Chrome to Get a Revamped New Tab Page, Possibly Chrome OS Only

Google is always tweaking Chrome, it's been working on the UI recently and already changed two buttons out of the four or so that are in total in the toolbar. It is working on a new tab page, it's been at it for a while now and there have been several experimental additions.

But it seems it's now more serious than ever and we may soon see a huge revamp of the iconic new tab page which has gotten another big revamp, for the worse, not so long ago.

The feature is hidden behind a flag, but the option should be in chrome://flags, look for "enable instant extended API," obviously, if you're running a dev channel or Canary build Chrome. If you can't see it, you're not the only one, just make sure you have the latest update.

If you do manage to make it work, you'll notice quite a few different things. For one, the huge Google search box and logo, if you have Google set as your default search provider.

This new positioning of the OmniBox does stand out, but it comes with a few problems. This layout has been in testing for a couple of months now, but the latest design shows the progress. For one, the search logo actually works.

Second, the Most Visited site thumbnails are now smaller and the Recently Closed section gets thumbnails as well. It's safe to assume that things like the Other Devices tab will get the same thumbnails. One open question is how apps will be integrated into the design.

If this layout remains Chrome OS only, as it seems to be the case now, that's not a problem. Since apps are launched from the Chrome OS dock, removing them from the new tab page actually makes sense. That won't work on the desktop Chrome of course.