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What's Your Browser Start Page?

Posted by Cliff on from the internet-starting-lines dept.

prostoalex asks: "I was just reading an Associated Press story on the most popular Web destinations, where it's noted how the companies are vying for user's attention to become an access point to the Internet. Slashdot's readership is probably not the one to stick to the start page provided by their ISP or their browser manufacturer. What's your browsers start page? A third-party site like Google or Yahoo!? A customized page like My Yahoo! or My MSN? Personal Web site or local HTML file with your favorite bookmarks? about:blank?"

33 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. about:blank by Peartree · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nuthin better. Good & fast...

    1. Re:about:blank by Foolhardy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When I start my browser, I already have a page I want to go to in mind; why bother to load another first?

    2. Re:about:blank by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I used to feel the same way; my home page was about:blank for years. Now my home page is Astronomy Picture of the Day. I'm interested in astronomy and this page is different every day. That makes it a double bonus: I don't get bored with my home page, and I want to visit APOD anyway -- this way I don't forget.

      --
      If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
    3. Re:about:blank by Kris_J · · Score: 2, Interesting

      At home: blank, at work: a funky little corporate homepage I designed for all the staff to give them quick access to the corporate BBS, web portal, webmail, homepage and calendar.

  2. I have two start pages by titaniam · · Score: 5, Informative

    I use firefox, you insensitive clod. I have as many start pages as I like! I actually use only two: drpa.us and peter-a-andrews.com/links.html, both of which are my personal pages.

  3. Slashdot by cyberman11 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Duh. Actually, for a while it was the New York Times. Then Geek.com. For the last few years, it's been Slashdot.

    1. Re:Slashdot by hawkstone · · Score: 3, Interesting

      For me it's slashdot as well.

      But to make things better, my top four slashboxes are:
      1. Mine, with links to commonly visited sites like dictionary.com (would the editors please add one for this!) and gamespot.
      2. Google!
      3. AllMusic
      4. Pricewatch

      Therefore, I have google and slashdot, as well as some other sites, as my homepage.

  4. Google News by DynaSoar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    news.google.com

    Haven't switched since they started it.

    --
    "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
    1. Re:Google News by sreeram · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Me, too.

      The only thing I hate is that it's the "Search News" button that grabs the <Enter> key by default (when you type something into the text box). I hate being forced to use my mouse and click on the "Search Web" button.

      I don't have their toolbar (and refuse to install it). I wish they would allow a preference setting to change the default search. I mean, come on, how many people search for news items, even from news.google.com?

    2. Re:Google News by mcskoufis · · Score: 3, Informative

      Had the same site till recently I read in one of the newsletters I receive about Yahoo having a similar website that updates from 75 000 news sources instead of 4500 !!

      Have you checked Yahoo News ?

    3. Re:Google News by costas · · Score: 3, Informative

      GN is good, but does it let you program personal searches every time you visit? does it learn the subject you're more interested in and suggest new articles on the front page every day? does it let you add to its news feeds directly? give you personal XML and PDA feeds to take home? let you share your favorite stories with friends (automatically)? No, not yet anyway... until then there is memigo [end of shameless plug]

    4. Re:Google News by sevensharpnine · · Score: 2, Informative

      Type your query into the box, then hit the tab key twice to get to the "Search the Web" button.

      --
      "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
  5. a locally cached super-search page by ArmorFiend · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My start page has four text areas:

    google search
    alta-vista search
    google groups search
    debian package search

    its locally cached, so load time is epsilon.

  6. Drudge baby by toddlg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    www.drudgereport.com

    followed by
    Slashdot
    myYahoo with RSS beta &
    Fark

    and that will usually waste 1-2 hours for me each morning...

  7. Wikipedia! by E1ven · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Randompage

    Gives me a Random Wikipedia entry each time I open a browser window. I've buckets of information that I would never otherwise have any inclination to research, but have found very interesting..

    --
    Colin Davis
  8. Google because it is fast and frequently used. by G4from128k · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I use plain Google (my wife uses Google advanced ) because its the most used page on the internet for us. I previously to use a customized Yahoo finance page (an Excite page before that) but they took too long to load.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
  9. US CERT by kalidasa · · Score: 3, Funny

    Because that way, I know what I'm in for when I get into work.

    1. Re:US CERT by Klaruz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Bah, cert.mil is my cert of choice. It's an uphill battle every day. Thanks bill.

      I do use google for my home page, however I may switch to the random wikipidia entry mention elsewhere for home use and keep google at work.

  10. Ballsome.com by joeljkp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ballsome.com, my personal site.

    I figure if I don't like looking at it every time I open a browser window, nobody else will.

    --
    WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
  11. about:mozilla (Now with formatting!) by GodlikeDoglike · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I use about:mozilla. For every Mozilla or Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox/nom du jour release they have a different hidden start page when you type about:mozilla into the address bar.

    Firefox 0.8's:
    And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

    from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

    Coincidentally (i'm sure :P), if you type about:mozilla into IE's address bar, you get a full window blue color in the same hue as a BSOD :)

    (Would a kind mod please mod that ill formatted post down? Thanks.)

