
Ask HN: What is your Home Page in your browser? - known
Just curious to know if it is not private
======
rudd
I use Google now, but I used to use a custom-made start page. It had:

    
    
      * an auto-focus search bar linked to Google
      * a bunch of links to my most-visited sites
      * the current snapshot from one of my university's webcams
        (which will auto-refresh if you hovered your mouse on it)
      * a little area for a note to myself that I could edit with a password
    

You can see the page at <http://mrzwolinski.com/start/> if you're curious.

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mahmud
"Reopen last session".

I used to have firefox open with tens of tabs, now I make it a point to keep
it at 6. If I open anything I make sure to read it right then and there, or
make a judgment call to pass; if it's something I will need later I look at
the title and abstract out some googleable keywords. Lately, Searchyc has
replaced google for me for research!

I also try to keep active work and research on two separate browsers. I have
an instance of Opera open to API documentation and stuff I need to get work
done. Firefox is for business and keeping a look on industry.

I use Sage, the FF feed-reader plugin and I monitor _business_ news; no tech,
no programming, no blogs, just business announcements, mergers and
acquisitions and stuff related to my work. Whenever I start to lose focus, I
take a few hours off to read that and I am inspired immediately. I am in
advertising, focused on a specific geographic region, so any business
initiative there, new project or whatever is just perfect news :-)

~~~
tgittos
This.

I use Chrome and Firefox. I keep work related sites in Firefox, and personal
sites in Chrome.

I'll often open tabs of interesting things in Chrome to read when I lose focus
at work, or need a break. Sometimes I can have up to 30 tabs of crap, at which
point I need to decide which ones I'll actually read, and which one's I think
I'll read, then close all but the ones I know I'll actually read.

If I have to read a lot of interrelated articles or am doing personal
research, I'll pull a Chrome tab out and keep it as a separate window.

The thing I love about Chrome is that with the "restore pages that were last
open" option is that it opens all tabs in all windows, not just the main
window, and if for some reason it doesn't reopen all the tabs, it has a list
of recently closed tab groups you can open with a single click.

------
benwr
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random>

When I have time and it's not a stub, or if I just want something to do, I
read some of the article. A few times it's been interesting.

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edw519
Hacker News.

Why delay the inevitable?

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Paton
Google Chrome's start page. (my top 8 visited websites)

~~~
WesleyJohnson
Seconded. In all likelihood, when I'm open my browser I'm going to one of
these 8 so this just makes sense for me.

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carl_
about:blank

~~~
0x3e
about:blank

firefox with tabkit and when I open a new window it is likely I am starting a
new thread of thought

^n new window with focus in url bar no time for loading or change of focus I
want to get started

readline style emacs bindings for editing in the url is a must for me

a good set of quick searches helps

    
    
      - g http://google.com/search?q=%s
      - gau http://google.com.au/search?hl=en&meta=cr%3DcountryAU&q=%s
      - wp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s
      - shn http://searchyc.com/%s
      - etc ...
    

Using the keyword/quick search feature I find the url bar becomes a kind of
command line interface to the internet with a series of 1-3 char commands that
can get me where I need to go.

~~~
JamieEi
I use a search engine home page for the same reason. Used to be google, now
it's bing because I like seeing the picture of the day.

------
scottjackson
<http://start.io>

Totally customisable, good-looking start pages based on a really well-designed
CMS. You can make some of your links private and some public.

I didn't make it, I just really like it. One of the guys that _did_ make it
works at Tumblr.

------
mdakin
<http://watrcoolr.us/> \-- one of epi0Bauqu's projects. I think the UI is very
appealing to those of us who prefer to focus on exactly one thing at a time.
And hate clutter. And like to use the keyboard.

------
mx12
Just google.com, plan and simple.

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moe

       javascript:(function(){readStyle='style-ebook';readSize='size-medium';readMargin='margin-wide';_readability_script=document.createElement('SCRIPT');_readability_script.type='text/javascript';_readability_script.src='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/js/readability.js?x='+(Math.random());document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(_readability_script);_readability_css=document.createElement('LINK');_readability_css.rel='stylesheet';_readability_css.href='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability.css';_readability_css.type='text/css';_readability_css.media='screen';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(_readability_css);_readability_print_css=document.createElement('LINK');_readability_print_css.rel='stylesheet';_readability_print_css.href='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability-print.css';_readability_print_css.media='print';_readability_print_css.type='text/css';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(_readability_print_css);})();
    

That is the readability bookmarklet. It's not helpful for the homepage itself
but it gives that "Home"-Button a purpose. This is my workaround because
Firefox doesn't support Bookmark-Buttons on the button bar. I can now just hit
the "Home" Button on any page and readability will work its magic.

------
barnaby
Homepage???? Wait people shut down their browsers? like, ever?

