So, you’re looking to make your new tab page on your Chromebook’ Chrome browser a little more awesome, huh?
Well, you’ve come to the right place!
In this list, we’ll go over some of the most awesome and breathtaking “new tab” extensions for Chrome that’ll spice up Chrome’s generic, boring tabs.
Regardless, check it out!
These extensions will make your new tab in Chrome a lot better than the standard page! Replace the homepage with something a little more flashy, productive, or simply just plain breathtaking.
Let’s roll!
Last updated: 2/14/23. These extensions have been checked for Chrome OS compatibility. They still work.
So many extensions, so little time – Choosing the best extensions (methodology)
Chrome extensions are plentiful (and free), so I compiled a list of the highest-rated ones by user review (and mixed in my own personal thoughts) so you can save yourself some time from sifting through the dozens upon dozens of them.
Seriously.
There are so many good ones (and not so good ones) available for download. A simple search for “new tab” yields pages upon pages of results. So of course, you have to sift through them and choose the best extensions to replace your new tab/homepage on Chrome.
With a ton of people having Chromebooks, this is one way to customize your dashboard. Be unique.
After reading dozens of reviews and personally trying each of them out (for at least 24 hours each), I’ve come to the conclusion on which ones are the best of the best and which ones aren’t. And that’s how I made this list.
These are all quality extensions for Chrome that’ll make your new tab pages a lot more interesting to look at.
Everything from nature, cars, motivation/inspiration, quotes, and more are all included. I also threw in a few specific to some popular shows and movies.
Enough blabbering! Here they are!
1. The New Tab
As generic as the name sounds, The New Tab is a Chrome extension that’ll let you completely customize your new tab page on the Chrome Browser. It can do everything you need in a grid format.
Personally, I think it’s too much like Windows. But that could be good for others are used to it.
This extension was one of the first ones I’ve ever used and stuck with it for quite some time, until I decided to go minimalist.
For those who wants something that does nearly everything in one extension, The New Tab would be it.
If you don’t want to waste anymore time and just want something that works, this is it. Look no further. It does a little bit of everything to make Chrome yours and has plenty of customizations.
Greets you on every new page with motivation tab
Momentum is the popular Chrome app that greets you every time you launch a new tab.
You’ll be greeted with various messages depending on the time of day, such as:
- “Good evening”
- “Good morning”
- And, “Good afternoon”
And a motivational quote to inspire your day as you grind through your tasks. Some of the motivational quotes that show are really powerful and give you that ounce of “oomph” to keep being productive and push through your tasks. This app combines both a greeting and a quote together in one tab.
Organize and manage your shortcuts and favorite apps
The New Tab lets you customize your backgrounds, tiles, and even offers some layout customization so you can get it looking exactly as you want. Entertainment snob?
Get your favorite apps like Netflix, Hulu, and even Disney+ (when it comes out), all on one page. Productivity ninja? Get Trello, Evernote, and a Pomodoro timer neatly organized into tiles that’ll please your eyes on one tab.
Build your own homepage on Chrome
This extension basically lets you build your own new tab page on Chrome.
You can use your favorite wallpapers as your homepage background or choose from a bunch of awesome presets.
You can add your bookmark or favorite sites, customize quick-access sites, shortcuts, labels, and use their custom “speed dial” feature to quickly connect to sites you frequent.
There’s also a minimalist approach for those who don’t want too much, but I think this extension is geared towards those who want to be able to do everything in one extension and completely change how their new tab page looks.
You can also use a dark theme for new tabs, though this doesn’t apply browser-wide.
Use the free HD backgrounds provided by default, or upload your own
I have to say that the wallpapers included by default are pretty nice.
You can use custom backgrounds or choose rom digital art, scenery, and even random Google Earth backgrounds.
Uploading an image is easy as pie and pairing with their speed dial works nicely. The extension allows you customize your backgrounds to refresh every timeframe or completely randomize them s you can see a new wallpaper every time you launch a new tab.
