Introducing Tabba

We spend hours in our browsers every day. I see the new tab screen dozens of times an hour. Most extensions waste that space on inspirational quotes or worse, track everything you do.

What if this space was actually useful? Not distracting, not tracking you, just there when you need it. So I built tools into the new tab itself. One cmd+ T away.

I built Tabba because I wanted my new tab to do something useful instead of showing me a mountain photo. Here’s what’s inside.

The core Tabba experience

Tabba replaces the default New Tab screen on your browser with a suite of simple tools. You’re still able to open a new tab, search the web or type in a URL and use your browser as you otherwise would. It’s meant to fade into the background and only grab your attention when you want it to. I’ve designed a few features into Tabba to make it a pleasure to use when bouncing around the web, opening and closing tabs, and getting stuff done.

• All your tools are listed across the top of the screen. These are fully customizable and if you don’t want to use a tool, just hide it and forget about it.
• Tabba remembers the last tool you had selected and it will load it next time you open a new tab. It also remembers some tool-level preferences when it makes sense, for example the timeframe of the calendar, or which filtered to do list you were viewing last.
• Fully customizable fonts, colors, etc. to fit your vibe
• Privacy-focused with no data tracking, no analytics, and so on.

The calendar grid

This is the heart of Tabba. Open a new tab and you see a grid of the entire year. 365 days across, 24 hours down. Every cell is one hour.

Timeframes

Switch between four views using the buttons at the top:

• Year: See all 365 days at once
• Quarter: 91 days in detail
• Month: Current month, day by day
• Week: Just this week

Tabba remembers which timeframe you prefer and loads it every time.

Note taking

Click any hour to write a note. Past, present, or future. A modal opens with a text field. Write whatever you need. It auto saves, or you can hit esc to close it, or just close the whole tab.

Hours with notes show a small dot indicator. You can see at a glance which hours have something written.

Tagging notes

Add tags to any note. Create them on the fly by typing in the tag field. Tags help you filter later, and they sync with the todo list (same tag system).

You can also add an emoji to each note. Sometimes a 🔥 or ⚠️ says more than words, plus they can help you contextualize certain events in the calendar view.

Star important notes to keep them close by in the notes flyout panel.

Notes panel

Click the notes button (☰) to see all your notes in one place. Search by keyword, filter by tags, or show only starred notes. Sort by newest or oldest.

The panel shows which hour each note belongs to, making it easy to find things by remembering when they happened.

Filtering the calendar

Custom hours: In Settings, you can set a custom hour range. If you sleep from midnight to 6am, hide those hours. The grid adjusts to show only 7am-11pm for your waking hours.

Filter by note content: In the bottom right corner, there’s also a view filter, which will let you see only the events with a specific text

To do list

Simple tasks with tags. Add an item, check it off when done. That’s the core idea, but wait, there’s more:

Filtered lists

This is where it gets useful. Create filtered lists based on tags. For example: a “Work” list that shows all to dos tagged #work, or a “Today” list that shows #urgent and #today.

Set whether the list should include or exclude certain tags, and whether it needs all tags or just one. These lists save as tabs alongside your main todo list.

History

Switch to the “Completed” tab to see what you’ve completed and when. Tabba tracks completion timestamps, so you can look back and remember what you accomplished last week or last month.

Bookmarks

This tool was meant to mimic the existing need for a launchpad of pre-specified list of URLs that you want to access frequently.

Add links with custom names and icons. Click a bookmark to open it in a new tab.

Tabba tries to grab the site’s favicon automatically. If that doesn’t work or you want something different, add an emoji as the icon instead.

Timezones

Add cities and compare their local times. Set work hours for each location to see overlap at a glance.

Useful for remote teams. Instead of googling “what time is it in Berlin” and doing mental math, just check the grid. There are also customizable “work hours” so you can see when everyone is online at the same time.

You can also add buffer hours (time before and after work hours) if you want to see extended availability, especially helpful for scheduling meetings with people in many timezones at once.

You can also add a timezone and then set a custom name for it, for example a name of a loved one or friend.

Symbols

Copy special characters without googling them. © → ™ § ≠ and hundreds more.

Search by name or scroll through categories. Click to copy to clipboard. That’s it.

The tool tracks which symbols you use most and shows them at the top (can be disabled in Settings).

Time

An analog clock. That’s all.

Click the center to customize the display. It’s nice to look at during focus sessions or just as a screensaver.

Draw

A pixel art tool. Pick a canvas size (8x8, 16x16, 32x32, or 64x64), choose a color, and draw.

Small brush for detail, large brush for filling areas. Save your drawings to a gallery. Create folders to organize them if you make a lot.

This tool came about because I was stress-testing the storage system and thought “might as well make it fun.” Turns out people like making tiny drawings. Some use it for actual pixel art, others just doodle.

Everything else

All your data stays on your device. Tabba uses IndexedDB and local storage, nothing goes to a server. Delete the extension and everything disappears.

You can export your data as JSON anytime (Settings → Data → Export). Import it on another device if you want to move things around.

No account required. No tracking. No analytics.

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That’s Tabba. 8 tools in your new tab. Use what you need, hide the rest.

Available now for Chrome, Firefox and Brave. Free.

Questions? Email me at hey@tabba.so.