What Do Chrome’s ‘New Tab’ Thumbnails Reveal About Your Browsing Habits?

The latest version of Google Chrome automatically displays your most visited pages every time you open a new tab. The update has caused a swathe of anger online; particularly among closet porn fans. Here’s what Google’s browser revamp revealed about my own browsing habits…

Porn picture from Shutterstock

Whoever thought it was a good idea to display “most viewed” website thumbnails in Chrome obviously never worked in an office before. While it’s true that most workplaces can easily track your browsing habits, that doesn’t mean we want to advertise it right there on the screen.

Like most people, I tend to do a little personal browsing in my lunch break. This got me curious about what might show up on Google’s ‘new tab’ page. Would it reveal the history of a diligent worker or a time-wasting slacker?

Here’s what my browser window currently look like on my work computer:

Phew! As you can see, it chiefly consists of Allure Media websites, traffic-monitoring tools and stock photo provider Shutterstock; everything I need to do my job as a journalist. But hang on — what’s Facebook doing on there? Well, if you follow Lifehacker on Facebook, you’ll know that we regularly update our page with the best articles of the day. So it’s totally 100 percent work related! No really.

As for my home computer, those records have been permanently buried. Click here to find out how you can switch back to Chrome’s old ‘New Tab’ page to hide the evidence from view.

Which websites are currently cropping up on your Chrome page? Embrace the anonymity of the internet and dish the dirt in the comments section below!


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


25 responses to “What Do Chrome’s ‘New Tab’ Thumbnails Reveal About Your Browsing Habits?”