The “Speed Dial” Browser Home Page Is Still One Of The Best There Is

I have four web browsers installed on my computer (mainly for writing articles here when I need to test out stuff), that being Internet Explorer 9, Opera 12.02, Firefox 15.0.1 and Chrome 22.

My favorite home page is by far the one used in Opera, the “Speed Dial” feature. Now while true you can use add-ons/extensions to get other browsers to have this functionality, Opera by far does it best, and does it “out-of-the-box” without any add-ons/extensions needed.

Some of you will say, “That kind of looks like a smartphone home screen”, and you’re correct, but the Speed Dial feature in Opera was around way before the smartphone ever existed. In fact, I’m pretty sure the original inspiration for it came from the PDA.

Doesn’t Firefox 15 have a speed-dial-like new tab interface?

Yes, but it sucks. I can’t manually add sites I want, I can’t arrange it how I want, I can’t set how many rows I want to see, etc. It’s just way too basic.

You can however “pin” sites you visit most often to the new tab page, and that’s good.

Doesn’t Chrome’s new tab page allow for dropping web site buttons on it?

No. The way Chrome’s new tab page works is that you have the choice of “Most Visited” or “Apps”. On “Most Visited” there is no option to “pin” sites so they stay there.

What about IE 9?

Internet Explorer 9 works similar to Chrome (or vice versa) in the respect you see “Most Visited” on a new tab page, but have no option to “pin” anything, nor do you have the option to set the order, size of thumbnails/buttons, etc. Or at least not that I know of.

The way Opera does Speed Dial is exactly what anyone would want, and it’s done right

I can configure Speed Dial to look and feel however I want:

(And yes you can even set your own “wallpaper” for your home page/new tab page!)

I can also:

* Drag web site buttons and set them in any order I choose.

* Add any site by direct URL

* Have the OPTION of having buttons auto-update their snapshot or not

* Have the order of my buttons stay EXACTLY the way I want and not change

Is there Speed Dial for other browsers?

Yes, but you have to install an add-on/extension to get it.

Speed Dial for Firefox

For Chrome there are several Speed Dial extensions. You’ll have to try them and see which one works best for you.

As for IE 9, I couldn’t find anything to put Speed Dial functionality into it. If it exists, please feel free to post a comment and let me know.

Also, a quick IE 9 tip: If you want the new-tab page as your home page, go to Internet Options and set your home page to about:Tabs, like this:

Why is Speed Dial such a good feature for a web browser?

Speed Dial is awesome because it does make for the best home page. It uses barely any memory, your favorite sites are there when you start the browser, there’s no waiting for the buttons to show up since they’re already pre-cached (unless you have them dynamically update themselves, which is optional in Opera), you can have as many or as little buttons as you want, and last but certainly not least it’s just plain convenient.

The convenience of Speed Dial is what makes it so great, and it is better than having a “bookmarks toolbar” or “favorites toolbar” that takes up vertical space. Just open the browser, hit a button and go. And when using multiple tabs, the dial is there which makes it super-easy to load up other sites you use most often in the same browser session.

Once you “go dial”, you never go back. :)