I've been using Excite as my Start Page. I like how they let you basically arrange the information the way you want and they offer most of the info I like to glance at regularly like news, stocks, weather, etc. The only problem is that the advertising is starting get very annoying. They're doing pop-unders now and I just can't stand it anymore.

Anyone have any recommendations for a Start Page that offers similar features to Excite? I'd even be willing to pay for a service to get it without ads.

Richard

about:blank :D
Oh sorry, you want features.
You could make your own.

Google - loads fast, search and stuff :)

Personally I use Yahoo.. But if the only thing that bothers you about youe Excite page is the popups why dont you just get a popup killer?

about:blank :D
Oh sorry, you want features.
You could make your own.
Actually about:blank is near the top of my list right now :D
I'm also much too lazy too make my own. I've looked at a few scripts for making your own Start Page, but didn't really like any of the ones that I saw.
Google - loads fast, search and stuff :)
I use Google as my primary search engine (Google Bar), but as a start page it doesn't have the features like news, weather, etc. that I want.
Personally I use Yahoo.. But if the only thing that bothers you about youe Excite page is the popups why dont you just get a popup killer?
Yahoo isn't bad, but to be able to customize the page you have to use myYahoo and it' got that big nasty banner that takes a large chunk of the top of the page.

I detest pop-ups and pop-unders so much that I'd just rather not give any traffic to a website that uses them.

Richard

I've been using my own custom start page for as long as I can remember. Nothing fancy, just a ton of links ... forums I visit regularly, key places on my own websites, computer/gaming news websites, weather, tv listings, movie times, search engines, etc.

I detest pop-ups and pop-unders so much that I'd just rather not give any traffic to a website that uses them.
I agree.
While I may not have appeared sympathic, I know how you feel.

I was bookmarking tons of sites I found useful, and after awhile I had so many, I still couldn't find what I needed when I need it.
So, I made my own favorite link page. I organized it by the name of the product the company is known for (like 'this product' links to 'this manufacturor' or 'that distibutor' if the Co doesn't directly distribute) because often the product myself and others are interested in is only one of other products made by the company, and it was hard to remember 'who' makes 'what'
It took over a week of daily editing (notepad hand coder here) but I finally got a huge list with hundreds of useful links. Then when I needed something, I went to my page, looked for the products name, and clicked on it to find either the manufactor's website or that of it's distributor.
What happened was everyone else started using it too. Even google began sending people to the page who were looking for a product by it's name, and couldn't find the manufactor's website.

Anyway, I have since affiliated with a select few of the manufacturors, but still link to all equally.
I never allow advertsing that puts cookies on the viewers of my sites PC's. No popups, No banners, (except one banner is on a page from one Co that sent me an article as it pertains to my site audience) and No tricks.
. . . and that is why I get so many vistors (over 1,000 unique weekly) to just a rather simple personal website. :D
I guess if I wanted a start page, all I'd have to do would be to add stocks and weather to my favorite links page huh?
Think about it.

Well my default home page is slashdot.org (news for nerds. stuff that matters) but, by what your request said my.yahoo.com is probably your best bet.

Customizable homepage with stock/news/weather/etc. modules that can be moved around...

WHT, should be your new start page. ;)

Some icq crap page. Anyone know why ICQ always changes my start page everytime I start the program? It keeps setting it to:

http://web.icq.com/today/0,,465-%icqc%,00.html?icquin=%icquin%&icqsl=%icqsl%&icqc=%icqc%

And I everytime I change it to something else, then start up ICQ again it goes back to http://web.icq.com/today/0,,465-%icqc%,00.html?icquin=%icquin%&icqsl=%icqsl%&icqc=%icqc%

DAMN ICQ!

Brian

i use webhostingtalk.com as my Start Page :)

I use WHT. It has everything you need.

Originally posted by BrianF
Some icq crap page. Anyone know why ICQ always changes my start page everytime I start the program? It keeps setting it to:

http://web.icq.com/today/0,,465-%icqc%,00.html?icquin=%icquin%&icqsl=%icqsl%&icqc=%icqc%

And I everytime I change it to something else, then start up ICQ again it goes back to http://web.icq.com/today/0,,465-%icqc%,00.html?icquin=%icquin%&icqsl=%icqsl%&icqc=%icqc%

DAMN ICQ!

Brian

There is an option in the ICQ (yuck) software to disable this, somewhere in the preferences.

-Shawn

Originally posted by BrianF
Some icq crap page. Anyone know why ICQ always changes my start page everytime I start the program?

ICQ is an AOL product. What do you expect? :)

i use google, i used to use inkotomi ;)

So far I'm considering MSN, Yahoo, and Lycos. MSN has the least amount of annoying ads. Yahoo would be great if it didn't take up the top quarter of the page with a giant banner. Lycos looks nice also, but uses frames so that they can dedicate the bottom part of the screen to ads.

I'd really be interested in a paid service that I could get with no ads. There's got to be something like that out there somewhere.

Richard

What about CNN or Washingtonpost.com?

Brian

What about Lycos?

Remember them? :)

I'm kind of in the same boat, except, I'm trying to find a decent home page for my dialup users. I'm thinking of just creating a Postnuke site, fill in with some modules, and blocks, and calling it a day.

Portal sites/software I've looked at are quite expensive.


Steve