Release Notes

Official news and information source for Best Homepage Ever

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v4.13

Today’s Front Page and 43 New Places

Latest
News

Today’s Front Page

The day’s important news on one page, laid out like a newspaper. Three times a day, AI reads the headlines from the news outlets on the News page and writes up the lead story and the ones to know at home, around the world, and in business and tech. No shopping guides, reviews or opinion pieces, just the news. Every story links to the outlets that reported it.

Open the News page and click Today’s Front Page. There’s a morning, midday and evening edition for the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and India. At the bottom of the page you can add it to your homepage or save it as a PDF.

Today's Front Page: a newspaper nameplate with the Best Homepage Ever logo, a navy Midday Edition date bar with a U.S. flag, and a large lead headline with a short summary and links to NPR, CNN, BBC and NBC

New Backgrounds

New backgrounds from around the world

Lantern-lit Hoi An, the boathouses of Ine in Japan, a chalet fireside in Grindelwald, the Okavango Delta at sunset and 39 more places from around the world. I also replaced 74 of the least-used backgrounds with new ones.

Also, for those of you with 5K+ monitors, I've added a super high resolution 5K tab in the backgrounds gallery.

Right-click your homepage, choose Change Background, and search for a place, like Japan or Lake Como.

Thirteen of the new backgrounds: Lake Louise in Banff across the top, then Hoi An, Varenna on Lake Como, the Ine boathouses, the Okavango Delta, Perast, the Nuwara Eliya tea hills, a Grindelwald chalet, Abel Tasman, Giethoorn, Oirase Gorge, Lunenburg Harbor and the Plitvice Lakes

Travel

Unlock Travel Documents with Touch ID

Your passport and Known Traveler numbers now open with Touch ID, Face ID or Windows Hello, so there’s no passphrase to remember. They’re still end-to-end encrypted: only you can read them, not even me.

Travel Documents have their own Documents tab on the Travel page now, with your passport and PreCheck / Global Entry expiry reminders at the top. Already using a passphrase? The next time you unlock, you can turn on Touch ID for that device.

Safari on the Mac

Best Homepage Ever is on the Mac App Store

One free app brings three of my extensions to Safari on the Mac: PinDrop saves pages, recipes and screenshots to your Snippets, Portal adds any website to your homepage, and Trip Catcher saves flight and hotel bookings to your trips.

After you install it, a setup window helps you make Best Homepage Ever your Safari homepage and turn on the extensions you want. Needs macOS 12 or later.

Get it on the Mac App Store
The app's Finish setting up Safari window: step 1 Make it your homepage with a Copy address button, step 2 Turn on the extensions you want with PinDrop, Portal and Trip Catcher all On, step 3 Allow websites, and a Continue in Safari button

Also New

A Gift of the day

Hover over the cart icon in your footer for a new Gift of the day, plus a daily pick For you from the interests you choose under About me. A thumbs down hides a gift, and a thumbs up adds its interest to your picks. On a phone, it’s under More.

Sites for Australia, India and the Philippines

Add Websites now has popular-site lists for Australia, India and the Philippines, with local sites and their logos. Pick yours from the Country menu. I’ve also added 70 more popular sites, from AI assistants to streaming services, and Twitter is now X.

v4.12

Remove Any Site From Your Homepage

Fixes

Removing sites from your homepage

You can now remove any site from your homepage. Many older sites, including ones you added yourself, couldn’t be deleted. That’s fixed.

Right-click the site and choose Remove Site, or hover over it and click the red −.

v4.11

New Footer and Toolbar Styles

Homepage

Pick a new look for your footer

The bar along the bottom of your homepage now comes in three styles, and you choose the one you see. Your menus, buttons and colors come with you, whichever style you pick.

Open Settings (the gear icon) and choose Footer. You can switch any time.

Footer settings with three style cards, Floating Islands (selected), Centered Dock and Full-Width Bar, each with a small picture of the footer, and a Show footer switch

Three Footer Styles

Floating Islands

Your footer splits into two glass docks that float over your background. My Places, Weather and News sit in a slim column above the left dock, and the + button closes the right one.

Floating Islands footer: a column of My Places, Weather and News buttons above a left dock of menu icons and a 1 trip button, and a right dock with Snippets, Notes, Planner, Daily Brief, Disclosures, background shuffle, help, more, and a blue plus button

Centered Dock

Everything in one dock in the middle of the screen, My Places, Weather, News and the + button included. It needs a window at least 1,440 pixels wide, and smaller windows show Floating Islands instead.

