New Tab Page Walkthrough

Microsoft

Microsoft Edge’s new tab experience is designed to be a clean, delightful experience that helps you find what you need on the web and get you where you want to go next. Microsoft Edge starts with a new tab, and you can create more new tabs by clicking the “+” (next to existing tabs).

 

We’d love to hear what you like about our new tab experience, what doesn’t work for you, and anything more you’d like to see in this experience.

 

Default layout for new tabs

The default new tab layout uses a daily background wallpaper sourced from Bing’s image of the day collection. This experience also offers the standard in-page search box as well as quick link tiles .

Celebrating the image as the hero of this experience, we’ve created space across the middle for the picture to shine through.

 

In this layout, News is at your fingertips, just a scroll away To bring it up, you can either click the category headers along the bottom or scroll the page.

 

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In the upper right is a  quick way for you to choose various layouts for the page.

 

Settings flyout

To see more layout choices, explore the settings flyout in the upper right corner of the page.

ntp2.png

 

Focused. Keep it simple.

Focused layout has the fewest visual elements, giving you just the basics: a search box & quick link tiles.

ntp3.png

 

Inspirational. Daily background wallpaper.

This is our default layout, introduced above. Here’s a run through the core elements on the page:

  • Daily background wallpaper from Bing.
  • Image caption and interactive museum card for more information about each picture. Clicking the museum card takes you to more information about the image.
  • A rich repository of news is also at your fingertips, just a scroll away, and can be accessed anytime by scrolling down.

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Informational. Stay informed with news.

Informational layout balances news with search & recent sites. In this layout, the rich repository of news powered by Microsoft News  is present to help you stay current on the topics you care about.

 

  • Personalized news: click the “Personalize” link to set the topics that will appear in your feed
  • We program trusted news from the world’s best journalists in more than 140 countries and 28 languages, keeping you plugged into the events of the day and information relevant to your individual lives.
  • Microsoft News keeps people informed across the web, phone and PC, using our long-tested approach of curating news via publishing partnerships, human editors, and AI.
  • We work with more than a thousand premium publishers and more than 3,000 brands in all major global markets – like USA Today, The New York Times, FOX News, The Washington Post, and many more – to aggregate the best news, videos, photos and other content and deliver it, for free, to people all over the world.

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Other layout customizations

You can explore additional new tab page layout configurations by turning individual toggles on and off.

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  • Toggling “Show most visited sites” turns on/off the quick link tiles
  • Toggling “Image of the day” turns on/off the background wallpaper
  • Toggling “Show feeds” moves the news content above/below the visible “fold” of the page

What do you think?

We would love to hear from you.  What’s your favorite new tab layout?  What additional new tab customization options do you want to have?  Anything else you’d like to see changed on new tabs?

 

Thank you for trying out the new Microsoft Edge and leave your comments below!

106 Replies

@Elliot Kirk I really like having the news on the new tab page. On my small laptop I have Inspirational selected because I want to see the image, but I like that it's easy to get to the news. On my 27" desktop I prefer Informational because I have enough room for both the image and the news.

I must admit, I hadn't thought about how redundant the search box is, given that you can type into the address bar anyway...

Hi @Elliot Kirk,

 

Great work! My suggestions would be:

 

1. To have the ability to put a friendly name when adding the links at the bottom rather than showing the URL.  

2. Introduce the ability to edit an existinf link rather than deleting and recreating as current.

3. The ability to change the order of the links.

4. The default pages seems to look a bit too empty with just the search bar and the links. It might give it a bit of fullness to have the MS edge logo (with option to hide) in the top left-corner which would also indicate the Edge browser is being used in contrast to other browsers a user may have open. As its all going Chromium with MS Edge now coming into the mix, browsers are going to look similar. Others may be of another opinion on this...

 

Kind Regards,

 

Ahmed

 

Hi!

How can I personalize the region/language of the content to be shown from Microsoft News?

In previous Edge I could do this through Personalize option, where I could select the language and the region.

In Edge Chromium I can't find this option and always receive content from USA (I'm in Europe).

Thanks in advance for your help!

Cheers,
Jorge

@Elliot Kirk Love the new tab especially Inspiration option, striking a good balance with nice images and functionality.

There are still more things I think we could make it better (not in order):

  • Ability to drag-and-drop Pinned Sites.
  • Customization to adjust the maximum amount of Pinned Sites.
  • Showing recently closed tabs and from previous session.
  • Dark theme support for New Tab page.
  • Showing frequently visited sites (Top sites) with an option to permanently pin them.
  • Ability to edit Pinned Sites.
  • Making Pinned Sites looks like a Live Tile, including some basic functionalities like notification badges if the pinned sites allowed push notifications.
  • Ability to assign own wallpaper background for New Tab.
  • Ability to set Bing image as desktop or lockscreen wallpaper from New Tab itself.
  • Search box on New Tab should have same features and UI like the Addressbar/Omnibar, this includes: Showing weather, calculations, facts, etc that Bing already supports.
  • Making design aesthetic of pinned sites exactly like a Live Tile for consistency, maybe minus the colours since making it neutral like light gray or dark gray won't conflict to the wallpaper background. Basically still like the current one but sharpening the corners, left aligned titles and making it square instead of rectangle.

