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Comment by forgotmypw17 | Hacker News Reader

When will it be possible to have a New Tab page which doesn't display anything?

Just kidding, trick question, the answer is NEVER.

(No, an extension which overrides all the bloated pile of crap after it's already been processed and rendered does not count.)

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> Just kidding, trick question, the answer is NEVER.

What? The answer is ALWAYS. Set your start page to be `about:blank` and you see a blank page. I've had this as my starting page in every single browser since the 90s.

I am not able to in Chrome Stable without an extension. Searched chrome://settings for "tab" and "page".

Sorry, but this option is not available at least as far back as Chromium 65.x

That's "start page", not "new tab page"

You can have about:blank be the on start up page and the home button, but not for new tabs. You used to be able to do that. Won't be surprised when start page will need to be an https link, you know for security reasons.

As a side note, only yesterday (on a Windows 7, so not an issue related to the latest Windows) I couldn't initially connect with Chrome to a (of course local) oldish router (actually an access point) to change a setting (Wi-Fi channel) because it "talked http" while Chrome wanted a "https" (for security reasons).

I have that since ages in Firefox. A simple setting.

For those not in the know: it's a setting the GUI settings (so not just in about:config somewhere). So it's not that hard to find.

Preferences » Home » New Tab page [Firefox startpage v]

or, about:preferences#home

It's available in Brave too

Chrome has that setting too, but it's not that simple. It's only available as an enterprise policy. If anyone doesn't know about this, Chrome has tons of hidden settings configurable through Group Policy on Windows and through /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/policies.json on Linux.

https://chromeenterprise.google/policies/#NewTabPageLocation

> No, an extension which overrides all the bloated pile of crap after it's already been processed and rendered does not count

afaik, extensions that set chrome_url_overrides.newtab in their manifests file prevent the native NTP from loading at all.

I have a personal new tab chrome / firefox extension that does exactly this. A black screen, a button, that's it. Don't install someone else's extension -- make your own off a minimal example on github. It's... well it's about the simplest bit of code I've written that I rely on daily.

Use a different browser? It's one of two built-in options in Firefox.

I generally do, but sometimes I use Chromium, if only for testing my own sites.

Can't you just set the new tab page to be "about:blank"?

Not in chrome. You can only set the startup page to be about:blank. New tabs do not follow that startup page setting.

Firefox can do that, for Safari you can also disable all start widgets. IIRC Brave can do it aswell.

Firefox allows it through settings. Haven't been able to do so on Chrome, other than disabling "NTP Modules" via chrome://flags/.

u serious?

i would never use a browser w/o a blank new tab page; it's universally supported isn't it?

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