Choosing a new tab extension for the page you open 200 times a day
3 min read · Comparisons & buying guides
New tab extensions fall into four types: aesthetic or focus tabs with a clock and a todo, speed dials with big tiles for frequent sites, dashboard tabs packed with widgets and feeds, and links-first tabs that show your actual bookmarks or boards. Pick by what you want the most-opened page of your day to do. Linksley is the links-first type: your shared boards, rendered instantly from a local cache and searchable, with no ads on any plan.
You open it more than any other page
Count your new tabs on a normal working day. Whatever number you guessed, it is low. That page loads more than your inbox, your CRM and your calendar combined, which means every design decision on it gets multiplied by a few hundred.
It also means a slow new tab is not a small annoyance. A page that takes half a second to paint taxes every single tab you open, all day, forever. That is the first thing to test and almost the last thing people check.
The four types
Most extensions are a strong version of exactly one of these. Decide which job you want before you install anything.
- Aesthetic and focus tabs — a photo, a clock, a greeting, one intention or a short todo. Good if you want the new tab to calm you down.
- Speed dials — big tiles for the sites you open constantly. Good for a stable, small set of destinations you recognize by icon.
- Dashboard tabs — widgets, feeds, weather, headlines, crypto. Good if you genuinely want a briefing; bad if you wanted to get to a document.
- Links-first tabs — your real bookmarks or shared boards, organized and searchable. Good if your day is made of many links rather than a few.
The criteria that actually matter
Load speed first. It should paint before your eyes settle, which in practice means it renders from local data rather than waiting on a network call. Linksley's new tab renders from a local cache, so your boards are there immediately and searchable from the same keystroke.
Then ask what happens to your data — a new tab extension sees a lot of your browsing by nature, so read the permissions and the privacy policy rather than the store screenshots. Then ads: a new tab is prime advertising real estate and some free extensions monetize exactly there. Linksley has no ads on any plan, including the free one, and there is no Safari version — this is Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Opera only.
The right new tab is the one that removes a step you take dozens of times a day, not the one that adds something pretty to look at.
When a blank tab beats all of them
If your goal is focus, install nothing. The default blank page is the fastest possible new tab and it puts your cursor in the address bar with zero distraction. No widget beats that for someone who mostly types a destination and goes.
The case for a links-first tab is different: it is for people whose work is dozens of specific URLs, often shared with a team, where a pushed board and a per-person view-only cap matter as much as the layout. If you open four sites all day and type the rest, stay blank.
Common questions
What is the best new tab extension?
It depends on the job. Aesthetic tabs suit focus, speed dials suit a small fixed set of sites, dashboards suit people who want a briefing, and links-first tabs suit anyone whose day is made of many links, especially shared ones.
Do new tab extensions slow down the browser?
They can, and it compounds because the new tab is your most-opened page. Prefer one that renders from local data rather than fetching content on every open.
Can I put my bookmarks on the new tab page?
Yes. Linksley's extension can make your boards the new tab page, rendered from a local cache so it opens instantly and is searchable, on Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Opera.
Are new tab extensions safe?
A new tab extension sits on a very high-traffic surface, so read its permissions and privacy policy before installing, and be wary of free extensions that monetize that page with ads.