;
- Provide your contact email address;
- Describe the problem or select it from the list;
- Attach a link to the page where the problem occurred;
- Please attach a screenshot if necessary.
The bigger problem is “Zen has disappeared in Yandex, how to enable it?” will not bother you - now you are armed with important knowledge that you can put into practice. Follow the instructions and you will succeed!
