What are the "New Tab Wallpapers & Themes" extensions and how do they work?

These are lightweight extensions to replace the cluttered new tab of your browser with a simple light wallpaper of the day based on user-defined categories. There is a preferences panel that can be accessed by pressing the button located in the top-right side of the new page to adjust the wallpaper properties such as width, height and the keywords that are used when a new random wallpaper is requested. By default, only two keywords are provided. You can append more keywords to increase the accuracy of the random image's category. Beside fetching the image resource for a web server, this extension does not send nor receive any data and can work offline. Note that there are many alternatives to this extension that basically redirect your new tab to an online service to display the wallpaper. These sort of extension put the user at the risk of being tracked.

What's new in this version?

Please check the Logs section.

How does this extension find new wallpapers?

The extension uses a free API from source.unsplash.com to get the random image based on the category and keywords that are configured in the preferences panel. This service provides a searchable API to select images from a very large database. The category is hardcoded so for instance if you have the "Dogs & Puppies Wallpapers & Themes" extension that category would be "Animals".

How can I add the weather widget to the new tab?

Open the preferences panel by clicking on the button provided on the top-right side of the new tab page and enter the location information such as the city and country 2 char code (e.g.: London, UK). Note that to protect the user privacy, this extension does not detect the location manually. You have to enter the data user-self!. When the location data is filled, the extension fetches the weather info from www.openweathermap.org and displays the widget as soon as the data is ready. To hide the widget simply remove your location data from the preferences panel. If the widget is shown, you can place your mouse over the widget to see the last updated time. This widget updates itself every 15 minutes.

Can I request a new wallpaper when I don't like the one that is currently shown?

Yes, simply press the left-bottom refresh button and wait for a few seconds for the extension to fetch a new random image. You can do this as many time as you would like to! Note that each wallpaper has a 24 hour lifetime. So when you open the new tab after this period, the extension will fetch a new one for you. Also, note that you can always adjust the keywords in the preferences panel to guide the extension to get more accurate images.