I don't know about you, but I think I must spend at least 10 hours a day staring at an Internet browser.
Most of the time it's Google Chrome. which I started using long before I joined my team at Tom's Guide already using it for work.
I know Chrome isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I've always liked how easy it is to use with my existing Google accounts. The fact that I can now use it for work too makes everything nice and simple.
But recently a new Chrome feature started rolling out to Google Workspace users that made me take my hands off the keyboard and utter a Keanu-esque "whoa" out loud. It's an upgrade to the New Tab I so regularly summon that's streamlined my workday in such an intuitive way I'm surprised it's taken this long to debut — and I wish it would come to all browsers ASAP.
New Tab City
So here's what happened: I was puttering through my work and needed to add some data to a shared Google Sheet before a meeting that I knew was coming up today, but I couldn't remember when.
Naturally, I hit Ctrl + T to open a new tab in Chrome so I could mouse up to the bookmarks bar, click my bookmark for the spreadsheet and navigate to the page I needed.
Except suddenly, right under my mouse pointer, there's a helpful widget showing the last six files I opened in Google Drive along with details on who updated them last. The spreadsheet I'm looking for? Right on top.
Even better, just next to it is a similar Google Calendar widget showing me that my next meeting isn't until just after lunch—letting me know I had plenty of time to get my work done.
Maybe it seems silly to gush about browser widgets, aka Chrome Cards, but these little upgrades to Chrome have really made my day-to-day working life easier. They make me wonder how I worked this long without them, and that's gotta be the dream goal with productivity-minded features like these.
Life's too short to click my mouse three times when once will do the trick."
While investigating these new Chrome Cards I got reacquainted with Chrome's customization features, which now include the option to show or hide them on a per-card basis. Presumably that suggests we'll see more Chrome Cards coming in the future, though Google hasn't (to my knowledge) promised anything on that front.
What the company has said is that these New Tab upgrades began rolling out in late September 2024, according to a blog post, and will be coming to all managed users of Google Workspace this year.
Outlook
I'd like Google to bring these business-minded improvements to everyone who uses Google Chrome because it's just so damn useful to have my Google Calendar and Drive open and waiting for me whenever I open a new tab.
Sure, I know it's already as easy as opening a new tab, mousing up to the little grid icon in the top-right corner and using it to open the quick menu of Google apps, but life's too short to click my mouse three times when once will do the trick.
More than that, I hope every browser builder out there steals this feature (if they haven't already) and expands on it. Being able to open a new tab in Edge and see custom shortcuts to whatever website you want is nice enough, for example, but the browser would be so much more useful with similar widgets that put your most-used files at your fingertips.
But it feels like a pipe dream to believe companies like Apple, Google or Microsoft might work together to make these kinds of useful browser features inter-operable and commonly available. The best I hope for is that these New Tab features roll out to more Chrome users soon, so you can see why I'm so excited to get back to work.
