Man alive, these humble web browsers of ours sure have come a long way.
But for all the progress we’ve seen in the past several years, somehow, Chrome and most other modern browsers still fall short in one critically important area—and that’s what they show you when you first open ’em.
The standard browser new tab page, to put it bluntly, is a complete waste of space. It’s prime real estate—something you summon and glance upon countless times throughout the day—and yet, what’s there is typically little more than a pointless placeholder.
So, what if you could replace your browser’s new tab page with something truly useful—something that’d be a practical, helpful hub that’s always there and waiting, no matter what device you’re using at any given moment?
My fellow efficiency-seeker, have I got just the thing for you.
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Your Chrome home improvement
If there’s one need that’s constantly coming up in my life, it’s the need to jot something down quickly—to have a virtual Post-it note surface in front of me, in other words.
Well, dear dingo, that’s exactly what today’s Cool Tool accomplishes. And it does it in a way that exists entirely in your browser, with a perfect framework for taking over your new tab page and transforming it into something far more useful.
➜ The tool is called Manifest​. It’s a flexible pinboard that lets you turn any browser tab into a personal and private notepad—no complication, no cost, no catches whatsoever.
And while I’ve been using it in Google’s Chrome browser myself, it’ll work just as well in any browser you’re using—on any device, too, be it a desktop computer or a mobile gizmo.
⌚ You’ll need all of seven seconds to get it going:
- Just ​open up manifest.app​ in any browser, on any device.
- You’ll see a simple-as-can-be canvas with a sample note that greets you.
And—well, that’s pretty much it!
- You can click or tap inside any note on the screen to edit it.
- You can use your mouse or finger to move any note around, via the bar at its top.
- And you can use your mouse or finger to resize any note, via its lower-right corner.
When you want to create a new note, just use your mouse or finger to draw a box at whatever size you want on the screen.
And if you ever need to delete a note, simply click or tap the dash in its upper-left corner.
Now, you can use Manifest as a regular website and just open it up as needed. (You can even ​install it to your desktop or home screen​ as a progressive web app, if you want!)
But the real power of it, if you ask me, comes by setting it as your browser’s new tab page—so it’s what pops up every time you first open the browser or fire up a new tab.
✅ Making that change is easy in ​Chrome​, ​Firefox​, and ​Edge​—in both their desktop and their mobile forms. And once you adjust the appropriate setting once, your Manifest canvas will automatically appear and be waiting for you in every new tab you open.
Now, that’s what I call a smart use of space!
- Manifest is ​a purely web-based app​. No downloading or installing is required.
- It’s completely free to use.
- And it doesn’t collect or ask for any sort of personal data. It stores your notes only in your browser’s local storage—meaning they’ll always be present and available on that same device but not synced or saved anywhere beyond that. (​It’s open source​, too, which means anyone with the right level of savvy can peek into the code that powers it and see exactly what it is—and isn’t—doing.)
Treat yourself to even more productivity-boosting goodness with my free Cool Tools newsletter. You’ll get an instant introduction to an AI-powered supertool that transcribes your brain—and another off-the-beaten-path gem every Wednesday!
