Published Jan 26, 2026, 6:30 AM EST
Nick Lewis is an editor at How-To Geek. He has been using computers for 20 years — tinkering with everything from the UI to the Windows registry to device firmware. Before How-To Geek, he used Python and C++ as a freelance programmer. In college, Nick made extensive use of Fortran while pursuing a physics degree.
Nick’s love of tinkering with computers extends beyond work. He has been running video game servers from home for more than 10 years using Windows, Ubuntu, or Raspberry Pi OS. He also uses Proxmox to self-host a variety of services, including a Jellyfin Media Server, an Airsonic music server, a handful of game servers, NextCloud, and two Windows virtual machines.
He enjoys DIY projects, especially if they involve technology. He regularly repairs and repurposes old computers and hardware for whatever new project is at hand. He has designed crossovers for homemade speakers all the way from the basic design to the PCB.
Nick enjoys the outdoors. When he isn’t working on a computer or DIY project, he is most likely to be found camping, backpacking, or canoeing.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and most other major social media sites will feed you content based on how you interact with the site and what the company knows about you. However, I wanted to set up something that was curated to my interests without being algorithmically driven, so I set up my own personal start page.
I’ve gotten very tired of compulsively scrolling on social media, especially since the algorithms are designed to foster engagement first and foremost. Things have only gotten worse as social media apps have been flooded with AI posing as humans—openly or otherwise—to drive engagement.
However, social media is also a normal, even integral part of keeping up with what is going on in the world and within my areas of interest. I couldn’t quit social media before because it felt like a complete disconnect from the world around me.
However, a personal start page solved that problem. A personal start page works a bit like a social media feed, except unlike social media, your personal start page is curated by you—not an algorithm. In many ways, it is a bit like a more sophisticated RSS feed. I’ve actually found I have an easier time keeping track of news that matters to me since it isn’t buried in a deluge of advertisements that I don’t care about.
I’ve been using my personal start page for a bit over two weeks, and in that time, my social media doomscrolling has decreased dramatically.
A start page has a few limitations
Despite the positive experience I’ve had, personal start pages do have two big limitations: They’re a bit behind on viral hits compared to social media, and they don’t have any social features that drive community conversations.
However, they’re not really designed to replace those features—for that, you’re still better off hopping on your local Facebook or Instagram groups.
How do you create a personal start page?
There are a few ways to set up a personal start page.
Homelabbing and self-hosting enthusiasts can use services like Homepage or Glance, which keep everything private, and you don’t need to rely on external services that may be interrupted by something like a Cloudflare or AWS outage.
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If you want a personalized start page but you don’t want to go through the trouble of self-hosting one, there are third-party services that allow you to do it. In my testing, I also found they’re a bit easier to use, since you can usually customize them using the user interface rather than by tweaking with a configuration file.
I tried both Protopage and Start.me. Both are good, but ultimately I opted for Start.me. The user interface is a bit less crowded and busy, which is part of what motivated me to set up my own start page in the first place.
Setting up my personal start page with Start.me
Start.me makes getting started extremely easy. I signed in with my Google account to save time, but you can create an account if you prefer.
The first thing you need to do is pre-select a few of your interests. Based on that, Start.me will automatically add a few things it thinks will appeal to you. For example, I picked tech, journalism, OSINT, and tech, and briefly described my interests.
I think it did a pretty good job making a few initial selections. It managed to add a few resources that I already use.
To add more things to your start page, click the Plus button at the upper right-hand side of the window.
One thing I wanted on my start page was an RSS feed from NASA, so I hit “RSS Feed” and then typed in NASA. There are a ton of RSS feeds included by default on a range of topics.
Once that was done, I added another dozen or so RSS feeds so I could easily keep up with important news.
If your first page starts to get a bit full, or if you want to compartmentalize your interests, you can create an entire new page. The free version of Start.me includes a maximum of three pages, which I’ve found is plenty for me.
Growing your start page
One of my favorite resources available for Start.me is the Community Start Pages menu, located under the “Pages” menu in the upper left.
There are 121 pre-designed pages you can choose from on a range of topics, and 6 that are blank templates that make setting up another page a bit quicker.
I’d recommend scrolling through the options—there are some good ones, especially if you’re interested in technology.
The internet is a constant barrage of things fighting for your attention. A start page, whether you run it locally or use an online service, is one way to make sure that you can focus on the things that matter to you.
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