You can completely customize this new tab page with this extension. Chromebook users will be very happy, as they’re stuck with Chrome unless they get Linux to install another browser.
Pros:
- Plenty of customization
- Awesome wallpapers
- Tiles are neat and easy to look at
- Customization is plenty; you can customize everything compared to Momentum or other popular new tab extensions
- Super easy to use
Cons:
- Some users report that the extension tries to change your default search engine to Bing (you can easily change this back)
One of the best free tab customizers for Chrome
Overall, it’s a very nice start for an extension that lets you customize your new tab pages completely.
Easy to use and does the job. And it’s free.
If you’re just getting started, this is a perfect extension to start with and go from there. I started with this back in the early days and it was an excellent starting point to get used to new tab page customizers.
The New Tab is an excellent, free, and easy-to-use extension to customize your new tab pages.
You can grab it for Chrome here.
2. Infinite Dashboard
Next up, we have the “Infinite Dashboard.”
(To infinity, and beyond!)
This is one of the most popular new tab extensions for Chrome on the entire Chrome Web Store.
This app lets you do the majority of everything you could possibly want in a new tab page- safe for a few very specific ones which I’ll get to in a bit.
Bookmarking, notes, to-do list, browser session manager, pinned apps, and wallpapers
Just like The New Tab, Infinity dashboard definitely gives you completely customization with a minimalist approach. Some of the basic features include the following:
Bookmarking: Bookmarking your favorite sites to a pinned start screen (speed dial). You can also choose specific apps to customize
Built-in To-Do list: You can use a basic todo list that constantly reminds you of what you need to do every time you pop a new tab open. This means less time wasted screwing around when you’re trying to check out your social media feed or watch funny cat videos.
The new tab will show you what needs tobe done, so you’ll be reminded that you have work to do.
Notes: You can take notes similar to the to-do list. Notes are used for storing memos, quick notes, and whatever else you need to jot down. The to-do list is for tasks, notes is to supplement those tasks or just for writing down whatever you need to keep around.
Personally, I found that I’d use this feature more than the to-do list as it’s more robust and you can customize it to save notes for whatever you want.
Browser sessions: This is similar to browser tab manager, which basically saves your browser session tabs for you so you can quickly launch them all at once later.
You can launch your entire session tabs for later so you can quickly get back to what you were doing.
App pinning: You can pin apps to your new tab page, such as Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, games, real-time messengers, Netflix, Hulu, etc. Pretty much all the popular apps are included by default. This makes it very easy to access your favorite apps at a click.
And of course, custom wallpapers
You can customize your background using your own custom wallpaper or select from a preset of wallpapers and even use live photos.
The ones built into Infinite Dashboard and much nicer than other extensions in my opinion. They’re professionally done and high quality backgrounds that’ll amaze you and keep you page fresh.
A few other things you can do with Infinite Dashboard:
- Customize search engine
- Custom tiles
- Custom app lists
- Minimalist approach
- Extensive library of new wallpapers and backgrounds
- Dark theme
No synching, organization, or “minimalist” mode
Now let’s get to the parts I didn’t like so much. There are actually just three small things I didn’t like about the extension:
No synching. You can’t sync your to-do lists to any other app, like Todoist or Wunderlist. So I had to copy/paste them manually. No biggie but since it’s connected to your Google Account and so are the other extensions, you’d think you can sync them over.
No organization for bookmarks. Other than manually placing the bookmarks where you want them, it’d be nice to organize them by filters like last visited, most visited, or even alphabetically or last added. For those with a lot of bookmarks, this would be a huge timesaver since most of us don’t name our bookmarks and just leave as an obscure page title.
No animation settings. By default, the program has a ton of animations which noticeable can get annoying over time. You can’t turn off the animations and minimalists, which seem like what this extension is aimed towards, may prefer to have no animations.
Overall, an awesome extension to change your tab pages
Other than those, the extension is awesome for a new tab page and provides everything you need to customize new tabs. Those complaints are minor and just some gripes i had with the extension. Again, no biggie.
