Google offers several useful apps and services that we use in our day to day life. Wouldn’t it be great if we can access all those services from a central place so that we don’t have to type the address in the URL bar every-time? That’s where a Google Chrome extension named as Black Menu enters into the scene.
Google has previously introduced the Google bar but then it disappeared after some time. The drop-down menu provided several options but now that it’s gone, you can try out the Black Menu extension. It has comparatively more features than Google bar.
After installing this extension, you will see a new icon in the toolbar. Click on it to open the Black Menu.
Upon clicking on the icon, it will open a fully functional menu which will group all Google’s services into different categories. By clicking the menu entry of your choice, you’ll go to the corresponding Google service in a new tab.
Just hover over the categories on the right-hand side to open menu items related to that category.
To search on Google, you simply have to type the search term and hit Enter to open search results page in a new tab.
The search changes with selection of categories. For example, if you are YouTube category, then you can search directly on YouTube. Results are displayed directly on this page and you can also play the video from here. This is really very convenient for those who don’t want to open a new tab for each and every purpose.
The Gmail menu lets you open Inbox, All Mails, Unread mails, Sent mails, Drafts and more. You can also directly open Compose and Contacts page from here.
Check out all other categories like Google+, Translate, Maps, Play, News, Drive, Calendar and more. All these options come in very handy.
According to the developers, this extension is meant to be a replacement for both, iGoogle and the quickly removed Google menu. Surely it is a better choice compared to these two traditional options.
The good thing about this extension is that it provides a really simple and neat interface to access Google’s services. Plus it opens all services in a different tab so that you don’t need to worry about navigating away from the current tab.
If you want quick access to all Google services or want a faster way to search, then Black Menu is what you should try.
Google Chrome users can download Black Menu from Chrome Web Store.
