is this your first glass top range? the easiest way is to be somewhat careful about dragging pans over the top. The only real items that will scratch the top are salt and sugar under the pans. You can use newsprint for frying for easy cleanup.

For the most part, anything that looks good to leave there is too thick. another sheet of glass would be too much. Reminds me of people that used to cover their furniture in plastic slip covers.

Not my first glass top, but it is my first induction. I understand that using something like silicone not only protects the glass from scratches but also helps to isolate at least some of the heat transfer from the cookware which in the long term helps to protect the electronics. I was hoping that maybe a thin tempered glass might serve similarly - there are some really nice ones out there that are more like art then anything else. They would at least serve as trivets beside the stove if I can't leave it on while cooking. I could also then just leave the ugly silicone mat on the stove top with the glass on top when not cooking.

I was looking at the invisicook technology where the induction cooktop is placed beneath your countertop and they sell little risers for your pots and pans so that your counters don’t get hot or scratched. Sounds like these risers would also work on the glass cooktop and serve to avoid any scratching.

Tempered glass might not have the thermal range needed. That would have to be investigated.

Fused silica (as in original Pyrex) might work, as it would have to withstand the same hot pan temperatures that the Ceran was invented to deal with on the cooktop, but be harder. Note that fused silica in that size is not common, and perhaps only available in thicknesses needed for grinding to shape for astronomical telescope objectives. (It has been a long time since I had reason to look into fused silica availability, so maybe now even window glass thicknesses are available. Ask Corning.)

Thin would be needed for induction, as gapping the pan more than a half inch might cause the pan detect circuit to shut off the hob. Invisicook may tune their detection circuit differently than the surface induction cooktop manufacturers.

In any case, Ceran protection can be managed just by not dragging, as noted, and using sets of small silicone pads as trivet analogues.