PSA: How to un-fuck the Chrome Redesign & missing Thumbnails on the New Tab Page

##Get the old UI Design back:
chrome://flags/#top-chrome-md

Set to: **Normal**

##Get the New Tab Thumbnails Back:
chrome://flags/#use-google-local-ntp

Set to: **Enabled**

## If your New Tab Thumbnails turn from square Previews to round Icons:

chrome://flags/#ntp-icons
Set to: **Disabled**

chrome://flags/#ntp-ui-md
Set to: **Disabled**

 

 

by request of /u/JackVS1 & others - further steps of *'un-fucking'*, transplated from the comment Thread to the OP:
***

##Fixing Omnibox (aka. Search-/Address-Bar) behavior & look

***

 

##Less Whitespace in the Suggestions:

chrome://flags/#omnibox-ui-vertical-margin

Set to: **Disabled**

##Format as 'URL - Website Title' instead of 'Website Title - URL':

chrome://flags/#omnibox-ui-swap-title-and-url

Set to: **Disabled**

## Show complete URLs including http:// - https:// - www. etc.

chrome://flags/#omnibox-ui-hide-steady-state-url-scheme-and-subdomains

Set to: **Disabled**

## Don't want Favicons in the Suggestion Box:

chrome://flags/#omnibox-ui-show-suggestion-favicons

Set to: **Disabled**

 

***

 

Finally, if you're of the Mindset ***'who knows when these flags will be removed?'*** or ***'I'd rather use an old browser, than a shitty looking one!'***
Here i present to you the last Chromium 68 build for Windows:
[Chromium v68.0.3440.106 r561733 (stable) Win32](https://github.com/henrypp/chromium/releases/tag/v68.0.3440.106-r561733-win32)
[Chromium v68.0.3440.106 r561733 (stable) Win64](https://github.com/henrypp/chromium/releases/tag/v68.0.3440.106-r561733-win64)

 

***

 

##EDIT (2018-12-05):
Google finally did it, they removed the flags from Chrome 71, the old interface is officially dead.
Here, the very last and most up-to-date Version to still include it:
[Chromium v70.0.3538.110-r587811-win32](https://github.com/henrypp/chromium/releases/tag/v70.0.3538.110-r587811-win32)
[Chromium v70.0.3538.110-r587811-win64](https://github.com/henrypp/chromium/releases/tag/v70.0.3538.110-r587811-win64)

71 thoughts on “PSA: How to un-fuck the Chrome Redesign & missing Thumbnails on the New Tab Page”

  1. Is there a way to get back the old url suggested bar? Like If you type something and it now shows some new suggestions with big icons below the adress bar. It takes almost half my screen now and it is annoying…

    Reply
  2. Honestly, Google goes out of its way to make something user unfriendly. I don’t know who leads their UI efforts on Chrome and Youtube but they need to be fired. In fact that entire team need to be fired.

    I’m open to change but not once have I said something they did was better.

    Reply
  3. It’s nice that this is there but I wish people would stop acting like it’s a definitive solution, because it’s not. It will be removed one or two releases after this one, just like every similar flag in the past.

    Reply
  4. I fucking love you, the main reasons I keep my old version of chrome are for the old look, and the new tabs page.. when they deleted it last night I was like.. ok, new browser time. Huge help mate, thank you!

    Reply
  5. Description of NTP flag:

    > Use the local New Tab page if Google is the default search engine.

    what’s the alternative supposed to be? Online New Tab page? It’s just empty…

    Reply
  6. I swear how did they even think people *wouldn’t* want access to their most visited pages on the home screen?

    I can get sometimes the customer doesn’t really know what they want but come the heck on Google this update made the home page useless outside of it’s Search Bar and random suggested search.