Centered Dock footer: one dock in the middle of the screen holding the My Places, Weather and News buttons, the menu icons, a 1 trip button, Snippets, Notes, Planner, Daily Brief, Disclosures, the utility icons and a blue plus button

Full-Width Bar

The bar you know, across the whole page, with a cleaner look: your menus are grouped together, and Snippets, Notes, Planner and Daily Brief now have icons. If you’ve been using Best Homepage Ever for a while, this is the style you’ll see until you pick another.

Full-Width Bar footer: a bar across the bottom of the page with the menu icons and a 1 trip button grouped on the left, Snippets, Notes, Planner and Daily Brief with icons on the right, the utilities grouped at the end, and the My Places, Weather, News and plus buttons floating above the corners

A New Category Toolbar

It matches your background

The row of categories above your sites now takes its color from your background: blue-green over a mountain lake, warm brown over a city at night. It stays dark enough that your category names are easy to read on any photo, so it replaces the old dark and light toolbars.

Six more styles to try

Click the ⋮ at the end of the toolbar and pick a swatch under Toolbar Style: Aurora, Frosted Glass, Daylight, Neon Night, Chips or Ghost. The menu stays open, so you can try each one against your background, and you can switch back to Match Background any time.

The category toolbar tinted to match a mountain lake background, with its options menu open showing Manage Categories, Arrange Sites, and a Toolbar Style row of seven round swatches with Match Background selected
v4.10

Your Own Tools Menu & an Internet Speed Test

Tools

Build Your Own Tools Menu

The wrench menu at the bottom of your homepage now holds the tools you choose. Pin any 8 from the new Tools page, including any of the 21 file converters, take out the ones you never use, and drag them into whatever order you like.

Click Customize at the top of the menu to get started.

Every tool has a new, sharper icon too.

Useful Shortcuts menu with an Add a tool row showing 7 of 8, then HEIC to JPG, My IP and Device with an IP address underneath, Test My Internet Speed, and other tools, each with a new icon
Homepage Tools page with a Tools menu panel showing 7 of 8 pinned tools as icons, each with a remove button, and one empty slot

New Tools

Internet Speed Test

Check your download and upload speeds and latency in about 20 seconds, without leaving your homepage. The test runs on Cloudflare’s network, and it has its own page too, at Internet Speed Test.

Tools menu → Test My Internet Speed
Internet Speed Test window showing 359 Mbps download, 302 Mbps upload and 11 ms latency, with a Test again button

My IP & Device

See your IP address, screen resolution, window size, browser, and operating system in one place, each with a copy button. Pin it to the Tools menu and your IP shows right in the menu.

Tools page → My IP & Device
My IP and Device window listing an IP address, screen resolution, window size, browser and operating system, each with a copy button
v4.9

Upcoming Trips, Trip Weather & Email Imports

Travel

Travel has never been this close

The Travel menu now shows your upcoming trips in the footer, so you can see them at a glance without opening the menu. Click any trip to see the details, or click “Add a trip” to create a new one.

No trips yet? Add one on the Travel page.

Each trip card keeps your flights, hotel stays, confirmation numbers, and notes together in one place.

Passport numbers and your Known Traveler Number go in Travel Documents, in the Travel page’s Notes tab. They’re end-to-end encrypted with a passphrase only you know, so nobody else can read them, not even me.

Travel menu open above a 3 trips button in the bottom bar, listing booking sites and three upcoming trips (Barcelona, Kyoto and Rome) with photos, dates and how far away each is
My Travel page with a Florida trip card showing April dates, a 6 months away countdown, a confirmation number with a Copy button, a note, and Booked and Flight Booked status buttons

Improvements

Trip Countdown

Prefer a countdown? Switch the trip button to show your next trip instead, like “Kyoto · 5 weeks away”, and “Day 3 of 9” once you’re there. You choose how far ahead it starts counting (7 to 60 days), or hide the label and keep just the airplane.

Settings → Travel

Weather for Your Trip

In the week before you leave, a small reminder at the top of your homepage links to the forecast for your destination. Open any trip that’s a week out (or under way) to see the weather for each day you’ll be there.

Small reminder pill reading Ready for Barcelona? Check the weather, with a close button

Import Trips from Your Email

Got a booking confirmation? Copy the whole email and paste it in. Flights, hotel stays, dates, and confirmation numbers get filled in for you, and a stay that falls during a trip you already saved is added to that trip. Only the trip details are saved, not the email itself.

Open it from the Import trip button at the top of the Travel menu.

Import from email window with three numbered steps, a large paste box, and an Import Trip button

Menu Redesign

All of the menus have been given a nice little facelift.