How Do I Change My Home Page on My Computer?

When you get your computer from the store or sign up for an Internet service, chances are that your home page will be set to a commercial site or to your Internet provider’s home page. While those are perhaps interesting the first time you look at them, after a few times they may get boring and you may want something a bit more relevant.

There are many different browsers available on the Internet. Each program has a slightly different procedure for setting the home page on your computer. However, two of the most popular browsers on the PC platform are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox.

The following procedures explain how to change the home page within these two systems. There are other browsers used on both PC computers and Mac computers and the method for changing the home page is similar.

Each of the browsers has a place where you define the home page of your browser. This location is usually in the Internet Options, Options or Preferences pull down menu. Once you locate this section, the changing of the URL for the home page is self-explanatory.

There are millions of sites on the Internet that would be more informative to you than the home pages which are preset on most computers.

• Many users would be happier if their home page gave them an overview of what is happening in the world today.

• News lovers may want to choose from all the news sites that are available, such as CNN.com, Yahoo.com, or MSN.com.
• Other users may prefer to keep up with the action in an online game and find out what happened while they were away.

Your home page is a reference point for you when you start browsing, so you may want to choose a page that has content in which you are interested and that will give you a good indication if your connection is working.

Microsoft Internet Explorer

To change your home page in IE:

1. Find the Tools menu and select Internet Options. This selection will present you with a tabbed window where you can change many different properties, from your Internet connection to the security level that will be applied to your session.
2. Select the General tab and find the Home Page URL box. Delete whatever address currently appears in the box
3. Type in the URL of the page that you want to be your new home page.
4. If you are already on the page you want to use as your new home page in your browser, you may also click on the Use Current button and watch your browser place the current URL in the box. This is your new home page.

You can check that your home page is reset by closing your browser and reopening it and making sure that the first page to appear is the one you just set.

Mozilla Firefox

One of the newest browsers in the market is Firefox. It is based on the open source approach to applications that is sweeping the Internet. This approach utilizes the creativity of all the users of the Internet to put together an application and relies on that same group of programmers to upgrade and add to the capabilities of the program.

To change the home page of your computer in Firefox, you begin by opening Firefox.

1. Open the Tools menu
2. Select Options. The window that pops up has multiple tabs or sections. Select the General section and at the top of the window is space to enter the URL of the home page you desire.
3. Click OK and close the browser.
4. When you reopen Firefox, you should see your new homepage displayed in the browser.

These two examples show you everything you need to know to make changes to your home page.