Oh There's No Place Like Chrome For The Holidays
December 25, 2015 4:14 PM Subscribe
Google Chrome version 47.0.2526.106. Windows 10. You open Chrome, and you see the Google logo. Below it is the search box. Below that are 6 thumbnails. How do I put what I want in those 6 spaces? Please explain as though I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, and you're not even sure I understand English.
Anecdotally, I find they are sites that I have searched for with an approximation of the site address.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:19 PM on December 25, 2015
posted by SemiSalt at 4:19 PM on December 25, 2015
Best answer: You could add an extension to change the behavior. I'm on my phone so I don't have access to the chrome store, but this was the first result on Google for "chrome new tab screen extension'. If you search the store for something like "new home screen" do you see anything that fits better?
posted by phil at 4:28 PM on December 25, 2015
posted by phil at 4:28 PM on December 25, 2015
Response by poster: No really, truly, seriously. Explain. As if. I am. CLUELESS. An idiot. A moron. Because right now, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, I am. Extensions, chrome store, tab screen, none of it makes sense. At all. I'm lost.
phil, your link, I went there. I have no idea what I'm looking at. I hoped the FAQ might help:
"Q: How can I add my own links and images?
A: Unlock the grid, then click on an empty tile...."
I understood the question, mostly. The answer, not a clue. Seriously, please, dumb this way the hell down. To the best of my knowledge, I don't have extensions, or apps, or whatevers, altering my experience with Chrome. It's plain old, bare bones Chrome. It's also 8 thumbnails instead of 6, which should show you exactly the level of brain power I'm working with here.
posted by The Almighty Mommy Goddess at 4:42 PM on December 25, 2015
phil, your link, I went there. I have no idea what I'm looking at. I hoped the FAQ might help:
"Q: How can I add my own links and images?
A: Unlock the grid, then click on an empty tile...."
I understood the question, mostly. The answer, not a clue. Seriously, please, dumb this way the hell down. To the best of my knowledge, I don't have extensions, or apps, or whatevers, altering my experience with Chrome. It's plain old, bare bones Chrome. It's also 8 thumbnails instead of 6, which should show you exactly the level of brain power I'm working with here.
posted by The Almighty Mommy Goddess at 4:42 PM on December 25, 2015
Best answer: If you just want to change which websites show up in those 8 boxes, I think General Malaise gave you the best answer. Hover over the one you don't want and then click the X that shows up. Keep doing this until chrome starts showing sites that you visit frequently and DO want to see there.
If you want to completely change the appearance of the new tab screen, you can install an extension (like phil mentioned). (I use Momentum because I like the pretty pictures & interesting quotes. They change every day.) When you are viewing the description of an extension, click the blue "add to chrome" button (towards the top right) and it will ask if you want to install it. Say yes & restart your browser. Now when you open a new tab you will see something different, rather than the default 8 thumbnails.
posted by belladonna at 5:07 PM on December 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
If you want to completely change the appearance of the new tab screen, you can install an extension (like phil mentioned). (I use Momentum because I like the pretty pictures & interesting quotes. They change every day.) When you are viewing the description of an extension, click the blue "add to chrome" button (towards the top right) and it will ask if you want to install it. Say yes & restart your browser. Now when you open a new tab you will see something different, rather than the default 8 thumbnails.
posted by belladonna at 5:07 PM on December 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Keep going to the same sites over and over. What those thumbnails seem to be are the places you go to the most. I unfortunately have accidentally xed out some places that I go to frequently so don't do that if you actually find one of the thumbnails useful.
Other than that, I don't know what.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 8:00 PM on December 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Other than that, I don't know what.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 8:00 PM on December 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: To help your mental model of what those spaces are, Chrome tries to make an educated guess about which websites you're most likely to visit next when opening a new tab, generally by looking at how often you visit a site. The new tab thumbnails just show these guesses (and I believe the number of thumbnails depends on the size of the screen Chrome has to work with). You can hint that the guesses are wrong by clicking the "x" button that appears on these squares, which should hide the site from the list, but you can't directly customize them.
