Chances are that whenever you turn on your laptop or press the power button on your PC, the first thing you open is a web browser. Your homepage is the first thing you see when you open your web browser of choice, so it's crucial. Microsoft is offering a new browser with Windows 10. If you're new to the operating system, it might be difficult to figure out how to set a homepage in Microsoft Edge.
You probably know how to set the homepage in Internet Explorer, Microsoft's old browser. For a short time during the 1990s, the company's Internet Explorer web browser was the best you could find. By the late 2000s, Microsoft had squandered all of Internet Explorer's goodwill. The browser was buggy and not as user friendly as others offered. The company hoped to reverse the trend of users leaving its offering with Microsoft Edge. For the most part, setting a homepage in this new browser works almost exactly as it does in Internet Explorer.
Here's how to set a homepage in Microsoft Edge.
How to Set a Home Page in Microsoft Edge: Before You Begin
Before you sit down to start tweaking your PC settings, there are a few things to note. First of all, if Windows 10 is not already loaded on your PC, you will not be able to follow these instructions to change your home page. Instead, you'll need to refer to an Internet Explorer tutorial.
If you're changing the homepage on a work PC, you want to be sure you have permission to do so, or that it isn't frowned upon by your company's IT department.
Third, you'll want to go to the website you want to set as your homepage in Microsoft Edge before you start this tutorial. This is key, because Microsoft Edge asks for the address of the page you want to set as your homepage. You will need this exact web address. If you don't have the correct address, you'll get a blank page or an error page every time you open your web browser.
How to Set a Home Page in Microsoft Edge
Click the Start button in the lower left corner of your screen on the taskbar to display the startup experience. If your PC is touch sensitive, you can simply tap on it with your finger.
Once inside Start, look for the blue Live Tile with an E in the middle. You can also select Microsoft Edge from the list of installed apps on the right side of the Start experience.
Unlike other Windows 10 apps, there's no settings cog to change preferences in Microsoft Edge. Look for three dots on the right side of the address bar. When you find them, tap or click on these three dots to open a menu.
With the menu open, find the Settings option. It's all the way down. Tap or click it to access the settings pane.
Microsoft does not call home page in Microsoft Edge settings. Look for the "Open Microsoft Edge with" entry in the settings. Click the X to remove any previous entries and you can use the plus sign to add new entries. Right-click on the address of the page you want to add, then cut and paste it into the box.
You don't have to have a single homepage in Microsoft Edge. You can have as many as you want, but you'll definitely want to keep it simple since your browser will attempt to load these pages every time you want to start a new browsing session. Use the drop-down menu to choose what you want to see when you open Edge.
It doesn't have to be a homepage if you don't want it.
While you're here, you might want to make some other changes, like hiding the News Feed that appears when opening new tabs.
Good luck trying to set a homepage in Microsoft Edge and with Windows 10 in general. The new operating system takes some getting used to, but it's a huge improvement over what Microsoft offered with Windows 8.