# Do you use a "home page"/portal? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 31, 2008, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670 "2008-01-31T02:12:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/21 "2008-01-31T11:08:52Z")
[QUOTE=appleciders] Can you? How? [/QUOTE] Get Firefox set up with the pages on the tabs that you’d like to have there when it opens, then click on Tools/Internet Options/General tab. Click on “Use Current”. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/22 "2008-01-31T12:48:27Z")
Yes, I use iGoogle. It pops up, I see my stocks, some widgets for teams I like, NY Times headlines, weather, ESPN Headlines. I have a link to maps, gMail, etc. I use a tabbed browser, and my iGoogle page is always my first tab. I find it odd that seasoned net surfers wouldn’t use one. Don’t you have pages/informaion that fits on a home page that you visit every day? ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/23 "2008-01-31T13:10:34Z")
On the rare occasions that I actually start my browser (it’s always running, and I always standby or hibernate my PC), it just loads that tabs I had open last time [ETA: I think this is a feature of the TabMixPlus extension that I use]. Just checking now, it seems that my home page is Google UK. But I have also removed the Home button from my toolbar because I never use it. ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/24 "2008-01-31T15:20:40Z")
At work, my home page is our company’s intranet page. At home, it’s my LJ friends’ page. No particular reason, it’s just one of the places I visit frequently. I’m in the process of building my own. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/25 "2008-01-31T17:54:57Z")
[QUOTE=Savannah] My start page is my own page of favoured links. No images, all text. I occasionally update it, add stuff, make it pretty, then go back to just text. I am my own portal. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Yep, I do the same thing. The really nice thing is, I can access that from anywhere. If I want to show something to a friend at his house, the link is there waiting for me. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/26 "2008-01-31T18:53:14Z")
[QUOTE=Suse] I use MSN as my home page. I just got used to it and it suits me fine. I have no idea what tabs are. Yes, I’m that computer-illiterate. I just don’t have the time I used to have to play around with things. [/QUOTE] I use NPR for a home page, but I’m confused about tabs as well. I use them, but I probably don’t make **good** use of them. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/27 "2008-01-31T19:14:36Z")
[QUOTE=Brown Eyed Girl] Is anyone still opening multiple browsers windows? [/QUOTE] At work, sadly, we’re still using IE 6, so no tabs yet. At home, my Mac opens to my ISP’s site for no particular reason other than laziness on my part. It’s a very sparse, fast-loading page, so no particular worries. If I want to open with Google, I just tap a button on my drawing tablet and a Google box pops up. (Technically, it brings up Dashboard, but it’s still quick as a wink.) From there, yes, CMD-T brings up blank tabs, which I use with reckless abandon, especially since Safari was updated to ask “You’re about to close five tabs. Continue?” ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/28 "2008-01-31T19:16:58Z")
At work it just goes to our intranet site. My home home page is set to [Play.net](http://Play.net). ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/29 "2008-01-31T19:19:56Z")
[QUOTE=Phase42] The two current threads re: Yahoo! made me wonder about actual use of the “home page” feature of Web browsers. So I’ll ask: do you have your browser set to automatically open a particular Web page when you open a window? If so, why? [/QUOTE] My “home page” is always set to [CNN.com](http://CNN.com). Why? So I can keep current at least with the _headlines_ of the day, if not the actual “news”. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/30 "2008-01-31T19:22:44Z")
[QUOTE=Trunk] Don’t you have pages/informaion that fits on a home page that you visit every day? [/QUOTE] Nope. My first task at my computer each day is checking my e-mail, for which I use a dedicated e-mail client and an account connected to my own domain name. Part of checking my e-mail is my SDMB “Reply to Post” notifications, so the first things I actually look at on the Web are those SDMB threads. That’s followed by the 31 webcomics I read regularly. I suppose I could have all of these load in tabs and call that my “home page”, but since they don’t all update on a daily basis that would be a waste of time and bandwidth, even with my broadband connection. Then I read Cecil’s column for the day, and then I start perusing the SDMB for new threads of interest. As for the stuff typically found on a home page/portal: I use the “weather widget” tool of the Mac OS X Dashboard for weather forecasts (I just hit F12 for this); for news it doesn’t take long to type “[cnn.com](http://cnn.com)”; for sports scores … baseball is the only sport I follow closely, so I get that information directly from the Seattle Mariners site and in any case I likely listened to the game the night before so I don’t need to check the score, and the Mariners site provides links to other baseball stories of interest; I don’t have a stock portfolio; I don’t read my horoscope. ETA: Also, all of the Mac browsers have had a Google search field right there in the toolbar for some time now, so I really never even need to visit [google.com](http://google.com) (the preferred search engine can be changed in most cases, too). ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/31 "2008-01-31T20:12:54Z")
