Google Chrome’s New Tab Page is pretty useful, providing you with a one-click access to your most frequented websites and apps. But it’s not the prettiest looking one, and it certainly does not offer more functionality such as…well showing you the latest news and breaking stories from around the world, or displaying updates from your social networks at a glance. OneFeed is a clever little Chrome extension that takes over the classic original and replaces it with a much more functional and useful utility. In this post, we take a look at some of the cool things you can do with OneFeed.
OneFeed for Chrome is Your Window to your World
To enjoy the best stories from around the world, while still staying connected to your work, head over to Onefeed.me and install the extension.
You will not see a OneFeed icon on the toolbar, as is usually the case with most extensions, but you will get an alert that the extension has been installed.
Next, just open a New Tab on your Chrome Browser. A OneFeed message box will pop out, asking for you to authenticate your social accounts, which include Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Instagram. Click on each icon to provide authentication and access confirmation. Then, click Finish.
In the next screen, you will see a pretty page displaying a series of dials or thumbnails of your most frequented websites along with a folder that contains all of your apps.
You can drag and drop more apps into this folder. Right-click a dial to open it in a new tab, edit its URL and title, remove it, or offer your feedback on the app.
The + sign lets you add a few more dials to the page including your Dropbox account and Google Drive.
At the bottom of the screen is a newsfeed area that displays all the latest tidbits from your social accounts and most frequented news sites. To continue reading more such stories just hover over the dial and click the close button. This will pull up a fresh new story for your to read.
The tiny left and right arrows at the far bottom of the screen lets you change your background theme colors, and there’s a nice collection of contrasting colors to choose from.
OneFeed News Reader
OneFeed also acts as a feed reader. Just click the left and right arrow buttons on the far left and right center of the screen to move to the feed area. Here you can find a Pinterest styled- card reading layout showing all the latest news and happenings from around the world. The left pane displays a series of categories that you choose to read stories about. There’s entertainment, food, technology, sport, business and breaking news stories from popular websites such as the Daily Mail, LA Times, LIFE, Yummly, MyRecipies.com, TechCrunch, and HuffPost.
The Social Tab in the News reader section shows all your social media updates in the form of a card layout too!
The cards themselves are highly interactive. You can click a card to read the story from the original website. And you can like a story or share it on your social networks by hovering over the top right of the card and selecting the desired option.
You can customize all your OneFeed settings by clicking the OneFeed button at the top-left of the screen. Just go over to the Edit section to add or remove websites/newsfeeds according to your liking.
From my usage of the tool, the only downside I’ve noticed is the slightly longer time it takes to upload all images in the NewsFeed section. Other than that, I love everything that OneFeed has to offer.
If you want to give OneFeed a try, here’s the download link once again. Give it a go and tell us what you think of the extension.
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