Skeptomania - Paranormal / UFOs, etc.

paul68 · Shaved Ape

I was using Yahoo for my homepage. I had a nice layout setup, great local news, comics, weather, and search tools all set just the way I liked em. The layout was clean, simple and the coding for that page was nice and simple, letting it load easily and quickly.

Well, Yahoo changed everything. They switched code, changed layouts, and added all kinds of completely pointless bells and whistles. Now, the page is hard to read, difficult to naviate, and the DHTML, Ajax, flash, and all the other crap they added to the code now makes the page slow to load, clunky, and poorly functional. Plus, the new toolbar is intrusive. Much like Aol, it hijacks parts of your browser and systemn without telling you opf course, and grabs personal data.

A google search shows a huge backlash, with folks royally ticked off. Months ago, Yahoo instituted this change as a trial, and left an option to keep the classic page. Then, the same thing happend. Folks hated the new page, bitched like hell about it, and switched to the optional classic format they always had.

Anyhoo, Yahoo made the switch anyways yesterday, and removed the option to keep your classic layout.

So now I have written them, like everyone else, and told em just how shitty a page the new setup is, and that I am gone, like to huge amount of others doing the same. After over 10 years of having a yahoo mail account, web account, and homepage, this has killed it for me.

This will be a big blow to Yahoo. They spent all that time and money on new code and development, just to be like everyone else, and it's hated.

I switched to IGoogle, but really dont like it. I can't get my news and weather local enough, and I hate the limited layout and setup options.

What are you guys using? What do you recommend?

Yaish · Intel Chief

I've never found a portal page I like. I just use the default Firefox/Google home page, and I surf from there for my news, comics, etc...

I use Forecastfox so I get my weather in-browser, rather than a webpage. One option I used for a while was making my own Geocities page, and setting that as my homepage. I had it laid out the way I wanted with all my favorite links, plug ins, etc...

murphy · Horse Nazi

As a matter of fact I emailed Yahoo last night about the shitty home page.
Yes, it is loud, obnoxious and (in my case) the colors are all off. You have the option to 'customize' your homepage(environment, holiday etc etc) well, I can click on any one of those and the colors are not what they are supposed to be. I remember with the classic home page, you also had the option to customize ALL colors (fonts, headliners, boxes etc).
Just to give you an example: I picked Hearts for my homepage (all shades of pink...... well, it has lime green, yellow and darkgreen and some hearts with the pink. talking about giving me a headache. No matter what I pick, the greens and yellows are still there.
Yahoo is supposed to email me back.

Anonymouse · Living impaired

I use a html file on my hard drive as a homepage. It links to everything I use, it's not as clunky as a favorites menu, and it hardly takes any work to change.

LAMZY

I use Verizon as my home page.
They have fairly good news headlines and that is about all I ever look at so it works for me.
If I want weather or news I have a lot of sites I use from my favorites list.

Raven · Google Meister

i just use my Vista Sidebar, i don't think i've ever really bothered using anyones homepage set up for my regurlar source of daily info. I've played with most of the homepages, but i just never really used them. But my Sidebar gives me everything i could need from news (local, national, international), weather, stocks (all but one of mine are doing crappy)... thats about all i have right now, aside from a calendar (very important, i work nights so hence often find i have no idea what day it is), photo album (so my girl can believe i'm always thinking about her), address book, CPU meter, and notepad (it looks like little sticky notes, and i use it quite often). I had NASA TV for a little bit, it was cool, but it tends to turn on at random moments, so that wasn't too good. i haven't gone through the widgets lately, but there's enough possible that it's basically just like having a homepage on your desktop...

paul68 · Shaved Ape

I like having local news and weather on my homepage since theres not much time in the morning for anything else. If I start surfing for info, I'm lost for an hour;)

I'll prolly build my own.

Gren · God Of Oreos

I had the same experience Paul describes, only with Cox Cable & Suddenlink.

Cox was the only cable internet available in my area (they were also the only cable TV in the area), but their homepage wasn't bad. Not many bells and whistles but I didn't want them, just 3-4 common features: news headlines, sports headlines, local weather, TV guide. I used it for... 6 years? 8 years?

Then Suddenlink bought out Cox Cable and Cox Online. now Suddenlink is the only option here in Podunk Holler (except for satellite) for cable and internet. Actually, their cable TV and internet is an improvement over Cox, but no great shakes - they just upgraded equipment into the 21st century. But their homepage absolutely sucked. Basically they tell you what you'll have on your home page, and everything better come directly from Suddenlink. Fuck that.

So, like Paul, I went with IGoogle, which is also kind of simplistic, but serves my needs.

asmodee

Some of my customers like to have a newspaper page for their home page, such as USA Today. Also, you don't have to use a single home page any more. You can have one for news, another for stocks and a third for your search engine. Personally, I find it kind of annoying when I open my browser and 2 or 3 home pages come up instead of one, but it is an option you have with todays browsers.

Raven · Google Meister