CNN at home. I usually want to check the news headlines first thing in the AM. I usually use the tabs in Firefox to open additional pages. ---
**Author:** ![Unsquare\_Dance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b3f665/32.png) [@Unsquare\_Dance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unsquare_Dance)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/32 "2008-01-31T20:21:52Z")
Gmail is my home page so that I can obsessively check all of my e-mail accounts at once. Precious, precious e-mails, like tiny droplets of gold-tinted joy! ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/33 "2008-01-31T21:25:44Z")
I use a blank page. Typically I have a destination in mind when I open Firefox, and so I don’t need to load a welcome screen just to bypass it. If I want to go to iGoogle, I’ll go there. [QUOTE=Brown Eyed Girl] Is anyone still opening multiple browsers windows? Tabbed browsing is the wave of the future, sport! I have tabs set to load nothing. [/QUOTE] I actually use both, depending on what I’m working on. If I’m reading SDMB threads or doing research on computer issues, all the various pages that get opened get tabbed. If I need to open, say, Gmail while doing that, I’ll open a new window, since Gmail has nothing to do with the SDMB or the research. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2008, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/34 "2008-01-31T22:05:12Z")
[QUOTE=Brown Eyed Girl] Is anyone still opening multiple browsers windows? Tabbed browsing is the wave of the future, sport! I have tabs set to load nothing. [/QUOTE] I use tabs by default, but if I’m working on several different things I’ll open other browser instances and use tabs in those instances to help me group stuff a little better. ---
**Author:** ![BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/35 "2008-02-01T01:59:52Z")
[QUOTE=gotpasswords] At work, sadly, we’re still using IE 6, so no tabs yet. At home, my Mac opens to my ISP’s site for no particular reason other than laziness on my part. It’s a very sparse, fast-loading page, so no particular worries. If I want to open with Google, I just tap a button on my drawing tablet and a Google box pops up. (Technically, it brings up Dashboard, but it’s still quick as a wink.) From there, yes, CMD-T brings up blank tabs, which I use with reckless abandon, especially since Safari was updated to ask “You’re about to close five tabs. Continue?” [/QUOTE] You’re probably aware of this, but in case you want to try to circumvent mgmt’s policy on IE (unless it’s a compatability issue or something), I believe there’s an add-on for FF that makes the window look like an IE window. Or maybe it’s Netscape. ---
**Author:** ![cornflakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@cornflakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornflakes)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/36 "2008-02-01T04:27:10Z")
[QUOTE=Savannah] My start page is my own page of favoured links. No images, all text. I occasionally update it, add stuff, make it pretty, then go back to just text. I am my own portal. 🙂 [/QUOTE] That’s what I do at work. I made a webpage of about fifty links that I regularly use. It’s about as pretty as a shopping list, but it saves me tons of time during the day. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/37 "2008-02-01T04:31:17Z")
iGoogle, with weather and news on it. And Mr. Fox, who brings me great joy with his predictable daily routine. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/38 "2008-02-01T04:34:13Z")
Firefox, iGoogle, blank tabs. You know, like Og intended! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/39 "2008-02-01T16:44:21Z")
[QUOTE=BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed] You’re probably aware of this, but in case you want to try to circumvent mgmt’s policy on IE (unless it’s a compatability issue or something), I believe there’s an add-on for FF that makes the window look like an IE window. Or maybe it’s Netscape. [/QUOTE] You mean I should circumvent the policies that I enforce? :dubious: Actually, I could have FF or the red-haired stepchild known as Safari for Windows if I could demonstrate a business need and get approval and so on. Not really worth the effort. If I could use FF, I would, and I wouldn’t bother making it look like IE. ---
**Author:** ![Khampelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670/40 "2008-02-01T18:05:30Z")
My home page is hotmail, so I can check email before going to the fun parts of the internet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-use-a-home-page-portal/435670.md?page=3)