There Is No Place Like Home (Page)

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Last Updated on December 5, 2017

When you launch your web browser a predefined web page appears. This page is referred to as the home page or start page. The good news is that you are not stuck with any particular page — you’re free to choose any one you want.

How to change my web browser’s start page

How you setup your own personal browser home page depends on which browser you are using. Here are instructions for some of the more popular browsers:

Chrome

• On the right side of the tool-bar there is a menu button. It looks like three lines stack on top of each other. Click that.
• Find the Settings item in the menu. This opens the Settings screen.
• On the Settings screen, the second item (under Sign In) is On Startup.
• Select one of the three options:
  • Open the New Tab page — Use this if you want the default “New Tab” view when you open Chrome.
  • Continue where you left off — USe this if you want Chrome to always open up the tabs you had open last time you closed it. This is especially good if you have a lot of multi-tab projects that run over many browser sessions.
  • Open a specific page or set of pages — Use this if you want to open a particular website (or several sites) when you open Chrome. Many people use this option to automatically open their email, daily calendar, or favorite news site.
  • If you select this option, click the Set pages link to tell Chrome which pages you actually want opened at startup.

Firefox

• On the right hand side of the browser tool bar there is a menu button. It looks like three horizontal lines stacked on top of each other. Click it.
• This opens a menu. Find the Preferences item, which has an icon that looks like a gear. Click it.
• This opens the Preference screen.
• If you are not already there, find the General setting tab in the menu on the left side of the panel.
• On the General Settings tab, under Startup, make your selection for the When Firefox starts selector:
  • Show my home page — Select this if you want a specific site, or if you want the default Firefox start page
  • Show a blank page
  • Show my windows and tabs from last time
• If you select Show my home page, use the Home Page text box just below it to set the URL of your preferred starting page. You can set it to show your web-based email, your personal daily calendar, your favorite news site, or any other website you’d like to see at the beginning of every browsing session.

Safari (Mac only)

• In the main application menu at the top of the screen, under the Safari menu item, click Preferences….
• This opens the Preferences panel, which should be open to the General Preferences tab. (If it isn’t, click the General Preferences tab at the top of the panel.)
• Find the menu item Safari opens with. Make your selection from:
  • A new window — Use this if you want to set a homepage.
  • A new private window — Use this if you want to set a homepage and view it in a private browsing window. (Private browsing keeps sites you visit out of your browser’s history.)
  • All windows from last session
• If you set A new window or A new private window, select what you want to appear in new windows:
  • Favorites — Shows a menu of your bookmarked (favorited) sites
  • Home page — Allows you to set a specific page to open.
  • Empty page
  • Same page
• If you selected to open a Home Page, enter it into the text box labeled Home Page.

Internet Explorer (Windows only)

These instructions are for the latest version of IE, in Windows 10.

• Open Internet Explorer
• Navigate to the page you want to set as your homepage.
• Open the Settings panel:
  • With a touchscreen — swipe in from the right side of the screen, and then tap the Settings item from menu.
  • With a mouse — move your mouse to the lower-right side of the screen, move the mouse up, and then click on the Settings item from the slide-in menu
• Select Options
• Under Home pages, select Customize.
• Select Add current site, then tap or click Add.

Microsoft Edge

• On the address bar, find the button with three dots in a row, like this: ···. When you hover over it for a few seconds the word More will appear. Click that button.
• Select Settings.
• Under Open with, select A specific page or pages.
• To set a specific site as your home page, select Custom, and then enter the URL.
• Be sure to Save your changes with the plus button.