I have talked about this back in August when the feature landed in development versions of Chrome for Android.

Basically, what it does is add article recommendations to the New Tab Page. Chrome for Android users who open the New Tab page can swipe down on it to see the "articles for you" list.

It features articles from the usual mainstream sources such as Lifehacker, Polygon, The Next Web or Fox News.

There is virtually no indication on the page that you can swipe down, but that is not the only issue that you may have with the new feature.

Apart from being unable to modify news sources in any meaningful way, or block some through filter lists so that their articles don't appear anymore, you may notice that the links to Bookmarks and Recent Tabs has been removed from the New Tab page.

Update: The articles for you widget is displayed by default now in Chrome. While you get an option to hide it, it won't display the bookmarks or recent tabs links anymore. The only option available is to tap on the menu icon to access Recent Tabs or Bookmarks from it.

Chrome for Android: Restore Bookmarks and Recent Tabs links

Compare the left side of the screenshot with the right side. The left shows bookmarks and recent tabs underneath the Google search box and the top site thumbnails, the new version that Google launched in Chrome 54 does not.

That's puzzling as the space is there. As you can see, Google dropped all elements on the New Tab page just a little bit, but there is still enough place for these two links.

You can get the bookmarks and recent tabs links back on Chrome for Android. The new "articles for you" feature is currently hidden behind a flag. Flags point to experimental features that may already be enabled. It may happen at any time that a flag gets removed, and along with it the feature. Or, and that is another possibility, the flag gets removed because Google integrates the feature deeper into Chrome for Android.

If the latter happens, the following workaround won't work anymore. For now though, you can use it to restore the bookmarks and recent tabs link on Chrome for Android:

Open a new tab page in Google Chrome for Android. Type chrome://flags in the address bar and hit enter. Tap on the menu icon in the top right corner (the three dots) and select "Find on page". Enter "content snippets". Chrome should jump to the "Show content snippets on the new tab page" flag. Tap on the selection menu underneath it, and set the feature to disabled. Restart Chrome with a tap on the restart button that appears afterwards.

When you open a new tab page after you have made the change, you will notice that bookmarks and recent tabs are visible again on the new tab page. Also, the articles for you listing is no longer provided.

All major browser developers are working on personalized news features currently. Mozilla launched the Activity Stream experiment, Microsoft a standalone app News Pro, and Opera browsers support Personal News for a while now already.

Now You: What's your take on the change?

Summary Article Name Chrome for Android: Restore Bookmarks and Recent Tabs links Description Find out how to restore the Bookmarks and Recent Tabs links on the new tab page of Chrome 54 or later on Android devices. Author Martin Brinkmann Publisher Ghacks Technology News Logo

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