The Four Best Custom Chrome New Tab Pages
Chrome's tab page is an extremely useful function of the browser, even the default page provides quick access to websites that you commonly visit. However, this tab page can be even further customized by installing an extension that provides a unique new version of the tab page, and each one has different things to offer. With so many of these tab pages, it can be quite taxing to test them all out and find the best ones, so here's a list of four that are guaranteed to work great!
Here is a really sleek and easy to manage tab page, but it does require that you associate your e-mail to an account. This allows you to use your own set-up on multiple computers, simply by signing in. One of the features I want to highlight, is the ability to add a custom image for the URL links. For example, I threw on image of myself on the button that links to my personal website. Website owners are able to submit their sites as an "app", which can quickly be added to your launcher.
Overall, this is a really great alternative to the default tab page, it's really simple and easy to use as well. If you want something fast and customizable, go with StartHQ, but also take a look at the rest of the options!
My personal favorite on this list, is Humble New Tab Page, which is extremely simple -- even more-so than StartHQ, and offers a lot of customization as well. You're able to adjust the layout completely, from the alignment of the menus, to the spacing between items, as well as custom color codes for fonts, highlights, and the background. There's a lot of different settings within the user preferences, but for the most part you're going to have a very basic tab page with small icons and text.
Having the weather on my tab page isn't necessarily groundbreaking, but it's really nice to have it small and sleek, leaving room for everything else I want to see on my new tab.
Maybe simple isn't really your thing, and if that's the case, you'll probably like X New Tab Page. This extension provides a very modernized interface for your new tabs, with quick access to your bookmarks, extensions, and user designated quick links. You're able to select a custom wallpaper to display, and there's a rather large collection to choose from, or you can just choose one from your local hard drive.
There are also a few different button layouts you can choose from, and other layout settings that can be tweaked. It's a really solid new tab page with tons of functionality, but definitely not for those who want something basic and simple.
For those that actually like the Windows 8 Start Screen, and are used to it, there's a new tab page extension that looks a lot like that start screen. This new tab page is unfortunately pretty ugly, and has some pretty obvious graphical errors, but it works just like the Windows 8 Smart Screen, and the live mode works a lot better than when you're trying to edit things. If you're able to get everything customized the way you want, it doesn't look half bad, and it works really well.
Every one of these extensions are free to download, so go ahead and try them all out to see which one works the best for you.
Bonus tips:
- Customize Chrome's New Tab page with built-in options
- Force Chrome refresh/regenerate thumbnails for its New Tab page tiles (tiles can still be re-enabled via flags)
