Use the Earth View to spruce up Chrome’s New Tab page

Chrome’s New Tab page is almost as empty as the search giant’s official homepage. However, there have been many extensions over the last few years that sought to spruce it up a bit. As the unofficial Google Operating System blog shares, there’s yet another competitor in the New Tab space: Earth View from Google Maps.

The Earth View extension will add beautiful scenes from Google Maps imagery to your New Tab page, making it more than just a (mostly) blank space you see every time you want to open a different website.

It’s important to note that using this extension will remove the Google search box and recent links tiles from the New Tab page. You will still be able to use the omnibox at the top of the screen to open links or perform searches.

To get started, head to the extension entry for Earth View from Google Maps and click the +Free button to install.

Open a New Tab and you will see a satellite image that has been selected by Google.

In addition to the beautiful images, you can click the globe in the bottom right-hand corner to open that image in Google Maps.

Thankfully, as the GOS blog points out, these images are not stored locally, and load on an as-needed basis.

What have you done to make your New Tab more interesting to look at? Share your ideas in the comments below.