How To Remove Shortcuts From Chrome

Open Chrome homepage and y'all'll meet thumbnails of sure websites there. How did they become at that place?

When you lot visit some websites frequently, Google Chrome makes a note of them and adds them as shortcuts to your new tab. When you open up a new tab, you run across them arranged equally thumbnails then it'due south easier for you to open them.

It's done then y'all don't take to blazon the entire URL of the website you lot want to open. So for case, if you're a frequent company of Instagram, y'all won't have to go to the address bar and type the address in that location. Instead, the Instagram pick is right there in front end of you equally yous open Chrome homepage.

In the recent Chrome version, yous tin alter the shortcuts equally yous like. Or you can as well remove them entirely from the browser. And the best part is that changing this doesn't need whatever coding knowledge. Just a few tweaks volition do the job.

Why would you want to remove thumbnail shortcuts?

For starters, you don't want anyone to know what you've been doing online. You just returned to your desktop and your colleague is standing beside you, asking for the documents you got in your email. As shortly equally yous open Chrome to go to the email, it shows exactly what you've been browsing on company fourth dimension.

Information technology could be whatever other situation. The thing is, you don't want prominent thumbnails to show what you've been doing on your browser.

There are many ways to do that. Let's meet some methods.

1. Hide (disable) all thumbnail shortcuts

ii. Delete thumbnail shortcuts

If you lot don't want to disable shortcuts, you can simply delete the thumbnails one by one from the new tab page.

Open a new tab on Chrome.
Hover your mouse on whatever thumbnail and you'll see 3 dots over it.
Click on the three dots and a popup will testify upward.
Click on Remove.
Repeat this pace one by ane for all shortcuts.

If you've accidentally deleted a shortcut and you want it to appear once more, hither'southward how y'all can do it:

Open a new tab on Chrome.
Y'all'll encounter a gear symbol. Click on it.
You can see options that say "Disengage" and "Restore". The disengage option will restore the shortcut you just deleted. Merely the restore selection will restore all the shortcuts you painstakingly deleted ane past one.

3. Install a plugin for the new tab

You can let become of the Chrome shortcuts option and get your ain new tab page. At that place are many extensions that can be downloaded and installed hands. And they allow you customize your Chrome new tab. Extensions similar Toby will not just take care of the new tab simply also organize all your open tabs. There are also some extensions that open up a bare folio – absolutely no shortcuts. Just a bare folio.

However, extensions and plugins help the websites identify yous fifty-fifty meliorate. If yous're a privacy conscious user, it's best to avoid plugins and extensions. Instead, yous can try the other steps given here.

4. Go a new browser

Removing shortcuts from Chrome isn't rocket science. It would hardly take five-10 minutes if you remove each of them individually. But the affair is – they shouldn't be there in the start place. Your browser isn't just storing history, it'south actually going through it, indexing it, finding the most viewed websites from your daily activity, and arranging it in course of thumbnails. Keeping a list of history is one thing. But indexing information technology and updating the results with every website y'all open is downright creepy.

A private browser might be something of your interest. If you've already tried Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, maybe information technology'south time to effort something more private. A browser that will not keep tabs on you lot. Something like Kingpin.

Kingpin is a browser that doesn't spy on you. It stores no history so there'due south nada to index anyway. And it deletes cookies equally soon as the session is terminated and so website tracking is minimum. Plus, information technology blocks ads, giving you a smooth advertizing-free feel.

Also, it'south free – only like Chrome and Firefox. Except it besides doesn't steal your data.

5. Deleting browser history

If you delete history, there will be nothing to make thumbnails from. As presently every bit you delete the browser history, all thumbnail shortcuts volition disappear. Here's how you can delete the history

Open a new tab on Chrome.
Type chrome://history/ in the URL bar
You'll see an option that says "Clear Browsing Data". Click on information technology.
Information technology will evidence a popup for clearing data. In the time range, select "All time" and click on Clear data.
This will remove everything from history and you lot'll get a clean slate

6. Use incognito

If you lot have to open up a new window in front of someone and you've forgotten to delete the shortcuts (and you don't have the Kingpin browser yet), but open an incognito window. It will not prove the recently viewed or nearly viewed websites and your data volition stay secure. In fact, when you open your browser and view websites, you can open incognito each time. This will non form any thumbnails even in the normal not-incognito mode.

seven. Change startup settings

This works for all Chrome versions.

Visit chrome://settings
Scroll down and you'll find the startup section.
Select "Open a specific page".
Select "Add a new page"
It will inquire for a website URL. Enter about:blank and click on Add together

The next time you open Chrome, information technology will evidence a blank tab with no thumbnails.

However, keep in mind that the about visited websites will yet be there in the history of the browser. They will simply be gone from the new tab.

Final thoughts

The main reason for removing thumbnails from Chrome is privacy. You don't want anyone to see what you lot've been doing on your computer. And for the same reason, it's best not to use a "regular browser" such as Chrome.

While Chrome helps Google keep tabs on you, it's not just Google you need to be worried most. About every website you visit stores cookies on your computer to track you. One good option is to always piece of work in incognito. Another option is using a individual browser similar Kingpin that operates pretty much like incognito simply also offers other options besides.