Google, of course - your power at their fingertips.

iGoogle.

I have Google Reader, News, and Gmail as showing up first thing. When I finish with those I then go to other websites. I stick to one website at a time and usually use tabs to explore the website I'm on until I've caught up with any changes.

I can see why some people want to open to about:blank to speed things up, but that fails if you always go to the same website first thing. As I keep my browser open the entire time I'm online and typically only have one window open it would only slow me down. Besides it takes less than 2 seconds for Google to load and my reaction time isn't much faster. Even if I don't want Google I waste maybe 1 second.

Quote: Original post by Straudos

Quote: Original post by AndreTheGiant
I made my own homepage which is a mashup of all my favorite sites and bookmarks. Its got news highlights, the weather, newest movie releases, and I can search google, IMDB, wikipedia and about 5 other sites from it.

How did you do this?

Its very simple, you just basically create an HTML file that you would like to use as your browser homepage, and point your browser to that local file instead of an http:// address
In firefox the syntax for me is: file:///D:/HomePage/index.html

I didnt use iframes like phresnel suggests, just basic HTML. Actually I used tables because I created it way before I discovered css, and I see no need to change it. However, CSS works of course, as does anything else on a 'real' website. I'm using &#106avascript to grab input from the appropriate text fields and send a search to the appropriate website.
If you look at a basic google search for example, it looks like http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=whatever
So my javascrtipt just pre-pends "http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=" to whatever you type in the text box. Similar for wikipedia and others.
Ive actually downloaded the logos for each site and I'm using a 50x100 image for each of my bookmarks to make it really easy to find what I'm looking for. I store the images locally so load time for the page is basically zero.

Edit:
Oops, actually yes for the content being pulled from other sites, I do use an iframe or two. Sorry phresnel ;)

Quote:

Its very simple, you just basically create an HTML file that you would like to use as your browser homepage, and point your browser to that local file instead of an http:// address
In firefox the syntax for me is: file:///D:/HomePage/index.html

yes thats what I have as well (since last century) as its the most logical method.
judging by whats been written here apparently its not as common as I thought,
actually thats a bit shocking

Quote: Original post by Anon Mike
I've never understood why anybody would want anything but about:blank.

Because they would go to the same site 90% of the time they start their PC?

Mine is gmail, since it just stays open the whole time.

Quote: Original post by Sirisian
yeah I haven't seen my homepage in a while, but I just checked and it's set to the f***ing weather. It's pretty much the only way I like seeing my weather update. Right to the point.

34°?!
ITS F**KING COLD
I'm not sure how you can stand it


I don't think this site is entirely accurate as it's raining outside, which is a sign of it not being cold, but I'll have to keep this site in mind come January as I'd like to see what it has to say about temperatures around -34 :P

As for my homepage, it's just the chrome dialer

Quote: Original post by benryves
Speed Dial, of course!

Very Yes.

Even though I have Opera set to start with Speed Dial, I usually set the homepage for it and all the other browsers I have installed to google.com or that google.com/ig thing. The only exception being if I intend to use a browser for only one thing, such as right now I use Google Chrome only for wave, so I think I have wave as the home page right now.

So it's always Google something. :P