Oh, and as for those icons beneath the search box? The bottom row shows recently visited sites, just like in the standard Chrome New Tab page. You can expand or slim down the list to include only services you’re likely to use. Search numerous sites from a single spot with the Universal Search Tab for Chrome. For all the clever and complex possibilities present for Chrome’s New Tab page, including the ones we’re about to discuss, I’ve yet to find anything that convinces me to leave Papier’s single-task simplicity behind. The software’s best feature, if you ask me, is its lack of over-the-top features. Papier has some basic text formatting commands-Ctrl-B for bolding, Ctrl-Shift-C for creating a checkbox, and so on-and it also has a small menu where you can adjust the font style and size and choose from a handful of theme options.

Anything typed into the software’s surface gets saved locally only and comes back up in every new tab you open, even after a restart. I use Papier for things like jotting down quick bits of info from a call, pasting over paragraphs I want to reference later, and storing outlines I’m only going to need for a short while (like talking points for my weekly podcast). Papier turns your New Tab page into a private, personal notepad. Within a second, it’s there-just a plain, blank page, waiting to hold whatever thoughts are spilling out of my head. Instead, it’s a lightning-fast scratch pad I can pull up at a second’s notice simply by hitting Ctrl-N from anywhere in my browser. It doesn’t involve collaboration, cloud syncing, or any other especially fancy features. I’ve got more note-taking tools than I know what to do with, but you know which one I rely on the most? It’s a dead-simple Chrome extension called Papier. See which suits you best, and get ready to see your browser’s default starting screen in a whole new light. With a couple minutes of work, though, you can transform that underwhelming space into a personalized launching pad that’ll make your days meaningfully easier. I sought out some of the most interesting and helpful New Tab page replacement tools-simple pieces of software that add significant function into that oft-opened area and make it indispensable. The entire page is basically just a big Google logo, a redundant (and fake) search box, and a collection of links to websites you’ve recently visited. But fine is about the nicest word you can use to describe it.

Don’t get me wrong: Chrome’s New Tab page is fine.

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