A Chrome extension is something that allows you to change Chrome's behavior in ways that the Chrome devs didn't provide for directly. Phil and belladonna offered some suggestions for extensions that will customize the new tab page to do what you want, but as I don't use Chrome as my main browser, I can't offer suggestions here.
posted by Aleyn at 11:10 PM on December 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
A Chrome extension is something that allows you to change Chrome's behavior in ways that the Chrome devs didn't provide for directly. Phil and belladonna offered some suggestions for extensions that will customize the new tab page to do what you want, but as I don't use Chrome as my main browser, I can't offer suggestions here.
posted by Aleyn at 11:10 PM on December 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Keep going to the same sites over and over. What those thumbnails seem to be are the places you go to the most. I unfortunately have accidentally xed out some places that I go to frequently so don't do that if you actually find one of the thumbnails useful.
When I x out one, there's a little box that appears at the bottom of the screen that says "undo" and "restore all." Clicking "restore all" (presumably) resurrects all of the ones you've xed out.
posted by BungaDunga at 12:21 AM on December 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
When I x out one, there's a little box that appears at the bottom of the screen that says "undo" and "restore all." Clicking "restore all" (presumably) resurrects all of the ones you've xed out.
posted by BungaDunga at 12:21 AM on December 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
BungaDunga, you just made me a very happy bunny! I had totally missed that (small print, almost hidden on the screen.) Yay!
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:08 AM on December 26, 2015
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:08 AM on December 26, 2015
Best answer: You seemed to like the idea of adding Phil's extension thing and you read the FAQ which didn't make sense. That's because you presumably didn't download the extension yet. So, if you're interested in changing your screen to that screen, the first thing you should do is download that extension. The way to do that is to look on the upper right corner of that page. You'll see a blue rectangle that says "+ Add to Chrome." Click on it (I'm doing this now.) A little box will come up that gives you the option to change your mind. Don't. Let it do its thing (which is called "downloading").
Okay. A page should be in front of you called "Awesome New Tab Page." Go to the top right corner where there is a tiny "x". Click on it to close that window (unless you are using an Apple machine, in which case things will look different and I can't help you).
Next: Chrome is now asking me if I really want my home page to look like this, or was it a mistake to install this new thing. I'm telling it it wasn't a mistake. Now I'm looking at the new page and I'm seeing that they put FoxNews on there. And I'm thinking, 'oh jesus christ, this looks like it was a BIG mistake', so what I'm going to do is find a way to get rid of that awful Fox News and also Yahoo. And here is what you do:
On the left hand side of this new page, look at that row of icons (little pictures). You'll see a LOCK. Remember when you read the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and they were talking about unlocking a grid??? well this is how you do that! You click on that LOCK and that will let you unlock your page so you can do whatever you want with it: e.g. remove the crap they put on there and put on your own "widgets." So, the first thing I did was X out Fox News and Yahoo.
And now we want to choose which "widgets" (the name for those boxes, that often do stuff) we actually DO want. How do we find some to consider? There is a box called Add Widgets on the page, BUT when I click on it nothing happens! Why? Oh, because it seems that when I'm in that Unlocked state I can't use the widgets that are already on there. So...I LOCKED my page again by clicking on that lock on the left side. Now my page is the way it was before, only with the crappy Fox News and Yahoo obliterated. So NOW I click on the "add widgets" box and voila, there are tons of widgets. I picked "Reddit" and told it to install it on the page. Then I got that same page that has the blue rectangle in the upper right and I clicked on it (+ Add Extension) and let it Install the Reddit widget. Let's see what happens! Okay, the blue rectangle changed to green and tells me it's added. Next...
Oh god. Now I have the "chrome store" (the "store" where all the things for Chrome live) page and no home page at all! What do I do? Okay I tried a few things and I was able to start Chrome again, but Reddit wasn't there!
...
I figure it out. So... I went to the left hand side of the page and unlocked it again...then I went two icons up from there (on the left hand side of the page) and got this fat equal sign and clicked on it, and it's a page where the stuff you installed seems to live temporarily, and it tells you you can hold your mouse on the icon of the thing you installed (keep the mouse button down, don't release it) to DRAG the icon onto the page! So I was able to drag the Reddit thing onto the page!
So now I guess that's it, except I think the page is basically ugly and has a "locked-in syndrome" look to it. But maybe you'll like it. It does give you a lot of flexibility (but I think I might actually prefer the original page where those boxes are showing you the 8 websites you most recently went to!)
