The 5 Best Start Page Services to Start Your Morning


A start page, or “startpage”,  is meant to give you access to all those sites and tools you start your day with, on a single page. Startpages ensure that you don’t have to open several tabs and windows for email, news, important websites etc. You’ve got everything right there in one view.

If you haven’t tried a startpage yet, you could get started with one of the following and see if it makes you more productive.

1. Netvibes

When it comes to start pages, Netvibes usually gets the conversation started. And it deserves the accolades it gets for being the best start page. Not only it was (probably) the first one to introduce this concept, over the years it has adapted well to changes and now boasts of a cool new features that could give all the new players a run for their money.

2. iGoogle

iGoogle, like Netvibes, is feature-rich and powerful. The main advantage being its obvious integration with Google services like Gmail, Google Reader etc, that makes it more attractive to Google loyalists (a huge number by the way).

3. Pageflakes

Pageflakes is another cool startpage that’s been there for sometime. It comes with some nice default tabs and lets you quickly get started.

4. MyFav.es

What separates MyFav.es from the above mentioned tools is its minimalistic interface. It’s easy to customize and looks beautiful too.

5. Speeddial

Last but not the least, we’ve got the default Chrome/Opera Speedial page that shows huge snapshots of most visited sites. Certainly saves you the effort and time to open a new tab and type the website address.

So, do you use a startpage? Is it one of the above?


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Abhijeet Mukherjee is the editor of Guiding Tech, a blog that publishes in-depth articles and tutorials on all things tech, including mobile news and tutorials. He's been into web working since 2008 and continues to enjoy each day of it. He loves to interact with people so hit him up on Twitter.

Discussion

  1. Shweta on the 17th August

    I use Morning Coffee Firefox Add-on. Its very nice!

    • Don R. on the 19th January

      Yea, but you have to manage firefox on al your devices and it doesent sync them… a startpage like http://www.tizit.com is a much better solution

    • Ashmit on the 20th June

      Use veoam.com the descent one……Its cool

      http://www.veoam.com/

  2. Jake on the 17th August

    Speed Dial has a firefox extension too. It’s what i use.

  3. Fredrik on the 17th August

    I’m using iGoogle, i think that is very good.

    • Tim on the 31st December

      iGoogle doesn’t have anything but a search box.

  4. Mohammad Hossein Rabiee on the 17th August

    Nice post!
    I prefer start my internet activities with speed dial, but iGoogle also is a smart choice!

  5. GBG on the 17th August

    I use iGoogle … love it! As you stated, it’s a great way to bring all your “startup” sites together in one organized space …

  6. Luce on the 18th August

    iGoogle has been my startpage for a little while now. I like it.

    However, at work, my startpage is National Geographic. I like starting my day with the latest amazing pictures taken on our planet. Soothing !

  7. Corey Nagle on the 18th August

    I enjoy netvibes. I wrote up a post about it not that long ago. http://www.digitizd.com/2010/01/29/netvibes-your-launchpad-to-the-web-2/

  8. Abdulrahman Jaber on the 18th August

    So far I found feedly the best. Its fireFox add on.
    It works with google reader bookmarks, account and has lots of features.

  9. Jacob on the 18th August

    http://www.zenstart.com is a nice simple startpage

  10. Matthew on the 18th August

    For the hardcore feed readers, you should consider buying Fever. It’s an excellent start page that shows you the hottest items among your feeds.

    http://feedafever.com/

  11. Prog4rammer Ala'a on the 18th August

    I Like MyFav.es 🙂

    • Tim on the 31st December

      Doesn’t work, says something is broken.

  12. Mohsen Elgendy on the 23rd August

    I’d prefer to use iGoogle, it’s simple & useable

  13. drdre on the 13th September

    I’m using http://www.yvoid.com/ .
    It’s easy to use and has a simple layout.
    And when i’m using netvibes I sometimes get a headache because it’s filled with stuff and igoogle too.

  14. nidel on the 7th October

    Im using http://www.newsgar.com/ as startpage, simple and perfect if you like to read newspapers

  15. jure on the 4th December

    I use http://www.aboogy.com in combination with iGoogle .

  16. Frank on the 13th September

    I love http://tizit.com great start page lots of options!

  17. John on the 1st November

    Nice Post!!
    Lately I have been using http://www.bridox.com
    It’s way more minimalistic than most start pages.
    iGoogle is alright too.

  18. Lenny on the 3rd November

    NetVibes was definitely not the “first one to introduce this concept.” My Yahoo! had been doing this for years, but this space didn’t get competitive until 2007 or 2008 when NetVibes and iGoogle came on the scene.

  19. John Boyle on the 10th January

    I agree with Frank, http://www.tizit.com is by far the best start page I have seen

  20. Joerg on the 19th March

    I use http://www.sevego.com . It is very easy to use.

    • Pedro on the 6th July

      I have also heard about it from a collegue. It is very useful. I have made it my startpage. Also, I have made my oma’s pc at home 🙂

  21. Paul on the 6th July

    As the author of this work may I point your attention to NetVibes being closed and iGoogle going the same direction next year. An update to your article would be most helpful.

    Pretty soon Yahoo will be the only “start page” provider with any content available without using wigets to simply bookmark pages and display thumbnails of them on a saved webpage.

  22. Luuk on the 24th September

    Yourls allows you to create a very simple startpage around your favorite bookmarks.

  23. Jeff on the 28th September

    Nollr (nollr.com) is a new start page project currently in beta. Its an entirely web-based start page, and built to flex to the user’s device — so its accessible on all your devices (laptop, tablet, mobile) regardless of browser, hardware, or software. It handles everything from images, to videos, to web apps like calculators and weather widgets. Its free and all about being open and transparent. Give it a look!

  24. Marc Steven on the 23rd October

    I found yourls.com and using it, I find its simplicity convenient to use. This could be a new alternative startpage to iGoogle. I think is in beta phase yet. Looking forward to seeing it get developed.

  25. Jason on the 10th November

    I wanted something basic to shortcut to the sites I use and ended up with http://www.semporium.com

    Even set up an account for work and one for home. Love being able to load up my browser and have everything there 🙂

  26. William on the 14th December

    Thanks for the nice post. I am using sevego ( http://www.sevego.com ) for 3-4 months. I am very happy about it. It is simple, and easy to distinguish my favourite websites thanks to big logos. Also, on the smart phone it is very useful.

  27. Justin Carver on the 31st March

    I like BestHomepageEver.com. It’s an ad-free site that is simple and useful for accessing all of your favorite websites in one spot.

  28. gracemary on the 13th July

    I am using Driigo.com, its the best start page i have ever tried.

  29. ThomasP on the 30th July

    I used iGoogle, i loved it and use it daily! But, because it’s flying away i’m really looking for an alternative since the. One startpage that will totally strike you as beautifully different is http://www.startific.com – don’t know if it’s exactly an iGoogle replacement, but it’s just wow.

  30. Mile on the 10th August

    I use http://www.dodego.com which is very user-friendly.I recommend it to everyone.

  31. Steve on the 29th September

    For USA users I recommend http://usa.goldnaut.com

    Great internet startpage with timezones, searchfields etc

  32. Matt on the 13th January

    Just a quick update: there’s a new start page out there called Favepad – http://favepad.com/

    It’s a customizable speed dial-style page, with dynamic widgets for the most popular sites like Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and so on. You get your unread messages counters and news feeds right within the widgets, so you see the full picture at the moment you open the browser.

    Been using it for about a week now, and I like it a lot, so I thought I would share.

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