Speedtab

Speedtab is a local-first Chrome new tab extension built as a fast Speed Dial and modular dashboard instead of a blank page or a slow cloud product.

It replaces the browser new tab page with three integrated building blocks:

• visual bookmarks
• RSS/Atom feeds
• typed notes, including client-side encrypted notes

Everything runs in the browser. There is no backend, no account, and no required cloud service.

Chrome Web Store: Speedtab

Current public version: 1.4.2

Highlights

• Local-first architecture with IndexedDB via Dexie
• Replaces the Chrome/Brave new tab page
• Rebuilt in 1.4.0 from a Vue-based UI to a lighter YaiJS/YEH runtime with delegated event handling
• Dense module-based layout with pages, modules, and tabs
• Fully keyboard-navigable tabbed interfaces with nested YaiTabs components
• Global default wallpaper plus background overrides
• Expanded appearance controls for shell, bookmarks, and notes
• Visual bookmark tiles with preview images and favicons
• Optional bookmark titles below full-size tiles
• Notes with text, code, links, HTML, and encrypted content
• RSS/Atom feed reader with source navigation, read state, archiving, and optional auto-refresh
• Module quick settings directly inside module dropdowns
• Asset browser with favicon repair tools for difficult transparent icons
• Identity-aware JSON export/import for portable local workspaces
• Drag reordering for pages, modules, source lists, and collections
• Responsive zoomed feed module for focused reading
• UI translations for English, German, Turkish, and Hindi

Screenshots

Speedtab - Speed Dial 4.0

Notes Viewer

Expanded Feed Reader

Custom Speedtab

Sort Speedtab

Privacy

Speedtab is designed to keep user data local.

• Application data is stored in IndexedDB inside the browser profile
• Notes of type crypt are encrypted client-side with AES-GCM
• Key derivation uses PBKDF2-SHA256 with 310,000 iterations
• Passphrases are not stored or cached by the app
• Feed requests are performed by the extension service worker to bypass CORS, not by a remote Speedtab server
• Feed favicons are resolved through DuckDuckGo's favicon service
• Export/import uses a local export.json file

What Speedtab Stores

Speedtab stores:

• pages
• app appearance settings
• theme selections and preset overrides
• modules
• collections
• bookmarks
• notes
• feed sources
• archived feed items
• bookmark preview and favicon assets

Speedtab does not currently export feed cache responses. Feed items fetched from sources are treated as local cache and can be rebuilt by refreshing sources.

Features

Bookmarks

• Organize bookmarks into pages, modules, and tabs
• Upload preview images and store them locally
• Crop previews to a fixed compact tile ratio before saving
• Use favicons for fast recognition
• Force favicon mode for compact or image-free bookmark modules
• Quicklinks mode for dense favicon-first bookmark layouts
• Optional title-below-thumbnail mode for full-size visual bookmark tiles
• Choose whether bookmark modules open links in the current tab or new tabs
• Dense tile layout optimized for fast scanning

Notes

• text notes for quick writing
• code notes with syntax highlighting
• links notes with one-link-per-line parsing
• html notes sanitized before rendering
• crypt notes encrypted locally before storage

Feeds

• Add and validate RSS/Atom sources
• Refresh sources from the extension service worker
• Read feed items inside a dense integrated reader
• Filter items by source
• Limit visible items per source
• Track read/unread state per item
• Mark visible items read or unread in bulk
• Optional per-feed-module auto-refresh while the tab is visible
• Expand a feed module into a focused reading view
• Archive interesting items with optional comments

Portability

• Export workspace data to a checksum-based speedtab-export-<checksum>.json
• Re-import the same export without duplicating authored records
• Move workspaces between browser profiles with identity-aware merge import
• Feed cache stays local; archived feed items remain portable
• Local-first data model now provides a real foundation for future sync work

Appearance

• Upload a default background image globally
• Override backgrounds per page
• Customize shell, bookmark, and note appearance with CSS variable-driven controls
• Repair dark transparent favicons directly from the asset browser when needed
• Tune module spacing, shell sizing, and module quick settings without leaving the workspace

