What Chrome's default new tab is for
Press Ctrl+T and Chrome draws its own page: a search box, a row of shortcuts, and, if you are signed in, a set of Cards. That is the whole design. Google's help page describes the parts plainly. You switch the shortcuts between "My shortcuts" and "Most visited sites", you pick a theme or upload a background image, you turn Cards on and off.
The people who love this page are not settling for it. They open dozens of tabs an hour and want none of them to make them wait. Chrome's page has nothing to load and no chance of breaking after an update. Chrome even added a footer that names whichever extension controls the page.
It is also the page most people never chose. It is simply what was there.
Where Chrome's page wins
Speed first, and it is not close. Chrome renders its own new tab as part of the browser. Everything else, Dashy included, is a page Chrome has to load before you see it. A well-built new tab appears in a fraction of a second, but the built-in page is the floor and nothing installed goes below it.
Then reach. Chrome 152 went to the stable channel on September 1, 2026 for Windows, Mac and Linux, and the same browser ships on ChromeOS, Android and iPhone. Dashy runs on Chrome, Edge, Brave and other Chromium browsers, on the desktop.
Then sync you already have. Chrome's help says that when you sign in, "you can save your settings, themes, and web apps to your Google Account", and that "themes and settings update on devices where you're also signed in to Chrome". Your background follows you at no cost. Carrying a Dashy setup between devices is on the Pro plan.
Then Incognito. Chrome's extension documentation is blunt: "In incognito windows, extensions can't override New Tab pages." Install Dashy and your private windows still open Chrome's page. If that is where you spend the day, the built-in page is the only page you get.
And the Cards do one thing no extension can. Resume browsing groups the history and searches you walked away from, "Continue with these tabs" reopens what you had on another device, and on some managed devices a Drive priority card adds shortcuts to Drive files you may need. Those come from Google's own view of your account.
Where Dashy is different
Start with what is missing from the list above. Chrome's page has no clock, no weather, no notes, no tasks, no calendar and no sound. It was never meant to have them.
Dashy starts there instead: a wallpaper from a curated collection that changes with the time of day, the clock, the greeting and the date, and your weather already located, before you set anything up. You can upload your own picture, and none of that needs an account. There is a longer explanation of the format in what a new tab dashboard is.
Sound is the difference people notice first. Rain, ocean, forest, fireplace and cafe are included on the tab.
Then the page holds your day. Calendar, tasks and notes are built in, and Google Calendar, Todoist and Google Tasks are offered if you keep them elsewhere. Chrome's page can show you a link to your calendar. It cannot show you your afternoon.
Then the arrangement is yours. Chrome lets you switch its parts on and off; where they sit is fixed. Dashy hands you the grid: add a card, drag it, resize it, restyle it. Four templates, Focus, Productive, Curious and Aesthetic, cover the case where you would rather not begin from nothing. Customization is free.
Then something Chrome's page cannot do at all. Dashy runs an MCP server, so the assistant you already use can lay the tab out for you. Nothing happens anonymously: the app is approved by name, its edits go into a log, and whatever it invents sits switched off until you have read it. Early access now, everyone in October 2026; the AI page explains how it works. Chrome's AI on the new tab is Create with AI, which generates a theme from a subject, style, mood and color, and its help page limits it to signed-in users "Located in the US and at least 18 years old".
The honest trade-offs
Chrome's page asks for something too, and it is easy to miss because you have already paid it. Google's help states the condition outright: "To customize your New Tab page, you must be signed in to your Google Account and use Google as your default search engine." Cards carry the same requirement, because Chrome curates them from your activity. Dashy works without an account, nothing leaves the device until you connect something, and each integration tells you what it uses before you turn it on.
Chrome's ceiling is also low on purpose. There is no field for a new tab URL anywhere in Settings. The NewTabPageLocation policy exists, and Google describes it as one that "configures the default New Tab page URL and prevents users from changing it", but it only reaches managed machines: domain-joined or enrolled in Chrome Enterprise Core on Windows, under management on macOS. On a personal laptop, an extension is the supported route, and Chrome allows one override at a time.
Dashy's trade-offs run the other way. It is a page Chrome loads rather than the page Chrome draws. It does not appear in Incognito. It does not reach your phone. Sync across devices and connected services sit on a paid plan, with no price published yet. And its public record so far is the original Dashy's: 10,000+ users, 4.7 stars from 273 ratings, and a Featured badge on the Chrome Web Store. The new one arrives in October 2026.
How to decide
Ask what you want to happen in the second after Ctrl+T.
If the answer is nothing, keep Chrome's page. It is the fastest thing you can have there, you already own it, and a few minutes in Customize Chrome will get you a background you like. We are not going to talk you out of a page that costs nothing and never breaks.
If the answer is something, a picture worth looking at, rain in the background, the meeting you forgot and the three things you promised, that is what Dashy is for. Chrome is still underneath it, the search box is still where you type, and the change reverses in one click at chrome://extensions.
The other comparisons are written the same way, with the concession first.