This simple Chrome extension makes new tabs gorgeous

By Phil Nickinson
last updated

We've talked about how easy it is to bring Apple TV's excellent Aerial screensavers to Android TV. It's also possible to use them as your Mac background. And for everyone else — especially those of the chromeOS variety — it's also possible to use them as what you see when you fire up a new tab in the world's best browser.

Here's how to do it:

  1. Install this Chrome extension.
  2. Open a new tab. (I'm a fan of the Ctrl-T method, you might be a mouse clicker. To each his own.)

And that's in. Inside that new tab you'll see the gorgeous aerial screensavers Apple's left open for folks to do with as they please.

Phil Nickinson
Phil Nickinson
8 Comments
  • Reminds me of this extension, a chromecast clone: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/backdrop/bkbknaabgahdigiipplcl...
  • I hate that jittery stutter that it does.
  • Works fine on my Chromebook.
  • Installed and it works well and the vids are beautiful. I only wish that the scenes would rotate instead of looping.
  • Would expect bit more functionality than just a nice photo; https://getsimpli.app/ or https://momentumdash.com/ offer pretty views on New tab page plus few nice extras :)
  • I see half a cityscape and half some doof using his phone to take a screenshot. Step up your game, guy! Oh, and why not just get the Bing tab extension? Gorgeous photography plus a web search engine that pays you back for searching. What more can one ask?
  • Why bother with these extremely low quality articles to fill space? There are plenty if extensions that put a new photo on every new tab. They are all inherently problematic if downloading big photos every time because using a ton of data, and also if not yet predownloaded and cached. Even then if big they will load a bit janky if going too quickly. Everything takes a bit of time. But this article tells us nothing about that, nothing about why better than others... It's a useless, low-quality space filler. So, now off to a site that does better...
  • Invasive permissions. "read and change all your data on the websites you visit"