If you’re a Chrome user, it doesn’t matter which websites you visit the most because the page you’re probably opening the most is the Chrome New Tab. That uninspired screen appears every time you open a new tab, yet it offers surprisingly little value for most of us.
However, with a few minutes of work, you can transform that space into a custom platform to make your days much more accessible.
Here are some of the most exciting and valuable New Tab page replacement tools: simple pieces of software that add significant function to that frequently opened area and make it indispensable.
Pick the one that suits you best, and get ready to see your browser’s default home screen in a new light.
Private notepad on demand
Papier is a straightforward Chrome extension. It does not involve cloud syncing or any other particularly fancy features.
Instead, it’s a lightning-fast scratch pad that you can extract anytime by pressing Ctrl-N from anywhere in your browser. A blank page is waiting to contain any thought or idea that arises.
You can use Papier for things like jotting down quick snippets of information from a callout, pasting in paragraphs you need to refer to later, and storing outlines you’ll only need for a short time. Anything typed on the surface of the software is saved only locally and reappears on every new tab you open, even after a reboot.
Papier has some basic text formatting commands: Ctrl-B to bold, Ctrl-Shift-C to create a checkbox, etc., and it also has a small menu where you can adjust the font style and size.
The improved search mecca
You may like the search-centric nature of Chrome’s default Google New Tab page, but you might want it to have more power and flexibility. In that case, the Universal Search tab is what you need.
The Universal Search tab provides a familiar interface with the Google logo, a search box, and a series of icon-based shortcuts below it. Look closely, though, and you’ll realize there’s much more to it than meets the eye.
In particular, when you hover over the Google logo in the Universal Search tab, those familiar letters morph into a menu of search services, from Amazon and Wikipedia to YouTube.
Simplified document search system
The FYI extension lets you link your browser’s home screen to services like Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Evernote, Dropbox, and Trello. Then, it creates a feed of modified documents from all those places. You can open any document on the list with a single click, or if you’re looking for something specific, you can search all connected services without leaving the page.
FYI can work individually or with company-provided accounts for more collaborative purposes. You can even connect it to multiple accounts from the same service.
The Tidy Tab Organizer
If you work with many tabs open, this is where Toby comes in: the extension turns your New Tab page into a drag-and-drop board for collecting and organizing tabs, so you can close what you’re not actively using and find it when you need it. You need.
For example, you can create one collection for productivity apps, another for articles you want to read, and another for pages related to a project you’re working on. You can even save an entire Chrome session to your own Toby collection. All your sites will be waiting for you; you can access them whenever you open a new tab.
Toby automatically syncs all your collections with any browser you’re logged in to.
Wonderland is full of widgets
In the early 2000s, Google had a much-loved service called iGoogle. It had nothing to do with iOS; it came more than two years before the word iPhone was uttered. Instead, iGoogle was a personalized home page for the internet, a customizable canvas that you could fill with all sorts of interactive modules and information.
Google took iGoogle offline in 2013, but the service lives on thanks to the iChrome New Tab extension. The extension turns your browser’s New Tab page into a smartphone-like home screen, with your choice of background, widgets, and general functionality.
You can fill your home screen with everything from an Android-like clock widget to a live stock ticker, a weather window, and fully functional views of your Google Calendar schedule, Google Keep notes, and recent documents from Google Drive. There are even widgets for general news updates and custom RSS feeds if you have specific websites you want to keep up with.
The Chrome extension gives you control over your page layout and theme, and it also has some optional extras, like “live” backgrounds that animate behind your widgets. Some extra features require a subscription, but the free service is excellent if you don’t mind the occasional ads appearing on your screen.
Choose your Adventure
Last but not least, a New Tab page option if you want complete control: the Change New Tab extension provides a blank field where you can specify any web address and have it serve the role of your home page. New tab.
You can paste the address of a news, weather, or social networking site you visit frequently and want to make even more accessible. You can set your business website to be your default home page. Or you can use a site like developer Jason Savard’s Checker Plus homepage, which works with its associated extensions for Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive to display live, interactive charts of your inbox, calendar, and cloud storage. , effectively turning your New Tab page into a place optimized for personal productivity.