Ergh. Now I want my old Chrome homepage back! How do you do that???
posted by DMelanogaster at 7:20 AM on December 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Okay. A page should be in front of you called "Awesome New Tab Page." Go to the top right corner where there is a tiny "x". Click on it to close that window (unless you are using an Apple machine, in which case things will look different and I can't help you).
Next: Chrome is now asking me if I really want my home page to look like this, or was it a mistake to install this new thing. I'm telling it it wasn't a mistake. Now I'm looking at the new page and I'm seeing that they put FoxNews on there. And I'm thinking, 'oh jesus christ, this looks like it was a BIG mistake', so what I'm going to do is find a way to get rid of that awful Fox News and also Yahoo. And here is what you do:
On the left hand side of this new page, look at that row of icons (little pictures). You'll see a LOCK. Remember when you read the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and they were talking about unlocking a grid??? well this is how you do that! You click on that LOCK and that will let you unlock your page so you can do whatever you want with it: e.g. remove the crap they put on there and put on your own "widgets." So, the first thing I did was X out Fox News and Yahoo.
And now we want to choose which "widgets" (the name for those boxes, that often do stuff) we actually DO want. How do we find some to consider? There is a box called Add Widgets on the page, BUT when I click on it nothing happens! Why? Oh, because it seems that when I'm in that Unlocked state I can't use the widgets that are already on there. So...I LOCKED my page again by clicking on that lock on the left side. Now my page is the way it was before, only with the crappy Fox News and Yahoo obliterated. So NOW I click on the "add widgets" box and voila, there are tons of widgets. I picked "Reddit" and told it to install it on the page. Then I got that same page that has the blue rectangle in the upper right and I clicked on it (+ Add Extension) and let it Install the Reddit widget. Let's see what happens! Okay, the blue rectangle changed to green and tells me it's added. Next...
Oh god. Now I have the "chrome store" (the "store" where all the things for Chrome live) page and no home page at all! What do I do? Okay I tried a few things and I was able to start Chrome again, but Reddit wasn't there!
...
I figure it out. So... I went to the left hand side of the page and unlocked it again...then I went two icons up from there (on the left hand side of the page) and got this fat equal sign and clicked on it, and it's a page where the stuff you installed seems to live temporarily, and it tells you you can hold your mouse on the icon of the thing you installed (keep the mouse button down, don't release it) to DRAG the icon onto the page! So I was able to drag the Reddit thing onto the page!
So now I guess that's it, except I think the page is basically ugly and has a "locked-in syndrome" look to it. But maybe you'll like it. It does give you a lot of flexibility (but I think I might actually prefer the original page where those boxes are showing you the 8 websites you most recently went to!)
Ergh. Now I want my old Chrome homepage back! How do you do that???
posted by DMelanogaster at 7:20 AM on December 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Ergh. Now I want my old Chrome homepage back! How do you do that???
Paste chrome://extensions/ in your address bar. Find the extension you just installed & uncheck the "enabled" box or click the trashcan icon.
posted by belladonna at 7:56 AM on December 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Paste chrome://extensions/ in your address bar. Find the extension you just installed & uncheck the "enabled" box or click the trashcan icon.
posted by belladonna at 7:56 AM on December 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
How do I put what I want in those 6 spaces?
Use an extension called Speed Dial.
posted by soelo at 10:36 AM on December 28, 2015
Use an extension called Speed Dial.
posted by soelo at 10:36 AM on December 28, 2015
Response by poster: Y'all are awesome. I wound up searching for "new home screen," per phil's advice, and found Home - New Tab Page. It's perfect. Absolutely freaking perfect. I now have 20 tabs and can make them be whatever I want. I also have "Notification" which lets me know about new email (in both accounts I use), time and date really big (since my vision is blurry), and a to-do list (which is FANTASTIC!!! because I use to-do lists all over the place). Thank you all for dumbing it down for me!
posted by The Almighty Mommy Goddess at 11:39 AM on December 29, 2015
posted by The Almighty Mommy Goddess at 11:39 AM on December 29, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by General Malaise at 4:17 PM on December 25, 2015 [4 favorites]