For those who want a simple, fast, and minimalist new tab page extension for Chrome, try out Infinity Dashboard.
3. Infinity New Tab (Pro)
The third extension on this list is Infinity New Tab (Pro). Don’t be afraid of the “pro” in the name- it’s free.
(How many more of these similarly named extensions do we need?)
Email notifications on your dashboard, weather apps, bookmarks, and shortcuts
Anyway, this extension proves to be on of the most popular extensions for Chrome to customize your new tab pages. At the time of this writing, this app has over 225K users.
Similar to the popular Gmail Notification extension, this has the feature built-in.
Infinity New Tab lets you use many features similar to the others on this list, such as HD quality wallpapers, speed dial, and to-do lists, notes, and other various notifications.
Some cool things about this app is that you can get even more features like a Gmail notification alert, weather apps, bookmarks, and all your favorite sites and apps on one tab page.
You can customize the look, feel, and layout of your page and completely sleek it out a minimalist style or go all-out and put everything on one page.
Shortcut, app, and favorites management
The newest update to the extension adds new Icon Folders, line spacing, and even icon size adjustment.
If you want to truly customize everything you can possible see on a tab page, this extension is definitely worth trying out.
You can drag and drop icons at a glance, change the layout, spacing, and more to get it how you want to look and customize it to your workstyle. You can even add unlimited defined shortcuts within folders, so that means you can place links to your favorite apps or sites within a folder to categorize everything.
For example, if you have “entertainment” sites and “work” sites, you can separate them into different folders. You can easily get your shortcuts organized.
Shuffle HD backgrounds, upload custom wallpapers for Chrome
There are also a ton of free HD wallpaper backgrounds that you can choose from, and you can of course upload your own. You can adjust the opacity and look of all the wallpapers built-in.
You can even randomize wallpapers to see something new each time.
The extension has built-in search engines by default with some of the most popular one, and you can add your own custom ones.
By default, you can search with the following search engines on Infinity New Tab:
- Bing
- Yahoo
- Yandex
- DuckDuckGo (for those who are privacy-minded)
You can add more and change the custom search box side, and even transparency of the field.
Infinity New Tab also has a data backup page and is compatible with cloud downloads, so you can go through all versions without worrying about losing your settings.
To-do lists, bookmark management, shortcuts to other Chrome apps
And of course, you have basic life notes, to-do list (which has some awesome task counters that let you know how many tasks you need to finish up on), and even the weather to see quick details at a glance.
You can definitely see your bookmarks and history management by blazing through them with ease just from your new tab, and you can even delete history right there on the page.
You can also manage other extensions within Chrome by using this app. In other words, you can control other extensions with this extension, which is pretty unique.
There’s a lot of stuff I just threw at you- you can tell that this app is pretty well-made.
Built-in Gmail notifier, pinned tabs, shortcuts galore
All this stuff is nice, but I found the Gmail notifier the most awesome thing.
You can see new emails shown on your new tab page, which is just awesome rather than having to keep a tab pinned to just see new emails.
This means every new tab gets you an update on your emails that have been unread, which is definitely cool and productivity. This saves them from going to your actual email account in a tab, and saves Chrome from hogging RAM by keeping a tab pinned just for email. You even get sound alerts.
All-in-one tab customizer
Overall, if you want to do everything from one extension, this is something you’ll want to look into. Loaded with productivity tabs, features, and all the wallpapers you could want in one place.
Infinity New Tab page is the one to check out if you want everything. You’ll never have a boring new page again. You can definitely customize everything. Literally.
All they need to do is add some more integrations using some popular apps, like Evernote or Trello and you’ve got everything in one app.
Check out the app on the Chrome Web Store here.
4. New Tab Plus
If you’re looking for something a little more simple and minimalist for your new tab page, you may want to check out New Tab Plus.
Similar as the other extensions on this list, New Tab Plus lets you do many of the same functions, but it’s a lot easier and simpler to use in my opinion.
