Some of the Most Useful Ways to Use Google Chrome

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 page. That uninspired screen pops up every time you open a new tab, yet it offers surprisingly little value for most of us.

However, with a couple of minutes of work, you can transform that space into a personalized platform that will make your days much more accessible.

Here are some of the most exciting and valuable New Tab Page replacement tools: simple software that adds significant function to that frequently opened area and makes 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

Paper is a straightforward Chrome extension. It doesn’t involve cloud syncing or any other particularly fancy features.

Instead, it’s a lightning-fast scratch pad that you can extract anytime by simply pressing Ctrl-N from anywhere in your browser. A blank page is waiting to contain any thoughts or ideas that come to you.

You can use Papier for things like jotting down quick snippets of information from a call, pasting in paragraphs you need to refer to later, and storing outlines, you’ll only need for a short time. Anything you type on the surface of the software is saved only locally and reappears on every new tab you open, even after a reboot.

Paper has some basic text formatting commands: Ctrl-B for bold, Ctrl-Shift-C to create a checkbox, etc., and a small menu where you can adjust the font style and size.

Improved Search Mecca

Maybe you like the search-centric nature of Chrome’s default Google New Tab page, but you may wish it had a little 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. However, look closely, and you will realize that there is much more than meets the eye.

In particular, when you hover over the Google logo in the Universal Search tab, those familiar letters transform 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, create a streaming source of modified documents from all those places. You can open any document in the list with a single click, or if you’re looking for something specific, you can search for 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 open tabs, 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. If you’d like, you can save an entire Chrome session to your own Toby collection. All your sites will be waiting for you, and you can access them whenever you open a new tab.

Toby automatically syncs all your collections with any browser you’re signed in to.

A Wonderland Full of Widgets

Back in the early 2000s, Google had a much-loved service called iGoogle. It had nothing to do with iOS; it was produced more than two years before the word iPhone was even uttered. Instead, iGoogle was a personalized home page for the internet, a customizable canvas 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 function.

You can fill your iChrome screen with everything from an Android-like clock widget to a live stock ticker, weather window, and fully functional views of your Google Calendar schedule, Google Keep notes, and recent Google documents. GoogleDrive. There are even widgets for general news updates and custom RSS feeds if you have specific websites you want to keep up with.

The iChrome extension lets you control the layout and theme of your page, 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 advertisement popping up 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 you with a blank field where you can specify any web address and have it fulfil the role of your homepage. New tab.

You can paste the address of news, weather, or social media site you visit often and want to make even more accessible. You can set your company website to be your default home page. Or you can use a site like Checker Plus, a homepage from developer Jason Savard, which works in conjunction 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.