Skip to main content

Google has a great idea to fix your tab chaos in Chrome

If you use Google Chrome and are sick of managing an unruly mass of tabs in your web browser, help may soon be at hand. That’s because Google is testing a new feature that could bring order to your tab chaos.

As spotted by Leopeva64 on X (formerly Twitter), a new edition of Google Chrome Canary (a version of Chrome that lets users test out experimental features) contains a new tool called Organize Tabs nestled in the top-left corner of the browser.

Apparently one of the options of Chrome's new "Organize Tabs" feature will be the automatic creation of tab groups, after organizing tabs into different groups, Chrome will allow you to rename them, this is what this option currently looks like in Canary:https://t.co/Tee5JieYgx pic.twitter.com/vjAY7KtIhj

— Leopeva64 (@Leopeva64) October 6, 2023

Click the Organize Tabs button and your browser will attempt to smartly reorder your tabs into groups of similar pages. So instead of a confusing array of different tabs, they will be placed together in related clusters. Chrome will let you rename these groups, and might even be able to create tab groups automatically once it’s been able to categorize your tabs properly.

That could go a long way to making your tabs much easier to manage. Once you have your open pages grouped with other similar tabs, it should be more straightforward to interact with them and close any you don’t need anymore. By doing the grunt work automatically, Chrome would make this whole process a lot more palatable.

Tab Groups elevated

Google Drive in Chrome on a MacBook.
Digital Trends

The new feature is not too dissimilar from Chrome’s existing Tab Groups feature. This lets you house related tabs in a group so that you can keep track of every website you have open. For instance, you might have a tab group for planning a holiday and another for a project you are working on.

Other browsers have introduced tab groups, with Apple adding them to Safari in macOS Monterey and Microsoft bringing them to Edge around the same time. Even new browsers like Arc have enthusiastically adopted them.

With that in mind, it’s unsurprising Google is looking for a way to stand out from the crowd. By automating the process, Google is hoping it can remove a process that might put users off tab groups — that is, the requirement to manually create and manage groups. The more tabs you have open, the more unattractive that task will seem.

There’s no word yet on when this feature might be publicly available, but when it does see the light of day, it could help Google Chrome cement itself as one of the best browsers out there.

Alex Blake
In ancient times, people like Alex would have been shunned for their nerdy ways and strange opinions on cheese. Today, he…
Google is cracking down on internet security in this big way
Connection is not private warning from Google.

Google is making some serious changes to digital certificate security on the web, the company announced on its Security blog. The big news is that Google will no longer trust certificates from two large security firms -- Entrust or AffirmTrust -- due to repeated security lapses.

According to Google, the companies, which are Certificate Authorities (CA), have demonstrated patterns of unmet improvement commitments, compliance failures, and no measurable progress in how fast the company responds to publicly disclosed incident reports.

Read more
Arc wants to be a ‘browser that can browse for you’
A screenshot of the meeting feature in Arc Browser.

Following Apple's recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), there's been a lot of buzz around the topic of personal context in AI. The latest announcement from The Browser Company, the team behind the Arc browser, ties into that perfectly. Starting now, Arc will automatically detect when you have an upcoming meeting, nudge you about it, and even let you join it directly from the browser window. While the feature sounds neat, the way it was achieved is far more groundbreaking.

Never having to miss another meeting sounds pretty sweet. The feature, shared by Ben Cunningham of The Browser Company, was shown in a short demo video (with an interesting background track choice) tucked away in the browser's sidebar. The video shows a small calendar icon ticking down until the user's next meeting. Hovering over it brings up more of the calendar, including several more upcoming meetings. Once the meeting is about to start, it pops up below the calendar, where you can now tap on "Join" to go straight to the video call.

Read more
Why even Chrome devotees should give the Arc web browser a shot
The Arc web browser running on macOS Ventura, showing an Easel with live snippets listing temperatures in New York and flights there from London.

Google Chrome is one of the best browsers you can get, and its popularity among internet users is absolutely unrivaled. But there’s a new kid on the block called Arc that aims to steal some of Google’s thunder.

We’ve written about it before, and Arc is an intriguing web browser for a whole host of reasons. But should you ditch Chrome for Arc? That’s what we’re hoping to answer in this guide. Here, we’ve compared the two browsers across a range of metrics, from design and features to performance and security. If you’re not sure which browser is best for you, read on to find out.
Design
Arc features a Split View mode that lets you view multiple tabs side-by-side. Alex Blake / Digital Trends

Read more