New Tab Plus provides the following features:
- Speed dial for bookmark or favorite sites
- Shortcuts to Chrome apps
- Saves settings to the cloud
- Weather app
- Organization for visited sites and history
- Quick search
- Rapid surfing apps
That’s about what it can do at tis core. You can also use custom wallpapers and change the look of your tab page slightly using this extension.
The bulk of the app does what it says and works just fine.
An extremely minimalist dashboard for Chrome
Personally, I think it’s a little too limiting because I like to have a dashboard of everything I need on a new tab page so I can save time, but this doesn’t seem to offer everything I need.
But for someone who wants something straightforward, New Tab Plus is worth to check out. It’s simple, lightweight, and lets you customize your new tab page.
Simple and straightforward way to customize your new tab page
Overall, it’s a good extension for someone who doesn’t need a full feature set and wants an easy-to-use and straightforward tab customizer.
Check out New Tab Plus on the Chrome Web Store.
5. Crystal Dashboard
Just want a simple background wallpaper with nothing else? Then check out Crystal Dashboard.
Although “dashboard” is in the name, it’s not actually a dashboard. It’s pretty much a simplified new tab page with just HD wallpapers.
Get any wallpaper you can possibly want on your new tab page
You can choose from high-resolution wallpapers and background from a variety of sources. Literally.
Crystal Dashboard allows you to grab pictures from any source, such as:
- Unsplash
- Hex codes
- Any custom wallpaper you have
- Any custom picture you have
- Upload your own backgrounds
- Facebook photos
- Digital art
- Scenery
- Google Earth
The background lets you customize your google homepage to match your style and taste.
This extension does nothing but change your wallpaper, so if that’s all you want, this is it. You can personalize the background to breathtaking pictures.
You can also use background pictures from the web or even change the position of your background. Since it’s integrated with Unsplash, you’ll have an unlimited disposal of backgrounds directly at your fingertips.
HD and high-resolution backgrounds for Chrome come en masse with this extension.
If all you care about are amazing wallpapers, this is for you
The best part of Crystal Dashboard is that since it’s just a wallpaper changer for your tab pages, it runs very smoothly and quickly.
Compared to other extensions like Infinity Dashboard, Infinity New Tab, or Momentum, this one runs much faster over the others.
You can check out Crystal Dashboard here on the Chrome Web Store.
6. New Tab Todo List
This one’s for all the people geared towards something for productivity.
This new tab extension basically combined a productivity page and dashboard into one.
Similar to other extensions dedicated to customize your new tab page, this extension will help you organize your day with to-do lists, daily tasks, ideas, projects.
Makes collaborative work possible
Checklists, tasks, personal productivity tools, quick notes, calendars, and even a team outliner.
You can can organize your lists, outlines, and even any projects you have ongoing. The lists are sharable and easily sent to other people.
You can even invite them to your lists and share them in real time with a link. Tasks also feature real-time synching with a shared team space for collaborative work.
Are you a student? Check out some of the best Chrome apps for students.
Easy to use, user friendly to-do lists and checklists
Editing the tasks are super easy and simple.
Everything is inductive and easy to use. You can mark off tasks as complete by using a bullet, number, or checkbox. You can also nestle lists with indent and outdent, and even tag tasks with @ minions and # hashtags.
Tasks can be expanded and collapse using outlines and lists. The app is easy to use and has a minimalist UI with an elegant look. Simple and straightforward to use.
This extension works on phones, tablets, and live real-time syncing between all devices.
Plenty of backgrounds with a focus on productivity
The best part about this extension is simple, clean, and stunning with plenty of backgrounds.
This is all about getting things done and productivity, and less about customization and making it pretty- though it does that pretty well.
Check out New Tab Todo List on Chrome.
7. Momentum
Next up on the list is Momentum.
I actually wrote a review about Momentum way back then when it first rolled out. But now, the extension has grown into a popular choice for thousands of Chrome users.
