Home Office: Make Your Browser's Home Page Really Homey

Make your Web browser default to something useful.

Steve Bass

I saw something alarming the other day. My neighbor's home page--the screen his browser automatically opens to--was MSN. Okay now, raise your hand if you're in the same boat: Your Web browser's home page is the same one that was there when you bought your PC or installed the browser.

Listen, boys and girls, it doesn't have to be that way. This week I'll show you my Yahoo home page and explain how I customized it. And later in the newsletter I'll tell you why I'm switching away from Yahoo.

Point Me Home

Changing your home page is a five-minute operation. In Internet Explorer, go to the Web site you want to use as your home page. Then from the Tools menu, choose Internet Options and click the Use Current button for the first setting, "Home Page."

In Netscape, from the Web site you want to use as your Home page, choose the Edit menu and select Preferences. I'm using version 6.01; if you've got a different version, it may have slightly different menus from here on. You'll need to find the Navigator category or a dialog area that shows the Home Page option. Once you've done that, just click the Use Current Page button and you're done. But while you're there, examine the Toolbars section of the Options area. Here you can uncheck the buttons Netscape that automatically adds, to get rid of things you might not need or want.

Ad Dumping

No matter what home page you use, the first thing you need to do is get rid of all the blaring, shameless self-aggrandizing banner and pop-up ads. You can decide for yourself whether blocking ads is ethical. Ads that are deceptive (for example, the one that looks like a download gauge and says, "click here"); pop-up boxes, or worse, those dang pop-under boxes; and blinking Flash animations are all fair game as far as I'm concerned. Both Mozilla and Netscape 7.01 have built-in ad blockers; for more information, read "Upgraded Netscape Stops Pop-Ups."

There are plenty of other third-party ad blockers around; I'll have more to say about them in a future newsletter. In the meantime, check out a few pop-up stoppers at "Eliminate Pop-Up Ads," a collection on our Downloads site.

Dig This: In the last newsletter I sent you to a site that tests your ability to recognize colors. This week I've got the Reflex Tester to help you kill time until your next staff meeting.

Playing With Portals

I think of my browser--and home page--as the center of my online activity, sort of a control panel that gets me to other places quickly and efficiently. For now I'm using Yahoo as my home page. BTW, you may hear Yahoo called a "portal," something that sounds mysterious or complicated. It's just a single integrated point for access to information, people, and other Web sites, kind of a personalized user interface.

My reason for using Yahoo is twofold: Yahoo provides a variety of information, more than most portals, and it's blessedly easy to customize a page. Page layouts are simple to design. Most Yahoo modules--calendar, maps, e-mail, and weather, for instance--can be placed on either side of the home page. Bookmarks, portfolios, news, and other modules can be removed from the page to temporarily become floating boxes. And the content can be set into either two medium-size columns or two narrow columns and one wide.

I have five separate Yahoo pages, each serving a different need, and each easily accessible from my main home page. For instance, my main page includes news, my calendar, my e-mail, Yahoo Messenger, local events, bookmarks, weather, financial portfolio, maps, and the Yellow Pages. I have another page devoted to entertainment that has links to local movie theaters, my favorite movie reviewers, and TV listings. And I spend time on a half-dozen auction-related pages, so I've dedicated a Yahoo page strictly to auctions. Get the idea?

Instant Messaging

If you have an AT&T Wireless phone, you may be intrigued to learn that you and your Yahoo Messenger buddies can send instant text messages back and forth. (Please don't send me one, I'm driving.) It's cool, and you can send messages from Yahoo for free--but you'll see a 10-cents-per-message charge when you use your phone. For the rest of the story, read "AT&T Offers Yahoo Messenger on the Go."

Talking about Yahoo Messenger: If you listen to the radio via Yahoo's Launchcast station, now you can send messages to other IM users who would be interested in the same album, artist, or song. The story is in "Yahoo Connects Launchcast Listeners."

Quick Read: Does your PC shut down like it should? If it sometimes hangs, occasionally balks, or often acts strange (in other words, like a teenager), see what Lincoln Spector has to say in "Answer Line: Why Doesn't My Computer Turn Off Properly?"

Various and Sundry Internet Tips

And while I'm on the subject, don't you hate it when Microsoft's Messenger keeps popping into your System Tray every time you load Internet Explorer? Scott's Spanbauer tackles that and other problems, in "Internet Tips: Wage War on Spam With Old Tools and New Filters."

You've read this far, so I have a hunch that you probably spend lots of time browsing the Web. Listen, I found a handful of Internet utilities that I just couldn't live without. I wrote about them in "Not-So-Stupid Browser Tricks," a title my not-so-stupid editor dreamed up. In particular, I don't want you to miss AI RoboForm, the handiest-dandiest free utility for filling in forms I've ever used. If you lack the patience to read the whole article, you can just skip ahead to the files.

Dig This: It's weird; it's strange; there's music; and you'll lose an hour in no time clicking on all the images to see what they do. And once an image loads, you can use your mouse to make it do strange things. My favorites? Any image with an eye.

Yoo-hoo, Yahoo? Adios

I remember back when Yahoo was an upstart--a lean, quick, kick-ass site that was a pleasure to use. Now it's a slow-loading megalopolis, cluttered with banner ads, pop-ups, and pesky requests for your password. (And I can never look at the Yahoo logo without thinking of Yoo-hoo, an insipid chocolate-flavored drink from my childhood. Never heard of it? Visit the site.)

I recently learned about a new portal called MyWay, and it's becoming my new home page. It's just like Yahoo used to be, offering dozens of valuable modules and lightning fast loading. But get this: There are no ads, pop-ups, or other annoying distractions. And the site has a scant, two-paragraph privacy policy. How do the MyWay folks earn a living? They make their bucks through Google's sponsored listings and text links; if you do a Google search from MyWay's page and click on the identified listing, they pick up a few dollars. (BTW, thanks to Jon Bjerke for telling me about MyWay.)

I know what you're thinking; I had the same worry: What about all your old home page settings? No problemo. Try MyWay and you'll discover how many of Yahoo's settings can be imported. For instance, I easily imported Yahoo's portfolio, e-mail, and calendar settings. MyWay also grabs e-mail addresses from Hotmail, AOL, AT&T, Netscape, and others; and it works with portfolio data sites including AOL, Quicken, Merrill Lynch, MSN, Charles Schwab, and others.

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