If you want to participate in the discussion about this feature, you can go ahead and comment on it in the tracking issue over at [0]. Oh wait, you cannot - it's set to private. It's almost as if Google didn't want any input from the community about Chromium, the open source project. Weird.<p>More seriously though, it seems the feature calls [1] to get the list of products to show on the new page. The call is made every time the new page is opened as long as Google is your search provider and the user is signed in (not sure if to the browser or Google services).<p>[0] <a href="https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1130855" rel="nofollow">https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=113085...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.google.com/async/newtab_shopping_tasks" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/async/newtab_shopping_tasks</a>
Whatever the motivation, this is heinous.<p>Why do people jump to replace safari on their laptops, and even their iPhones (often with chrome)?<p>Even before I became aware, and strongly opposed to Google's advertising and privacy practices, I had been a Chrome user. I was on a long road trip and was frantically trying to solve a P1 for my company. My new laptop battery was was chunking downward at a staggering rate and I felt like I was trying to diffuse a bomb. I dug into the energy metrics and found that the culprit was, by and large, Chrome. Switching to Safari has made a huge improvement for me and I actually don't remember now why I was using chrome in the first place.<p>Firefox and brave are excellent too, though they aren't default in the Apple ecosystem. I just don't understand why the draw to chrome and why it still commands such a large market share.
For those who are required (or prefer) to use a Chromium-based browser, you might want to give ungoogled-chromium [0] a shot.<p>I switched recently based on a recommendation from a HN reader, and so far it has been a surprisingly seamless transition. I have yet to encounter any issues aside from being unable to install extensions directly from the Chrome Web Store, which was easily remedied by first installing the chromium-web-store extension [1].<p>My biggest gripe is that there are no 'official' binaries, so you'd either have to build your own or trust the user-submitted builds, though apparently the project owner is currently working on setting up an official build server [2].<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium</a><p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store</a><p>[2] <a href="https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/1198" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/1198</a>
> Google clarified these are not “ads.” The company points out that they only source free shopping listings for this widget and that the content is not sponsored.<p>I'm not sure I understand how these aren't ads? In any case, is this something that literally anyone asked for?
Not a solution for most people, but if you didn't know, it's very easy to replace the new tab page with a custom one using a minimal, local extension. In your manifest.json include<p><pre><code> "chrome_url_overrides": { "newtab": "ntp.html" }
</code></pre>
and if you want it to work in incognito tabs<p><pre><code> "incognito": "split"
</code></pre>
(you will also need to go to your extensions's detail page and flip on "Allow in incognito").<p>Then create your ntp.html page (can be named whatever, just change the json to match), with CSS file(s) and image(s) as needed. I made a simple flexbox "speed dial" page with sites I specify rather than changing based on some kind of "frecency".<p>In chrome://extensions/, flip the "Developer mode" switch and then click "Load unpacked" and choose your extension's folder.
I mean, Google's a business and Chrome is free so I'm not exactly surprised.<p>But I've used the "Empty New Tab Page" for I guess something like 7 years [1]. I don't like seeing <i>any</i> junk on a new tab page, I don't care if it's shopping or not.<p>Now if they take away the ability to customize the new tab page, <i>then</i> I'd be bothered...<p>[1] <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/empty-new-tab-page/dpjamkmjmigaoobjbekmfgabipmfilij" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/empty-new-tab-page...</a>
It's not the case for Google, obviously, but sticking random adverts in prominent places in a desperate attempt to increase revenue is the sort of thing web businesses do immediately before they go bust, and this has exactly the same optics to me.
Weirdly enough, this actually corresponds to my habits, if I understand the workings right. I tend to open a dozen tabs when looking for a product, with different models, reviews, and second-hand prices. Then I get tired of sitting down, go do something else, do work, get sidetracked into researching other things, and when I get back to the topic of the product I have fifty more tabs and it's time to nuke the whole mess. To start anew, I would again go to those listings on local analogues of Google Product Search/Amazon and Craigslist, so I guess linking to them would sorta help.
Google's continued meddling with adding useless content on the new tab page is what pushed me to Chromium Edge. (The weird little news snippets on the bottom with no way to disable them was the first of these poorly-conceived experiments.)<p>Edge has a ton of awful content on its new tab page too, but there's an <i>option to turn it off</i> which makes all the difference.
Does Google know that the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against them a week ago? <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-monopolist-google-violating-antitrust-laws" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-monop...</a>
Google owns Chrome and always have, and they're an advertising mill. What did you people expect? This may be one of the least worst things that Google has done to Chrome.
I really really enjoy <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/earth-view-from-google-ea/bhloflhklmhfpedakmangadcdofhnnoh?hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/earth-view-from-go...</a> by Google to show a new view of earth in the new tab. Sometimes my mind wonders but it's very enjoyable.
Shout out to a great alternative new-tab page: Goal Board: <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/goal-board-vision-board-g/egbpmmfglhgciocgillbpooejgfajmng" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/goal-board-vision-...</a>
I'm still using IceCat, I will continue to do so. Chrome's ugly, something about the font rendering and smooth scrolling is really off-putting, plus I just know everything I do is being reported to the Google mothership.
I recall this specific 'continue searching for....' appearing in Assistant in a previous iteration, back when it had magic widgets and wasn't just a chatbot. Are other widgets coming to this space?
Url changed from <a href="https://9to5google.com/2020/10/23/google-chrome-shopping-new-tab-page/" rel="nofollow">https://9to5google.com/2020/10/23/google-chrome-shopping-new...</a>, which points to this.
We don't need an anti trust breakup of big tech. Their own decisions are causing them to lose customers.<p>I'm doing the unthinkable, I cut half my Google usage. No more music, no more photos, no more Android Chrome, significantly less Google search.<p>It's happening, although I feel like anti-consumer practices hurts Google more than Apple. Maybe my original claim about not needing anti trust is a bit simple.
You can replace that page via extensions, which I did long ago to this one that shows scenes from Google Earth:<p><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/earth-view-from-google-ea/bhloflhklmhfpedakmangadcdofhnnoh" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/earth-view-from-go...</a><p>(I did this to be intentional with new tabs instead of occasionally mindlessly clicking one of the "most visited" links over and over)
Google bragged when they were new, that it was better than other search engines ("portals") because it just had the search text field and 2 buttons, and no articles with pictures and attention-grabbing headlines in their home page.<p>And now? The freaking Google Search app on Android has "trending searches" under the search bar. There's an "Explore" button that shows you articles/videos it thinks you like because it knows what you googled/watched on YouTube.<p>I'm so glad there are still settings to turn these off (from the default of on!), but the changes pissed me off when I saw them for the 1st time.