tabs Archives - Shapiro Consultants

Chrome’s new Declutter tool may soon help manage your 100 plus open tabs

March 29, 2024
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Recent evidence suggests Chrome on Android may receive a new Tab Declutter tool to help people manage so many open tabs. Hints of this feature were discovered in lines of code on Google’s Chromium platform by 9To5Google. It’s unknown exactly how Tab Declutter will work, although there is enough information to paint a picture.

According to the report, tabs that have been unused for a long period of time “will automatically” be put away in an archive. You can then go over to the archive editor, look at what’s there, and decide for yourself whether you want to delete a tab or restore it.

Not only could Tab Declutter help people manage a messy browser, but it might also boost Chrome’s performance. All those open tabs can eat away at a device's RAM, slowing things down to a crawl.

This isn’t the first time Google has worked on improving tab management for its browser. Back in January, the company implemented an organizer tool harnessing the power of AI to instantly group tabs together based on a certain topic.

These efforts even go as far back as 2020, when the tech giant began developing a feature that would recommend closing certain tabs if they’ve been left alone for an extended period of time. It was similar to the new Declutter tool, though much less aggressive, since it wouldn’t archive anything. Ultimately, nothing came of it, however it seems Google is looking back at this old idea.

Speculating on all the open tabs

As 9To5Google points out, this has the potential to “become one of the most annoying features” the company has ever made. Imagine Chrome disappearing tabs you wanted to look at without letting you know. It could get frustrating pretty fast.

Additionally, would it be possible to set a time limit for when an unused page is allowed to be put away? Will there be an exception list telling Chrome to leave certain websites alone? We'll have the answer if and when this feature eventually goes live.

We have no word on when Tab Declutter will launch. It’s unknown if Chrome on iOS is scheduled to receive a similar upgrade as the Chromium edition. It's possible Android devices will get first dibs, then iPhones, or the iPhone may be left out in some regions that don't get a Chromium-based browser.

9To5Google speculates the update will launch in early May as part of Chrome 125. This seems a little early if it’s still in the middle of development. Late summer to early autumn is more plausible, but we could be totally wrong. We’ll just have to wait.

Until we get more news, check out TechRadar's roundup of the best Chromebooks for 2024.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

April 5, 2022
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Having been accessible through a tool in recent Insider builds, tabs for File Explorer are now available to all users in an update to Windows 11, rolling out from today alongside other features for the app.

The ability to have multiple tabs open in a single File Explorer window, similar to a web browser, is something that users, this writer included, have been wanting for years. It's felt like an obvious feature for the file manager to have, as we've all been in the situation where we've had to have multiple windows open to drag and drop files between folders.

As macOS has had tabbed windows in its Finder app since 10.9 Mavericks, it's a relief to see this feature cross over to Windows 11, however late this may feel to some.

But there's also other features arriving for the app, such as file suggestions and a new home page.

Analysis: It's about time

A homepage for File Explorer sounds strange at first, but it makes sense as an app that you most likely check every day on your PC. If you use Microsoft Edge or Apple's Safari web browser, you'll find some familiarity here, as they both feature a start page that shows your Favorite links, the latest news and more.

The same concept could work well for File Explorer, except for the latest news. Many users have network drives attached, and cloud storage folders that are prevalent in their Explorer sidebars. To have another easy method of reaching these will be welcome.

But the main feature for File Explorer will be tabs regardless. Having used the feature through ViveTool and following the steps to enable them in an Insider Build, which showcases features under development, it works as well as a web browser.

It's surprising to see this feature arrive so soon, especially with rumors that Windows 11's next major update, codenamed Sun Valley 2, is on track to be released in the second half of 2022. It makes us wonder if major updates are becoming a thing of the past for Microsoft, and instead, we're seeing major updates across the year.

With Windows Media Player and now improvements to the Start menu and File Explorer already appearing, we may be seeing the start of a reworked update process for Windows 11, without any of us knowing.

And if that's the case, we're all for it, and only makes us want Apple to do the same and move away from its major yearly releases.

Our pick of the best Windows laptops in 2022 so far

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

April 5, 2022
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As macOS has had tabbed windows in its Finder app since 10.9 Mavericks, it's a relief to see this feature cross over to Windows 11, however late this may feel to some.

But there's also other features arriving for the app, such as file suggestions and a new home page.

Analysis: It's about time

And if that's the case, we're all for it, and only makes us want Apple to do the same and move away from its major yearly releases.

Our pick of the best Windows laptops in 2022 so far

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

January 31, 2022
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In a future release of Google's web browser on Android, you'll be able to avoid the mistake of closing all your tabs at once, thanks to an additional message box to confirm if you want to go ahead with it.

Google Chrome is the most widely-used web browser app on Android, mainly due to it being pre-installed on the majority of Android smartphones. But there may be an occasion when you've got multiple tabs open at once.

Some could be related to shopping, birthday ideas, or brainstorms for holidays in the summer for example. You may want to close all of these at once when you're finished.

In Chrome Canary, the test version of Google's web browser, you can enable a flag that will display a message box to confirm if you want to close all your tabs at once. This will help prevent occasions where you accidently close all the browser tabs when you didn't mean to.

How do you enable the message box confirmation?

By going to chrome://flags when running Google Chrome Canary 100 on Android, there will be a 'Close all tabs modal dialog' option.

Switching this on will make the message box appear when you're about to close all your tabs.

This can be useful if you've found yourself having mistakenly closed all your open tabs, and having to go through your history to open the links again.

This may sound like a very obvious feature, but if you mainly use Google Chrome on your phone as you're sharing links on social media and messaging apps, having all your tabs closed can be a huge annoyance.

Sometimes the little things like this can make a big difference, so it's encouraging that Google has this ready to go in its development releases for now.