Update: In 2022, this is all I use. If you like minimalism, this offers a clean look with just the right amount of info. No clutter.
Set a goal for the day – and accomplish said goal
This extension is definitely aimed towards the productive user.
Each time you pop a new tab, this will remind you of your main goal for the day. I find this that helps me stay on track, as when I’m about to watch the latest viral cat video, I see my task flash at me for the day so I continue working rather than indulging in guilty pleasures.
You can set a priority task for the day, which will constantly show on every new tab. You can also set secondary or sub-tasks using the built-in to-do list. It’s simple, and it works.
The extensions also randomly pulls up some HD backgrounds for each new tab that they switch up all the time and add new ones periodically. You can also shuffle through pictures online.
Shortcuts, labels, favorites, and built-in features are all there. You get pretty much the same offerings vs. Custom New Tab or Infinity New Tab.
See everything at a glance with a minimalist layout
You also have other details at a glance, such as weather, location, and the time.
Lastly, you’ll get a motivational quote for the day. This quote is built to keep you going throughout the day as you accomplish your projects. You can favor certain types of quotes, or even add your own.
You can also upload your own wallpapers, use hex codes, and customize with any defined color you desire- even Facebook photos in your new tab page or google backgrounds to set up your browser’s theme to match your mood for the day.
The best part about this extension is that it doesn’t take up too much RAM and resources, since Chrome already takes a bunch of your computer’s resources. This app runs smoothly and is a lightweight solution with a minimalist approach.
Perfect for productivity preppies
Are you all about being and staying productive? Then check out Momentum. It’ll help you keep your momentum.
I used to use momentum all the time, but since then, I’ve switched between a few different dashboard apps on Chrome.
Regardless, I still use it on my Windows computer and I’m still very pleased with it. Check out the app if you like this stuff. It’s fast, free to use, and definitely one of the more prettier ones.
See Momentum on the Chrome Web Store.
And if you’re looking to become a productivity ninja, you may want to check out some of the best productivity apps for Chrome.
8. Start – A Better New Tab
Start does a lot of what the other extensions on this list do.
It claims to be “the best home page for Chrome,” so you may be suspicious right off the bat. When I tried this out, I was going in with full suspicion.
Very nice custom backgrounds and wallpapers
After playing around with it for about a week, there were definitely some mixed feeling regarding this homepage.
For starters, the homepage and wallpapers/backgrounds are very nice. They’re full HD with customization, so you can use your own or use the stock backgrounded provided.
A ton of features – nearly everything you could possibly want
There’s also a few other nifty things like a weather forecaster, widgets, and even google calendar events all integrated on your dashboard. This is for people who like to see their tab page like a dashboard with everything at-a-glance.
This is definitely going to use more resources.
You can utilize a variety of features for your new tab page, like:
- A to-do list
- Built-in clock
- Facebook notifications
- Stock quotes
- Custom RSS news feeds
- Uber wait times
- Favorites
- Notepad sync with Google account
- Layout options
- Search Bar in new tags
- app/extension manager
- Bookmark manager
- History manager
Some feature bloat
Although I didn’t get to test out every single feature, most of them just do what they’re supposed to do.
Some of the features were kind of buggy or required a new account setup, which was instantly dislikable since not everyone will use those features and this just makes the extension heavier and bloated.
Things like Uber wait times are very specific. I mean, if I’m browsing the web and opening new tabs, chances are I won’t be sitting here waiting on an Uber drive. I’d rather just pull out my phone for that. Or if I’m already on it, I’d just check the actual Uber app.
This is unnecessary in my opinion and just slows down the overall experience.
On the other hand, the features seem to work well and are easily customizable.
You can toggle them on or off. Some of them are near duplicates, like a to-do list and a notepad and a notepad sync with Google. There are too many of the same thing.
After I noticed this, I realized that the other extensions on this list suffer from the same issue.
Noticeably slower than other apps
However, Start seems to be running slightly slower than the other extensions, even if they all offer the same feature set.
