How to set Google as your home page

Amelie Looker
4 Min To Read
Thursday, May 6, 2021

Maybe Google is your favorite search engine, but your laptop or phone might choose another search engine to open by default. There are laptops that automatically go to Bing or Yahoo, for example, and although opening Google manually is simple, in the long run it can be annoying to have to do it every time you open your browser. In this article we explain how to set Google as your homepage.

Microsoft Edge

If your idea of a start page is more similar to “Any page that opens when I launch Edge”, this is the quickest way to set it up.

Step 1: Open an Edge window and select More Actions (the dots in the top right corner of the screen) and then Settings.

Step 2: Within the Settings page, select On startup from the menu on the left side. Then select Open a specific page or pages.

Step 3: Once you do that, another submenu will appear below that option. In this menu, select Add a new page and then enter google.com in the dialog box that appears. Then select Add.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome should, under normal circumstances, automatically take you to a window with the search bar and several of your favorite websites, so many Chrome users won’t even have to worry about this step. But if you want to set up a more official home screen or verify that everything still works, here’s what you should do.

Step 1: Select the more options icon (three vertical dots) in the top right corner of the screen in your browser window. Then select Settings.

Step 2: Select Appearance. In the Appearance menu, select the toggle button next to the Show home button option.

Step 3: Enter google.com in the space provided when prompted to enter the URL of your chosen home page.

Note: This option may not work if you are using Chrome on a tablet or phone, where the configuration options are a bit more limited.

Safari

Here’s how to set Google as your homepage in Safari, according to Google’s support site:

Step 1: Open Safari, select Safari in the top left corner of the screen, then select Preferences. From here, select General.

Step 2: Look for the heading that says Home Page with a space next to it. Then type google.com.

Firefox

No worries here, Firefox offers the easiest option. Open Firefox and go to the Google home website with the search bar you know and love. Then:

Step 1: Click on the tab you just opened and hold it down. Then drag that tab to the home page button Firefox uses on the taskbar - it looks like a little house and is hard to miss.

Step 2: A quick notification will pop up asking you if you really want to set this as your home page. Select Yes and you’re done.

Step 3: If you want to remove and replace the current home page options more directly, click the three-line menu button and go to Options. From here, select the Home tab and find the New Windows and Tabs section and select the Restore Defaults button which should be nearby and will erase any past choices.

Advanced option: set a series of tabs to open

The Google home page is nice, but a bit limited in its usefulness. You probably already know several web pages you want to visit when you open your browser. There are a variety of options you can use to set up several of these pages to open when you first launch the browser, which saves you a lot of time.

We recommend that you set these pages if this is a daily routine for you, you just need to find the right option. Google Chrome gives you a way to pick up where you left off, Firefox allows you to set multiple pages as your home page, and Mac computers allow you to automatically open websites when you first log on to your computer, and so on. This may prove to be a more useful solution than visiting the Google search bar over and over again.