Languages

• English
• German
• Turkish
• Hindi

Tech Stack

• TypeScript
• Vite
• YaiJS
• Yai Event Hub (YEH)
• YaiTabs
• @crxjs/vite-plugin
• Dexie
• dexie-export-import
• DOMPurify
• CropperJS
• Highlight.js
• Vitest

Permissions

Current extension permissions:

• storage
• unlimitedStorage
• contextMenus
• host permissions for http://*/* and https://*/*

Why they are needed:

• storage: required for local-only extension settings such as remote sync configuration and credentials in chrome.storage.local
• unlimitedStorage: allows larger local datasets and image assets in IndexedDB
• contextMenus: lets users send selected text or the current page into Speedtab from the browser context menu
• host permissions: required so the background service worker can fetch RSS/Atom feeds across origins

Speedtab requests broad host permissions because users can configure RSS/Atom feeds from arbitrary domains, and those domains cannot be enumerated in advance.

Browser Compatibility

Speedtab is built as a Chromium extension and works in Chrome, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi.

• Chrome and Brave support replacing the new tab page directly
• Opera and Vivaldi can run the extension, but may not allow the extension to override the browser new tab page in the same way

If new-tab override is not available in your browser, Speedtab can still be opened manually through the extension page URL:

chrome-extension://<extension-id>/src/newtab.html

Example:

chrome-extension://hkepphnhcfldcegpphjjlkamgdjihgjp/src/newtab.html

The most practical manual-open method is to bookmark that URL or pin it as a start page in the browser.

Note: the extension ID may stay the same in your own installs, but that should not be treated as a universal guarantee across every build, package, or browser installation.

Development

Install

npm install

Run in development

npm run dev

This starts the Vite/CRX development server.

Build the extension

npm run build

Load the unpacked extension from dist/ in chrome://extensions or brave://extensions.

Type-check

npm run type-check

Run tests

npm test

Project Structure

src/
  background/      Extension service worker
  db/              Dexie database setup
  lib/yai/         Embedded YaiJS, YEH, and YaiTabs runtime
  locales/         UI translations
  next/            New Speedtab app shell, features, styles, and extra surfaces
  types/           Shared TypeScript data model
manifest.json      Extension manifest

Architecture Notes

• The UI is local-first and boots from IndexedDB
• Since 1.4.0, the extension runs on a YaiJS/YEH architecture instead of the older Vue/Tailwind stack
• Event handling is delegation-first: shared listeners route actions across nested UI without per-component lifecycle registration
• Data is modeled around Page -> Module -> Collection -> Item
• YaiTabs powers the main page shell, module tabs, and even deeply nested tab structures inside HTML notes
• Feed fetching is delegated to the background service worker
• Feed cache is local and rebuildable; archived feed items are portable user data
• Bookmark images are stored as binary blobs in IndexedDB
• Heavy UI dependencies such as CropperJS and Highlight.js are lazy-loaded on demand
• Maintenance helpers clean up orphaned records after deletes/imports
• Export/import is identity-aware rather than a raw browser storage dump

Related links:

• YaiTabs Demo: https://yaijs.github.io/yai/tabs/Example.html
• YaiJS Repo: https://github.com/yaijs/yai

Chrome Web Store Draft Copy

Short Description

Local-first new tab dashboard with bookmarks, feeds, notes, and encrypted notes.

Long Description

Speedtab replaces the default browser new tab page with a dense, fast, local-first dashboard.

Build pages for different contexts, split them into modules, and organize content into tabs. Combine visual bookmarks, RSS/Atom feeds, quick notes, code snippets, link lists, HTML notes, encrypted private notes, theming, and a focused feed reader in one place.

Speedtab is built around speed, structure, and ownership over your data:

• no required account
• no backend service
• no cloud dependency
• local data storage in the browser
• export/import for portability

Feed requests are handled by the extension itself, bookmark assets are stored locally, encrypted notes are protected client-side, and feed modules can optionally auto-refresh while you actively use Speedtab.

Portable export/import is built around stable record identities, so Speedtab workspaces can move between browser profiles without turning into duplicated data dumps.

If you want a customizable new tab workspace instead of a generic start page, Speedtab is built for that job.

Suggested Store Tags

• new tab
• start page
• dashboard
• bookmarks
• rss reader
• notes
• productivity
• local-first