X New Tab Page 4.2.0

Overview

X New Tab Page is an extension for Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Maxthon and Dragon that acts as an alternative to your browser's new tab page. It is fast, user-friendly, and has many features that could make you love it.

Installation

Depending on your browser, you’ll have to download and install the corresponding version of the app. You can do that from its homepage, which you can visit here. At the bottom of the site you will find download links for all compatible browsers; each link will take you to the browser’s corresponding extension market to download and install the app (e.g. for Chrome, it will take you to Chrome Web Store‘s page for the app).

X New Tab Page supports the following web browsers: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Maxthon and Comodo Dragon.

The extension is complete clean from all sorts of malware that could possibly be installed in your machine.

Interface

Once the extension has been installed and run, you will be brought to its main interface, which, initially, has a blue background, some default website logos in the center and 8 button icons at the bottom. There’s also a thermometer located at the top-right corner of the window as well.

First-time users get to see a message with basic usage instructions (i.e. using the mouse wheel to flip the dial box, use the right mouse button to enter the dial box edit mode, how to get to the settings menu, etc.); when the message disappears, you can finally start fiddling with the extension’s features.

Pros

X New Tab Page offers numerous features:

• A new tab page, which can open relatively quickly and basically holds all of your favorite websites for fast browsing. In my experience with it, the claim that the extension’s new tab page is faster than the browser’s new tab page is faster holds true and is not just an abstract claim.
• Its interface is highly flexible and can be changed in various ways. For instance, there are 4 preset dial styles to choose from, in addition to which you can manually create your own custom ones (“dial style” is the way the websites show up as thumbnails in the new tab page). Moreover, there are several backgrounds (found in the Cloud button in the toolbar) that you can use for the new tab page, instead of the default one.
• You can use your Google, Facebook or Twitter accounts in order to import or export your settings in the cloud. If you don’t want to use your accounts, you can download/upload a settings backup locally.
• You can add URLs in the toolbar, use the search function to search for websites, use the bookmark manager, as well as check the temperature in your location.

Cons

No cons, just some grammar errors.

Alternatives

Other alternative apps/extensions of this kind are: Papaly (free), Awesome New Tab Page (free),  FVD Speed Dial (free), Speed Dial 2 (free), Fast Dial (free), FoxTab (free) and Humble New Tab Page (free). We also did an article on the 4 best custom new tab page extensions for Chrome.

Conclusion

X New Tab Page is very fast, lightweight and easy to use. It also has an extremely configurable interface, which makes it a very good alternative for your browser’s native new tab page.