Start - A Better New Tab for Chrome

Start - A Better New Tab for Chrome is an easy-to-use browser extension that gives you the possibility to customize the looks and functionality of the page displayed when opening a new tab in Google Chrome.

It shows live tiles with the weather details in your location, top websites visited by you, bookmarks you saved, news, emails received in your Gmail account, along with Facebook notifications, messages and friend requests.

You can check out YouTube clips that are hot right now, a simple notepad and to-do list to help you write reminders and notes, along with shortcuts to Google apps, such as Slides, Docs, Sheets, Drive, YouTube, Facebook and Chrome Web store.

Start - A Better New Tab's features don't end here since you can also view stock information, call Uber rides, get connected to the Google Calendar and your Spotify account, as well as view a clock. Any of these tiles can be hidden if you're not interested.

While downloading and installing the browser plugin from the Chrome Web store, it asks for permission to read and change all your data on the websites you visit, display notifications, detect your physical location, as well as to manage your apps, extensions and themes. Once everything is set, you can open a new tab to view the modifications.

In addition to the live tiles, you can look up information on Google in a search bar on top of the tiles, as well as quickly access Google apps, extensions, history, bookmarks, downloads, settings or the store using shortcuts.

When it comes to customizing extension preferences, you can adjust the level of transparency, change the wallpaper, enable bookmarks, pick a different layout for the live tiles (all in one, one per page), set the temperature unit to Fahrenheit or Celsius, get minimal weather information instead of expanded view, and set a different location. Besides toggling the live tiles, they can be re-arranged with drag and drop.

We haven't come across any compatibility issues with the latest Chrome version in our tests. Too bad that it doesn't give you the possibility to set your own wallpaper image. Also, it cannot change the photo automatically. Otherwise, Start - A Better New Tab offers intuitive customization preferences for users interested in getting more out of the new tab page in Chrome.