So you might have one that holds tabs for Docs, Drive, Notion, and your company website that you'd pull up whenever you're working on a new work-related report. You can think of 'em kind of like workspaces for different purposes. JRīeyond that, Switch gives you a space for something it called Spaces - basically saved clusters of tabs you tend to open together. On that note, you'll also see badges representing any notifications tied to your various open sites, and you'll sometimes see extra shortcuts, too - like the option to start a new email, open Google Calendar, or open Google Drive alongside any Gmail inbox. That's especially useful if you keep, say, multiple inboxes open for different Gmail accounts or lots of Docs documents open at once, as it really makes those scattered tabs feel like part of the same cohesive application. Hovering over any of those icons will cause a menu to appear with all the associated site instances. It'll show a list of all your actively open tabs, with tabs from the same app or site grouped together within a single icon. Once you install the Switch extension into Chrome, you'll see a thin new sidebar along the left edge of the browser. In fact, its core features are almost eerily reminiscent of what Edge and especially Sidekick offer, only brought into the Chrome domain instead of requiring you to move into an entirely new browsing home. You keep your existing browser framework and environment and simply add onto it via the Switch Workstation Chrome extension.Īnd there's a reason I mentioned both Edge and Sidekick a second ago: Switch essentially brings the same efficiency-enhancing sidebar concepts those browsers created into the Chrome universe. Let's start from the beginning: Switch is an extension for Chrome. And its name - rather ironically, for something that'll keep you from having to switch browsers - is Switch.Īllow me to introduce you, won't ya? Meet Switch: The Chrome-Sidekick hybrid Well, I've got good news: If you're similarly committed to Chrome but intrigued by some of these newer productivity-promising browser concepts, there's now a way for you to have your cake and eat it, too. Getting accustomed to an entire new browser environment, giving up all the useful forms of cross-device syncing and Google service integration I've learned to rely on, and letting go of my many mastered shortcuts and time-savers from the Chrome environment is always just too high of a price to pay for some new feature or interface idea. But in the end, I always end up coming back to Chrome. I've spent plenty of time flirting with comely young creatures like these, and - I'll admit it - I've even had the occasional dalliance when I've switched over to 'em for a short while. It arranges your tabs as apps in a persistent vertical sidebar, collects your notifications in a single streamlined place right alongside your web window, and adds in a smart search system that acts as a universal finder tool for all of your online stuff. Maybe it's the appropriately named Sidekick - no, not the early T-Mobile phone that acted as a kind of future-predicting ancestor to Android, but the Chrome-competing desktop browser that tries to reimagine the browser window as a web-based work operating system of sorts. Maybe it's Microsoft Edge, with its enticingly unusual approach to putting tabs on the side of the screen instead of at the top. And we've gained a level of trust, familiarity, and comfort that's tough to replicate.Įven so, every now and then, some alluring new thang comes along and flashes its fancy features in my direction. We're very much in the comfortable marriage phase of our relationship: Sure, the initial thrill of the courtship might be gone, but we know each other inside and out now. Standard story, I know, right? But it's true: By and large, Chrome gives me everything I want in a browser and then some. Let me offer up a little context on my near-transgressions: I've relied on Chrome for longer than I can remember at this point. I'll admit it: I've found myself tempted to switch browsers more than a few times lately.
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