Update: The reviewed extension is no longer available. We suggest you check out new MetroTab for Google Chrome which offers a similar experience.
You find dozens if not hundreds of new tab page extensions in the Chrome web store. Some modify the appearance of the page marginally while others offer total conversions that add features to it.
Modern New Tab Page offers such a conversion. It turns the new tab page of the browser into something that could have come right out of Microsoft's Windows engineering group.
The extension adds live tiles to the page that display information right on the screen. Information are retrieved from RSS feeds that you need to add to a tile.
The extension ships with a set of default tiles that include popular sites such as Facebook, Google+ and YouTube, and also several blogs such as The Verge, Kotaku or Gizmodo.
Some make use of the live tile functionality already while others do not (or cannot). You can launch any site displayed here with a click on its title that is displayed here.
Each live tile switches between a site's logo and recent news or notification that you can click on as well to be taken directly to the source. This usually means that you are taken directly to a blog post on the selected website.
You can remove all tiles from the page and replace them with your own set of sites that you would like to see here. To edit an existing tile, hover over it and click on the edit button afterwards.
Each tile can occupy a single or a double space on the new tab page. Both tile formats support live updates. You can drag and drop tiles to another position on the page as well.
The preferences offer several interesting features that change how the content is displayed on the screen.
Verdict
If you like live tiles and use RSS feeds frequently, you may be interested in the extension. Others may find that it creates too much noise on the page.
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Ghacks is a technology news blog that was founded in 2005 by Martin Brinkmann. It has since then become one of the most popular tech news sites on the Internet with five authors and regular contributions from freelance writers.
Looks good. It’s like a ‘modern’ UI version of ‘Speed Dial’. I think Microsoft should introduce something similar to this in IE.
Watt about RAM usage?
About 20 Megabytes.
Sadly seems to have disappeared
Thanks for letting us know. We have added an alternative to the review.