Getting Started with Anchor

What is Anchor?

Anchor is a start page you build yourself. It replaces your new tab screen and bookmarks bar with a full-page desktop: your links, arranged the way you think, plus a few useful widgets like your calendar, the weather, and a sticky note.

The idea is simple. You open dozens of tabs a day. The first thing you see shouldn't be a blank page, or a row of forty unlabeled favicons you set up years ago.

Why bother?

Think about how you actually find things right now. Maybe you hunt through the bookmarks bar. Maybe you type the same URLs every morning and let autocomplete finish them. Maybe you search your history and hope.

That works, sort of. But it's odd that your operating system gives you a desktop you can arrange however you like, while your browser, where you spend most of the day, gives you nothing. Anchor fills that gap. One page, your stuff, with the things you use daily exactly where you left them.

Setting up

Three steps, a few minutes:

  1. Create a desktop. Start from a template or import your existing bookmarks. No account needed; you can sign up later if you want sync.
  2. Add your daily links. Begin with the five or ten sites you actually open every day. The rest can wait.
  3. Make it your new tab. Install the browser extension, or set Anchor as your browser's home page.

That's it. Every new tab now opens on your desktop. Tweak it as you go; the first version won't be perfect, and it doesn't need to be.

Where to go next