# Home Page Options **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 14, 2013, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207 "2013-08-14T13:16:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SanDiegoTim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@SanDiegoTim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanDiegoTim)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207/1 "2013-08-14T13:16:48Z")
I’ve been using Yahoo as a home page for years. Have it formatted for a few news feeds, weather, stocks, etc. Anyway, it’s become more intrusive over time with more and more advertising. I’d like to know what others are using that allow for some basic customization, but ones that are not prone to excessive advertising. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207/2 "2013-08-14T14:02:26Z")
You’re asking for opinions and suggestions rather than factual information, so I’ve suggested to the moderators that they move this thread. That said, I cannot figure out why ANYone likes those cluttered homepages. Instead, I have several home pages for websites that I frequent: Google, my email, Straight Dope, Wikipedia, [Weather.com](http://Weather.com). If I had any investments I might put something on about that, but it would be a full-page dedicated site, not some programmer’s cute widget. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207/3 "2013-08-14T14:14:57Z")
I’ve never been a Yahoo user, but maybe something like ighome dot com? It is primarily designed to be a replacement for Google’s soon-to-be-removed iGoogle, but it might work for your needs. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207/4 "2013-08-14T19:16:00Z")
(Putting in my opinion since I assume this will be moved.) I’ve tried [ighome.com](http://ighome.com) and it isn’t ideal. It’s slow but even worse I can’t get predictive search to work. I haven’t found anything as good as iGoogle. Bastards. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207/5 "2013-09-29T23:40:21Z")
Thought I’d resurrect this thread, as time marches on and iGoogle is closer to becoming a memory (Nov 1st). I’ve looked at a few options for replacement. **[Ighome.com](http://Ighome.com)** was a possibility for awhile, but I never was wild about it. **[Netvibes.com](http://Netvibes.com)** looks to be very full-featured and customizable. In the absence of another viable alternative, I will probably go with it. It does have one problem that is vexing for me: It has the ability to show your most recent Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL emails, and others, but I can’t get it to work well with my [GMX.com](http://GMX.com) email address. Short of that, it looks quite good. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207/6 "2013-09-29T23:52:13Z")
**Moderator Action** I don’t know why this wasn’t moved the first time around, but off to IMHO it goes. Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207/7 "2013-10-01T12:57:14Z")
Consider not using a home page. It’s just something that consumes bandwidth while you wait for the page you are actually interested in loads. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207/8 "2013-10-01T13:34:55Z")
I love my iGoogle home page and I’m sorry to see that it’s about to die. I have all my favorite news sources added so I get all the top headlines plus “word of the day” conveniently smack-dab in the middle of the page so I kind of absorb it. I’ve never noticed iGoogle taking very long to load, although the al Jazeera headlines always take a little longer than the rest. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207/9 "2013-10-01T13:56:50Z")
I use [protopage.com](http://protopage.com) It’s free and you can customize it any way you want, including background and colors. I have it set up with multiple columns with headline feeds, my frequently used links, a weather widget, a calendar, a huge digital clock, a stock market feed with my top stocks, and sometimes a picture of my dogs. As I said, it’s free. There are ads at the top and you can pay to have them removed, but I just scroll down enough that the ads disappear off the top of the window. You can access the page–password-protected-- from anywhere, which is handy if you need one of your favorite links and you’re not at your usual computer. I access it on my kindlefire. ETA: There are NO animations on the page, thank goodness. Hate that flashing stuff. There’s nothing on the page that I don’t put there. Totally custom. ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207/10 "2013-10-01T14:01:11Z")
I’ve used igHome. It works pretty good to consolidate my news feeds into one page. I also use [uStart.org](http://uStart.org) on my tablet and phone. Its easy to use and also does a great job of consolidating my news feeds. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207/11 "2013-10-01T14:18:07Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > Consider not using a home page. > > It’s just something that consumes bandwidth while you wait for the page you are actually interested in loads. This. I honestly don’t see the point of a homepage, especially now that all browsers have a bookmark bar. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2013, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-page-options/666207/12 "2013-10-04T05:18:05Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > This. I honestly don’t see the point of a homepage, especially now that all browsers have a bookmark bar. Because it takes about a half-second to load, and about 95% of what I want from the web is right in front of me - latest emails from different accounts, my favorite bookmarks, latest headlines, weather report for the next 3 days with detail on the current day, search engine, etc. Yeah, I have bookmarks. I have a shit-ton of bookmarks organized into folders. But it takes a few seconds longer to find them and click on them than it does to click on the text link on my home-page. I don’t have to pay for bandwidth by the megabyte, and I have 10-up/10-down. Speed and convenience is why I do it. If you don’t get that, it’s understandable, not everyone will. After all, there are still people who insist on doing as much as possible via CLI. Different strokes. There are a few suggestions here I’m going to try. Thanks for posting them!