Looking forward for further improvements and kudos to the team working with Edge Chromium project. Cheers!

Wow, Thank you all for the kind words and great suggestions.  I know that the feature team responsible for the New Tab Page has been reading through these comments. 

@Elliot Kirk Please git rid of the chromium tab rendering.  The tabs in chromium look like they belong in XP, not Windows 10.  Please skin the whole thing like Edge as I much prefer Edge's visuals.

 

Also, as you are going through the Chromium codebase, please look for all hooks that call Google's services and API and please only allow such hooks to operate on an opt-in basis with no opt-in = true defaults.  A nice descriptive settings page spelling them all out so we can make informed decisions would be very nice and go a long way towards building trust with users that Edge is a safer browser than Chrome.

@Elliot Kirk I would like to determine the content of a New Tab page myself. For example, the choice for a completely empty page.

@Deleted 

That IS available, at least, in Canary it is.  Would travel to Dev fairly soon, one would think.  Without redirecting it (to be) an assigned page, it can be as blank as this...

Blank NTP.jpg

Cheers,
Drew
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@Deleted  @Elliot Kirk 

There are, indeed, reasons we don't use or like Chrome & google stuff.  Edge better not go there & give us reason(s) for it not to be our preferred browser, anymore.  This, very much, includes security concerns.

Cheers,
Drew
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Agree with you there Drew... I still do not understand why people use Chrome which is one of the most unsafe/datamining/unsecure browswers out there. I will not ever use Chrome nor do I use google to search with... Bing all the way....

This new Edge is great so far, other than a few flaws that have been mentioned a million times now. IF they can keep away from being a newer version of Chrome, Edge will go a long way as the choice by I'll bet most folks....

Dennis5mile
You copy my thoughts word by word...
I too want all those features specially:
1. To manually determine the maximum no. of pinned sites, and
2. To edit the pinned sites.

@Elliot Kirk 

Just as in other browsers, I would like to have the opportunity to use a curtain website for a new tab.

@jantjec1 Hi,

You can do that, now!

SP.jpg

Cheers,
Drew
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It's already available

@RUFELLO2260 

I'm just anxious to see, to have Pin to taskbar!  Bizarre it wasn't there at the onset.

Cheers,
Drew
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Pin to taskbar:
You can already do that just 2 steps:
Pin to desktop===> then simply drag and drop the shortcut from desktop to taskbar.
Done!

@RUFELLO2260 

Yes, and another workaround is Pin to start (which, is there, now) & then, Pin to taskbar.  Oviously, we are anxious to have (the missing) Pin to taskbar so silly extra steps are not needed.

And thanks, but, also, I try not to put things to the desktop

Cheers,
Drew
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Mate, why to ask about another feature when you already have similar feature, It's not a long workaround. If we ask for more and more features, maybe codebase becomes too large after sometime and we will miss the speed which we wants at top of everything.Don't we?

Simply put it to desktop, drag to taskbar then simply delete the desktop shortcut.

I don't think, It's too long.

@RUFELLO2260 

This has nothing to do with add a new "feature" nor anything that undermines speed or responsiveness. The length or complexity of the workaround is a moot point, here.

It is a matter of the layout & composition of More listngs in Edge vs Edge C, at this moment.  Edge C does continue to change and or add things... including, things, currently, in Edge which, haven't yet, made to Edge C.  It's our job to let the Build Team know what's, still, wrong or missing; it's a "work in progress".  The choice to Pin to taskbar IS listed in Edge, BUT, missing (right now) in Edge C.  AND, in Edge, one doesn't even, need to go into More tools to see it, use it.  There are other parts of More that are, presently, different & lacking items.  Any workarounds would only be considered until the missing items are replaced; at which point they become no longer needed. The Snips show the 2 browsers as they stand, now.  BTW, there was a lot of excitement when Pin to taskbar was introduced to Edge... it's, still also, wanted in Edge C.  In Edge Pin to desktop doesn't, even, exist.  What would make the most sense would be switch it for Pin to taskbar; Pin to taskbar is what makes sense.  It's quite ok the Edge doesn't have it... no need for it in Edge C, either, but, there IS (good) reason for keeping Pin to Taskbar.

Pin.jpg

Pin2.jpg

Cheers,
Drew
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@vineydhiman 

Grab or 'make' a web page have the photo or whatever you want.  Then, assign that page to be the New tab.  Just a thought :thought_balloon:  

Cheers,
Drew
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