The Cluttered New Tab
Google Chrome aims to keep users engaged the moment they open the browser. When you open a New Tab on mobile devices (and increasingly on desktop interfaces via the “Discover” feed integration), Chrome doesn’t just show you a blank page or a search bar. It automatically populates the bottom half of the screen with a scrolling grid of suggested articles, news stories, and blog posts. These suggestions are algorithmically generated based on your past browsing history and search habits. For users who view the New Tab page as a clean workspace or who find algorithmic news feeds distracting and stressful, this auto-populated content is highly intrusive.
Clearing the Discover Feed
To maintain a focused environment and stop Google Chrome from automatically suggesting articles on the New Tab page, you must disable the Discover feed feature entirely.
On the desktop version of Chrome, this is often handled by customizing the New Tab page directly. Open a New Tab. Look in the extreme bottom-right corner of the window for a button labelled Customize Chrome (it may also just be a pencil icon). Click it to open the side panel. In the panel, click on the section labelled Cards. You will see an option for “Discover” or “Articles for you.” Click the toggle switch next to it to turn it Off. The grid of news articles will immediately vanish, leaving you with a clean page featuring only the Google logo and the search bar.