    Reply
  7. I’m a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:

    – [/r/aoxxtsfw] [PSA: How to un-fuck the Chrome Redesign & missing Thumbnails on the New Tab Page](https://www.reddit.com/r/AoxxtSfw/comments/9fn687/psa_how_to_unfuck_the_chrome_redesign_missing/)

    – [/r/chrome] [told you that grey shit was shit: “Honestly, Google goes out of its way to make something user unfriendly. I don’t know who leads their UI efforts on Chrome and Youtube but they need to be fired. In fact that entire team need to be fired.”](https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/9e8g53/told_you_that_grey_shit_was_shit_honestly_google/)

    – [/r/chromeos] [PSA: How to un-fuck the Chrome Redesign & missing Thumbnails on the New Tab Page](https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/9dv05b/psa_how_to_unfuck_the_chrome_redesign_missing/)

     *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don’t vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*

    Reply
  8. I am using MacOS Sierra with a 2017 15″ Macbook Pro. Two things:

    1. Can I get rid of the broken open tab/close tab animations? They’re horrific.
    2. Can I get rid of the menu bar animation when I hover my mouse pointer in the top left corner? It’s overdone and I can’t stand it.

    Reply
  9. **PSA: Chrome flags are not a hidden options menu. They can, and will disappear once the developers decide they don’t need those options for development purposes anymore.**

    Better get used to the new look.

    Reply
  10. You are a saint

    Seriously if it wasn’t for friendly users on Reddit my Youtube/Chrome would both be completely fucked because of their shitty updates

    Reply
  11. I wish I could upvote this a million times more but FOR FUCKS SAKE I lost all my damn “frequents” and its fucking reduced to icons instead of website previews.

    Who the fuck thought this was a good idea?
    For FUCKs sake.

    Reply
  12. I hope it’s not too late to ask my question:

    My main issue with the redesign is the behaviour of the omnibox when I’m clicking in it to highlight a portion of the URL. The problem is, by default the omnibox now truncates the “https://” portion of the URL, but when I click inside the box, it expands the URL to include that prefix, which ends up shifting away from my cursor the portion I was just about to highlight. Is there any way to fix this behavior?

    EDIT: This behavior persists even when reverting chrome://flags/#top-chrome-md back to Normal.

    Reply
  13. God I love Reddit. I’ve ever once been to this sub but i just knew the good people of Reddit would have exactly what I needed readily available for me. Thank you, kind Human.

    Reply
  14. Found something else not affected by disabling all those flags:

    >It is not exactly the same as before. There is now more padding between icons making each one take up a few more pixels. Those pixels start to add up after about 5 or 6 icons. You can overlay a screen shot of the current version with a screen shot of the previous version and see for yourself.

    Some GUI engineers just want to see the world annoyed.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/9dtpie/am_i_the_only_one_who_doesnt_hate_the_new_design/e5kd89h/

    Reply
  15. **PRESS ALT+SHIFT+I** (Help -> Report an issue…) and tell them if you hate the new Design. Write them what annoys you and that you are considering leaving for a different Browser. (Worst case they’ll write “Good Riddance” or simply ignore you.

    Reply
  16. It’s always “md” or “material design”

    Like I don’t dislike the look of Material Design, but the way they implement it is almost always dogshit

    Reply
  17. Omg thank you so much for this. That new theme was blindingly bright, the tabs all blended into one and the scroll bar was like three pixels wide. Did they do any testing on that garbage before they forced it out on everyone?

    Reply
  18. Thanks

    Gotta love how they just make these crappy changes with no warning whatsoever and we have to go searching on how to fix their fuckups yet again

    Reply
  19. Thank you so much. I hate this new trend in web&application design to add padding and margins everywhere and not present as much information as possible (new tab pages). It’s so annoying to be using 2×27′ and have mini-circles instead of page previews on new tabs.

    Reply
  20. For Mac:

    If you want to go into borderless full screen mode. You have to press Cmd-Shift-F while in full screen.

    The redesign makes the top bar inaccessible in borderless full screen mode though, even if you hover at the top edge.

    If you want to be able to access that with a top edge hover, go to chrome://flags/#views-browser-windows and DISABLE IT. It restores the old top bar look though.

    Reply
  21. I browse on a relatively thin window (helps with multitasking). Since the new update though, the URL bar starting pushing some of my plugin icons off in to the sub-menu, and it’s not letting me shorten it any further. Any way to fix this?

    Reply
  22. The hideous tabs came back and I don’t see a way to disable them 🙁 But the thumbnails are still square and beautiful– thanks 🙂 Guess I have to get a plug-in for the tab width. Do you have any recommendations?

    Reply

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