I write my own in HTML. It has the sites I visit most often, in the order I wish, and I can change it anytime I want with a word processor without having to figure out the arcane procedure.
Because bookmarks don’t transfer between computers, not to mention they don’t automatically sync between different browsers on different computers, and bookmarks have to be organized the way the bookmark programmers say, which means next year’s version will be different. Basic HTML hasn’t changed for decades and it’s second nature to me.
At work, there’s an intranet home page with a bunch of newsy crap, and links to our databases and server applications, so I have to use that (with IE 2003, f’r god’s sake). When I’m actually using the internet at work, I use Firefox with Google as the home page.
Nor would your personal site of bookmarks. Come to my house and use my computer and you’re still going to have to navigate to your site before you can start navigating to all your saved sites.
In Firefox you can sort your bookmarks however you like by creating new folders. You probably can in Chrome too but I’m too lazy and sleepy right now to open Chrome.
What? Nobody automatically saves and restores previous sessions? How often do you open your browser from scratch? I use my old tabs to remember what I have to do. New tabs open duplicate pages, so I can go back (e.g. to search results) if necessary.
My personal HTML site of bookmarks is available EVERYWHERE the Internet is, even your house, because I post it on a web site of my choice and the name can be as short as {domain}\A. There’s not a lot of complicated navigation there.
I am forced to use about 7 computers in 5 locations on a weekly basis, and when I support clients, each support session is with another computer. Browsers include Chrome, Firefox and IE (diff versons), on multiple operating systems. Imagine trying to sync those after making a single change, and then re-syncing when a system has to be restored for any reason. Putting a single HTML file on a web site is an easy alternative that has served me well for many years. All I have to do is remember the short URL of my choice.
I use my Home page as a sort of morning newspaper. I have news feeds, filtered to my interests. I have weather, I have a couple of subscribed blogs that I like, I have sports (filtered to the teams I like), I even have a couple of daily cartoons, including classic Calvin & Hobbes.
Old habits die hard. I like the cleanest look possible, and customization. I have started out virtually every day of my adult life with some sort of morning news/weather/funnies. For the last 18 yrs or so, it’s been online in one form or another. I haven’t subscribed to a newspaper in about 10 yrs.
This sucks about igoogle. I used my yahoo for years until my yahoo acct got spammed and hijacked to death. I think building one sounds like a good idea actually.
Another “blank” home pager. And not really that. Since I use Opera, I am lucky enough to be able to have the browser open with no tabs whatsoever. So no home page of any sort. Just beautiful nothingness as a default.
I go a long time, weeks, between computer reboots. And I try to keep the browser alive as much as possible thru that time. (Not always possible.) So I rarely start up the browser and then it’s after a crash, so a restore session thing is usually the default.
I don’t get the home page concept. Don’t people know about bookmarks?
I can see something like iGoogle if you use a lot of different machines and don’t know how to keep an online profile for your bookmarks (and other settings!). But there are better ways.
This is an IMHO thread. Just because any one person (or more) does things the way they personally like, doesn’t mean that’s the only way, or the better way, or the smarter way.
I was wondering what others do. It’s interesting to me to see other opinions and ways.
On many of the home pages I’ve used, I didn’t have to click on anything. It was just right there. The current weather and basic forecast. Headlines with a very brief blurb of a synopsis (I can click on the link for the whole article). Sports scores. Etc… I can scan the page for something in mere picoseconds. Clicking on links is an option. And it’s all based on options I set.
Very much like a newspaper’s front page (but even better).
Of course, on the Mighty SDMB, as always, IMHO, YMMV
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