Hacker News Reader

There is a setting for what the home icon does, and it defaults to new tab...but is settable. Maybe that's what was meant?

There is no home icon in Chrome, at least I don't see it. Or is that also some setting?

It's a setting. You can enable the home button and then set it to be a custom address.

The home icon only appears next to the refresh button when you have a "home page" configured. It is separate from the New Tab page.