For those of you that use the startpage in which we created for everyone (a unique page to replace their browser’s startpage or “new tab” page…more details below), there is an update coming that you probably have already seen begin.

We have already moved a few links around based on popularity or recommendations and now we are adding a whole new section. We have received some requests to bring in more of a presence for gaming. So you may have noticed there are 4 scenes instead of 3 on the page; one of which very well states “coming soon”.

This will be dedicated to both console and online video games. For the online games we will try to focus on the free games and will attempt to update shortcuts based on popularity so that no unpopular game is wasting space 🙂

You can get to the startpage by the following link: http://www.animevortex.net/html/startpage

What is the startpage? The startpage was created by us to offer users a fun and unique approach to setting their startpage or “new tab” page in their browser. It is themed after Windows 8/Phone/Xbox’s metro style theme. It works with your mouse for both scrolling and clicking (arrow icons), as well as your keyboard as you can use the left and right arrows on your keyboard to switch scenes, each scene with it’s own group of shortcuts. Now with 4 categories (scenes) it offers the main scene, Games, Social and News/Fun.

Other updates you will have noticed is the background has been switched to an image vs a solid color (used to be purple) and we will look at future options for that as well…maybe a rotation feature depending on load times.

Also, Google search box now sends all search queries via Google Encrypted Search (better for local privacy when it comes to your online search activity). If you chose a different search provider, that obviously no longer applies.

What is Google Encrypted Search? That comes down to all of the recent complaints about internet privacy and how the search engines track everything you do and provide that information to the websites you click on through referrer information as well as analytic data (data farming) for the displayed advertisements. With Google Encrypted, it isn’t a perfect solution thanks to Google’s own actions behind it but basically if the website you click in the results uses HTTP, it will have no idea where you’re coming from or what your search query is. If it uses HTTPS, it will receive referrer information normally. So it prevents half of the shared data to the world about your search activities…the other half however will still see it. Is this addition to the page a big one?….not really. It’s just something extra to have on there.

Answers (Q&A): 

“Why is it you chose Google for the search box vs the others engines”: Google is only set by default due to popularity (more users use it over the others). You can actually click on the little magnifying glass icon and it will give you a selection of Google, Yahoo, Bing and even Wikipedia. So the control is actually in your own hands 😀

…I guess that covers the questions that have came in heh.