Sep
18
2010

Pinned Tabs in Google Chrome

I recently discovered the use of Google Chrome’s “pinned tabs” feature.  I used this for a few days, decided to write about it, and then stopped using them.  So what happened?

What are “pinned tabs”?  If you right click a tab in Google Chrome, you can click “pin tab” and it will make it into a “mini-tab” (see picture above) which doesn’t take up much room.  This is good if you have a few tabs open every time you have your browser open…and you don’t want them to take up much room.

Why’d you start using them?  I pinned Facebook, Gmail, and Pandora, I think.  It was convenient in the sense that they were always there.  The issue was that I never really could get used to it.  I sometimes obsessively check Facebook in multiple windows…as in it’s not good enough to just reload a page.  Or I’ll have it open somewhere and forget about it and then open it again.  Yes, I know I’m crazy.  But I found that whenever Facebook was pinned I always seemed to have another instance of it open.  So why bother?  Twitter and Gmail same basic thing.  Gmail I actually did use quite a bit, and might start using that again…if I ever give pinned tabs another shot.  My main complaint is that it made opening the browser (and loading the homepage) a bit slower…because it had four pages to load instead of one.

So basically the combined “me not really using them” and “Chrome taking longer to open with them” made me quit using them altogether.  They are, however, a really cool idea, and I’m sure people use them religiously at this point.  I’d suggest trying them and seeing if they work for you…if they do, they could save you time / browser tab space.  If not, no big deal.

About the Author: Chris Bellman

Sophomore ECE major at The Ohio State University. Technology enthusiast. Runs own IT business in Cincinnati.