I haven't seen the homepage in months, I think it's still that default
"welcome to Ubuntu" page but I really have no clue.

~~~
mynameishere
I recommend FF 2.x. You'll be restarting it at a vigorous pace then. But at
least the address bar and tabs aren't completely ruined.

------
sysctl
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random>

------
scorxn
localhost + a HEADER.HTML that reads '<h1>Do work!</h1>'

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deniscales
<http://www.google.com/ig>

I did the random wikipedia link once and ended up getting Ginger Lynn...Not
good when at work.

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techiferous
The Firefox "Speed Dial" add-on.

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4810>

~~~
Confusion
Opera Speed Dial in my case, with links to HN, Google Reader, local traffic
information, online banking and some others I rarely use.

------
10ren
[http://icewm.sourcearchive.com/documentation/1.2.30/bindkey_...](http://icewm.sourcearchive.com/documentation/1.2.30/bindkey_8h-source.html)

It's the only accurate documentation I could find of the hotkeys for the ice
window manager. I was studying it for a while, getting cool at magically
rearranging windows at my whim.

------
andyjdavis
The results page of <http://www.whatpeoplearesayingaboutus.com>

It's just a bunch of frames in tabs that allow me to see any new references to
products/projects I'm involved with. I find it helpful to have product
comments in my face every time I start my browser.

------
zurcociremer
The Speed dial page on Opera browser. It has Google reader, Gmail, Facebook
and Twitter on it.

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tokenadult
A personalized Google home page on my main browser.

On other browsers I use, it is some page I frequently visit in that browser
(often because of website-browser compatibility issues, or to experiment with
the look of certain pages in different browsers).

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teknopartz
A bookmarks page I made at <http://toxicpixel.org/pod/jma> ... years ago was
just a flat html file, now is a rails project I infrequently attempt to update
in various ways.

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conflux0
I rarely do a fresh start of firefox, so its immaterial to me what my homepage
is.

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sjs382
Google Apps Gmail, Google Apps Calendar, Google Reader, Google Voice, Facebook
I _rarely_ click the "home" button but I like having these three up when i
start a new browser session.

------
Zev
New windows go to Safari's Top Sites. New tabs go to about:blank.

~~~
cmelbye
Wow, thank you so much for that comment. I've been so annoyed with how long it
was taking to open a new tab in Safari because of the 3D eye candy top sites
thing, but changing it to a blank page has made it infinitely faster.

------
vaksel
[http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.m...](http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-
US:official)

------
walesmd
My Backpackit.com Inbox. I've been implementing a bit of GTD task management
in my life and having this page pop-up first thing (and stay up all day) has
been very helpful.

------
pdxgene
<http://runwayapp.com>

I find it's quite helpful to have my to-do list be the first thing that pops
up at me when I launch a browser.

~~~
kalendae
thanks, this is brilliant, gonna try it and see if it has an effect. (for me
it would be google tasks)

------
clemesha
<http://en.wikipedia.org>

Has "Featured article", "In the news", "Did you know...", and "On this
day...". It's very awesome.

------
bsgamble
The most recent page(s) that I visited. I almost never shut down the browser,
so it usually has a half dozen tabs with my commonly-visited sites already up.

------
ahlatimer
On Safari, it's TopSites. On Firefox, it's HN (used to be Digg). The only time
I ever really hit the home page is when I reboot, which isn't all that often.

------
fnid
I use opera and it has a quick dial with currently 16 sites, including hacker
news and several projects I'm working on and forums I'm involved in.

------
cagey
file:///c:/my/scripts/home.htm

c:\my is under Subversion control, allowing me to sync and propagate changes
made on any home or work PC which has my setup to all the others (next time I
use them). Created this setup (first using CVS) about 10 years ago...

I also have easily accessible Google/Wikipedia/Craigslist/MSDN searches setup
in my text editor, which these days get used more than the search-forms in my
home page.

------
raintrees
It used to be google.com, no login. Now, it's Ubuntu's Google,
start.ubuntu.com/version. I've been too busy to change it.

------
Portnull
about:mozilla on Firefox, because it makes me laugh. With every new release of
Firefox, I enjoy hoping it has changed.

------
jakarta
I have been using BackpackIt to set up a PMarca style productivity page with
to do lists.

So far it has been pretty successful.

------
ramidarigaz
A webpage that tells me the ip address of my router at home. Useful for when
I'm out of the country.

------
mark_l_watson
blank - clean screen, clean mind :-)

------
gorbachev
About half a dozen tabs. Google Reader, google.com and a few community sites I
frequent.

------
Zarathu
<http://www.quakelive.com>

------
rabidsnail
<https://mail.google.com>

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matthall28
<http://www.google.ca/ig>

------
baddox
I didn't even know! I had to check. On Chrome, it's google.com.

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SwellJoe
A blank page.

~~~
matthall28
genius, that's a great idea

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chrischen
A matrix of 12 most visited sites.

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weaksauce
get the speedial plugin for firefox. Without hyperbole it will change your
life.

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daveambrose
Safari: NYT Firefox: Techmeme

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Ixiaus
Wolframalpha

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bigbang
My Yahoo!

~~~
keltex
Me too. Been that way for years.

Actually what I typically do when I open Firefox is open a folder called
"Morning" and at the bottom select "Open All in Tabs". That way I see
everything I care about (HN included).

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drhowarddrfine
iGoogle

------
ecq
cnn.com

