Improve your web browsing on large resolutions with NiftySplit for Chrome

Web browsers like Chrome display one window by default. In that window, one website is the active one that you can browse, while all other websites that you have open in the browser are not visually available. To change to another website, you have to click on the tab to do so.

There are multiple situations where it may be beneficial if two web pages are displayed next to each other. Say you have found a great resource page and want to visit each resource it links to one after the other. Or a picture gallery that opens images in a new browser tab, or maybe you want your crossword puzzle open in one, and a dictionary in the other.

You have a couple of methods at your disposal to achieve that. Just spawn a second window and place it next to the first. This works well in Windows 7 or newer as you can simply snap the windows to the side of the screen so that they both take up 50% of space.

The windows do act independently from each other though. That's a problem for the resource page for example as it is not easy to open a link that you have found on the first page in the second Chrome window.

NiftySplit for Chrome

The NiftySplit extension for the Google Chrome web browser changes that. It adds a new entry to Chrome's context menu when you right-click links. When you select the option to "open as NiftySplit" window, the link will be opened in a new browser window, and both browser windows that are now open will share all of the screen space equally.

That in itself is handy, as you do not have to move browser windows around manually or adjust their sizes. It is however not the only feature that NiftySplit offers.

All links that you open in the first Chrome window, that you used to spawn the second one, are automatically opened in the second window as well. Any left-click on a link here opens the linked website in the second window.

That's great for photo gallery, posts on Reddit that link to sources, blog articles that link to reviewed programs or sources, and any kind of research.

You can open the NiftySplit options to modify some of the behavior

1. Change window sizes from 50% each to another ratio.
2. Change where links are opened in (active tab or new tab).
3. Modify left or right window changes, e.g. configure that the left window gets maximized automatically when you close the right window or close the left window when you maximize the right.

Closing Words

NiftySplit is beneficial to you if you open two browser windows regularly to align them next to each other. It automates that whole process, and the option to open links that you click on in the first window in the second is just the icing on the cake.

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