GamingHub for Chrome

It's important to regularly take breaks from spending too much time on the computer in order to relax and clear your mind before working on an big project. Most specialists agree that it's ideal to step away from the workstation, go for a short walk outside, take a few steps around the office, or at least stare out the window for several minutes.

However, doing any of these activities is not always possible. In this case, you can just do what most people do: play games. GamingHub is a nifty Chrome extension that provides quick access to some of the most games available on Facebook.

The tool takes over the new tab page and reveals shortcuts to Angry Birds, Criminal Case, Farmville II, Soccer Stars, Top Eleven, Zynga Poker, Candy Crush, 8Ball Pool, Dragon City, and SongPop, to name some examples.

Of course, these games may change, depending on what becomes popular on Facebook. Clicking on one of these shortcuts guides to its corresponding Facebook page, where you can start playing as soon as you log in with your account.

The background contains an HD photograph that gets changed regularly. A search box is shown on top of the games, giving you the possibility to swiftly perform searches on Google (default), Bing or Yahoo.

The right side of the new page tab has buttons for rapidly accessing your Chrome apps, history of visited pages, and bookmarks. On the lower-right side are two extra buttons for locking the current background to make sure the HD picture doesn't change, as well as for refreshing the background.

Unfortunately, we've noticed some problems during testing: the URL paths to the Zynga Poker, Candy Crush, Farmville II and Criminal Case are incorrect since you are taken to a non-existing page. This makes GamingHub practically useless for those only interested in playing these games. We would've also liked the possibility to customize the new tab page with favorite games.