Start needs to be optimized as it slows down your Chrome session- especially if you have many features enabled at once or have multiple tabs.
Regardless, it’s still a very versatile homepage extension for Chrome and deserves a spot on this list.
A fully-featured homepage customizer for Chrome
Other than some performance and unnecessary features, Start does the trick. If you’re looking for something will amazing wallpapers with the option to do pretty much everything you would want on your Chrome homepage, try out Start.
The full name is “Start – A Better New Tab.” You can check it out on Chrome here.
9. Awesome New Tab Page
This is the last homepage extension I have to recommend for y’all.
This one is probably the most flashy out of all the extensions here. If you really want your homepage to look good and don’t care about resources usage or feature set, you’ll probably want to check out this extension.
Dynamic widgets, customizable layout, and tile shortcuts
Awesome New Tab Page features dynamic widgets that change and adapt to your activities. You can freely adjust and rearrange various objects on your tab page.
They’re grouped together as tiles, so you can drag them around, change the layout, and add/remove tiles exactly as you please. Resizing apps, shortcuts, and the built-in tiles is super easy.
Just like the others on this list, you can create favorites to your most-visited sites, search sites within your shortcut list, and even create your own widgets if you know how to code.
Shortcuts to favorite sites with live search to (huge time saver)
The homepage looks good, flashy, and the search from shortcut is super handy.
For example, let’s say you have Amazon or eBay as a shortcut. You can search for stuff on Amazon or eBay before you even actually get there- directly from the shortcut.
Then it’ll automatically search and take you there, saving you an extra page load. Obviously this only saves you a few seconds, but it adds up over time.
Gorgeous backgrounds
You can also add your own backgrounds, add/remove various widgets (stocks, speed dial, apps, etc.) you can also change the background color to any color you want and offers plenty of customization to get it looked exactly how you want it to.
Awesome New Tab Page is the best-looking one out of the bunch in my opinion and the easiest to use. For those who want something just to show off to your friends or classmates, this will get some double-takes.
An “autosuggest engine on your homepage
The only gripe with it is that the extension kind of forces you to use “Sphere,” which is like a built-in engine that shows you things you may like. And if you delete it from your homepage, it shows up again, almost like an ad.
There are also some glitchy actions.
For example, sometimes when you customize your homepage, sometimes it doesn’t save and you have set everything up again. Other times the app doesn’t load all your shortcuts and you have to reload the page. There are also some problems with backing up the app and not being able to do so smoothly.
But overall, these bugs are pretty rare and don’t happen that often.
One of the best-looking custom tab extensions on the market
This extension is still worth a try if you want a very nice-looking extension that gives the others a run for their money.
I know I mentioned that a few of the others are sleek and stylish, but Awesome New Tab Page takes the cake for the “absolute” best-looking homepage.
In terms of eye-candy, this app does it stylishly with polished graphics, backgrounds, and a very smooth UI.
It may not be as polished in terms of functionality with a few bugs here and there, but if you really just want eye-candy, you’ll like this one.
Check out Awesome New Tab Page on the Chrome Web Store here.
Did you find your new favorite new tab extension for Chrome?
Well, that’s about all I’ve got for you.
There are quite a few new tab page extensions for Chrome that litter the Chrome Web Store.
Finding the best one is a challenge, so I made this list of the best new tab page extensions to save you some time. It took quite some time to make this list- as it combines both ones I’ve used with my own thoughts and others’ reviews that I found on the Chrome Web Store.
Hopefully, you found it helpful.
Regardless, at least one extension on this list should’ve caught your eye.
Try a few out and see which one you like. They’re all free and the best-rated ones on the Store. You should be able to create a spiffy, fresh, and awesome new tab page with the apps on this list.
If you have any to suggest, leave a comment and let me know. I’ll check it out and add it to the list. Or if you’ve found this list to be helpful, let me know also! Consider telling a friend =]!
Thanks for reading!