  12. Re:google.com by kundor · · Score: 2, Informative
    I also used to have google, but with the google search bar in firefox that's pretty useless.

    So now I have it to my own home page, on a server in my closet -- it links to the webcomics I read and forums I frequent, so it's basically a glorified bookmarks set.

  13. myhq.com by Chris+Brewer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's an online bookmark manager which means I can access my bookmarks from home, work, client sites, etc. without having to sync.

    --
    Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
  14. about 63 different pages... by rusty0101 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Galeon opens in 9 workspaces, with seven tabs per workspace. (give or take a tab in a couple of them.)
    News workpsace has MyYahoo, Slashdot, Linux Today, Google News, Cnn.com, CnetNews, and a local newspaper.
    Four workspaces are for some "social" site or another. One workspace has a whole bunch of blank tabs that I can google directly into as needed, a couple of "My Portal" tabs built by Galeon, mostly for those once or twice a week or month sites.

    That's just at home. Since it's linux, I don't need to reboot it often, so I don't worry too much about "launch" time.

    At work, where I do worry a bit more about launch time, I have a custom page of work and personal relavent links that I update from time to time.

    -Rusty

    --
    You never know...
  15. This should be a poll by shadowbearer · · Score: 4, Insightful



    Inaccurate or no, it would be better that way.

    SB

    --
    It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
  16. about:mozilla by Radical+Rad · · Score: 2, Funny

    And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

    from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

  17. It's supposed to be about:blank by fm6 · · Score: 2, Funny
    But some piece of spywhere keeps changing it to http://allaboutsearching.com/passthrough/index.htm l?http://about:blank. And yes, I've run ad-aware, HijackThis, CWShredder, and SpyBot S&D. This puppy seems to have a mutating signature, so it's not in the databases. At least spybot is able to keep it from downloading any more spyware, something it keeps trying to do. And Spybot also manages to prevent it from doing any popups, so life is tolerable. I just wish I could figure where this software is. Maddening (and scary) that it can hide so thoroughly.

    Yes, I know about Mozilla. Still too slow (even Firefox) and the XUL version of the Google toolbar has serious problems.

    If you were about to tell me to switch to Linux, you really need to get a life.

    But I digress. Why about:blank? Because there's absolute no web page I want to see every time I open a new browser window. Something I do 100 times a day. That's not hype -- 100 is a conservative estimate!

  18. Last viewed set of tabs by driptray · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I like to pick up where I left off, so my start page is the set of tabs I was viewing when I last shut down the browser.

    Using the Multizilla extension in Mozilla.

  19. jumpfile.html by andfarm · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I use a custom jumpfile I've put together over the last year or two which contains all the links I commonly visit up at the top, a Google search box (of course!) and login fields for a few sites like Slashdot.

    For example, here's what I've got for Slashdot:

    <form action=http://slashdot.org/users.pl method=get>
    <i>Slashdot</i>
    <inpu t type=hidden name=op value=userlogin>
    <input type=hidden name=unickname value=andfarm>
    <input type=hidden name=returnto value=http://slashdot.org/>
    <input type=hidden name=userlogin value=Login>
    <input type=password name=upasswd size=8>
    </form>

    (excuse the space in the first <input>; it's Slashdot's, not mine.)

    --

    TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.

  20. MyWay by ziggles · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://my.myway.com/

    Basically a portal like yahoo, but more customizable. And their whole purpose is to run a site with no ads and no popups so that's a nice bonus.

  21. Re:I have x start pages by mahonri5 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I too use firefox to load up six different pages. Just scroll through to visit all my standard pages every morning:
    Pooch Cafe Get Fuzzy Sluggy Freelance Megatokyo User Friendly Slashdot BYU
    Then I usually go to cnn, nytimes, bbc, and deseret morning news for the second set of tabs. I love firefox

  22. Re:my start page by Eevee · · Score: 2, Funny

    Damn, you've got a lot of porn showing up on your start page.

    Errr, wait a minute....

    Just forget I said anything, okay?

  23. STATUS by Gropo · · Score: 3, Funny

    My Linksys WET_11 Status page to tell me wether or not my leeched WiFi access is active :P

    --
    I hate Grammar Nazi's
  24. Another vote for Google.com by MachDelta · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why? Two reasons.

    One, google is simple and on a screamin fast pipe. If google doesn't load when I open my browser, I know my network or ISP is broken.
    Secondly, each time I open a new window, its set to load my homepage (google). So all I need to do is gesture up (All-in-one Gestures extension) to open a new window, and bam: I'm ready to search da intarnet. With gestures, its even faster than having google in the menu bar (which I don't really like anyways). You don't have to click on anything, since the cursor defaults to googles search line... so a quick flick of the wrist upwards, anywhere on the screen, and i'm in business. Its wonderful.

    That random wikipedia link is pretty cool though... maybe i'll add a second homepage to Firefox here...