Google keeps its homepage relatively clean compared to competitors like Bing or DuckDuckGo. With search built into the URL bar of every mainstream browser, there's really no reason to navigate to a dedicated page, and yet, old habits die hard. Some desktop users might be finding their Google homepages have an all-new set of widgets along the bottom of the screen, filling in once-empty white space with contextual information.

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As spotted by 9to5Google, some folks signed into their Google accounts today are seeing a series of helpful cards below the search box. There's a series of six different widgets, each offering a small piece of info you might be about to search for:

  • Weather
  • Trending
  • What to Watch
  • Stocks
  • Local Events
  • COVID News

Most of these are pretty self-explanatory. Weather uses your geolocation data to pull up current conditions along with a three-day forecast, though interestingly enough, mine was inaccurate. Despite listing my weather as clear and sunny, it's been overcast all day here in Buffalo. Trending seems like a fundamental search tool, with a count along the bottom. What to Watch recommended streaming shows like Euphoria alongside theatrical releases like Uncharted, Stocks had a basic view of the Dow Jones, Local Events promoted a K.Flay concert near me, and COVID News simply prompted me to view recent coverage.

These widgets all seem promising, but they're lacking a bit in their current implementation. These may grow and expand over time, becoming more like Discover's current implementation on Pixels. Right now, they're a little too broad to really be helpful. Thankfully, you can outright disable them by flipping the "Hide content" switch at the bottom of the page.

Not every account has access to these cards just yet — I had to try three different accounts before they showed up on my end. Expect a broader rollout after some additional testing sometime in the future.