MyFav.es: an icon-only start page

MyFav.es is a hosted start page built around one job: pick icons for the sites you visit most, arrange them on a page, and set that page as your browser's homepage. Its own homepage describes it as "a free, elegant, & customizable start page for your favorite web browser, tablet or smartphone," with a three-step pitch just as plain: "Pick Your Sites," "Customize Your Page," "Make it Yours" (source: myfav.es, read 2026-10-24).

The product is small by design, and its own sitemap confirms it: exactly three pages exist on the whole domain, the homepage, a settings page and a help page, dated 2010-05-26 (source: myfav.es/sitemap.xml, read 2026-10-24). There is no blog, no pricing page and no widget of any kind, no weather, no clock, no news feed, just icons and a background. It suits someone who wants the smallest possible replacement for a browser's blank new tab page, close to a bookmark bar turned into a homepage. It does not suit someone who wants live information on that page; MyFav.es has nothing that updates on its own.

Setup follows the three steps named on the homepage: pick icons from what its own copy calls "hundreds of beautiful icons," or upload a custom one, adjust the icon style, page layout and background, then claim a URL and set it as your homepage (myfav.es, read 2026-10-24).

The one feature with real depth is keyboard control. The help page confirms that typing 1, 2, 3 or 4, or a, s, d or f, launches the matching site, and typing c opens the configuration panel, all without touching the mouse (myfav.es/help/, read 2026-10-24). That same page answers a few practical questions: cookies need to be enabled for the page to remember your favorites, and custom icons mostly come from a third-party icon shop called Helveticons rather than being made in-house (myfav.es/help/, read 2026-10-24).

Open myfav.es and sign up free; no further account details are described on the site itself. From there, the three-step flow, picking sites, customizing the page, and claiming a URL, sets everything up, and that address is what you point your browser's homepage setting at (myfav.es, read 2026-10-24). The help page also mentions a third-party Chrome extension and a matching Firefox add-on, both built by outside contributors, for opening MyFav.es in every new tab rather than only as the homepage (myfav.es/help/, read 2026-10-24).

MyFav.es is free. There is no pricing page, no upgrade prompt and no paid feature anywhere on the site as read today; the only call to action on the homepage is "Sign up Free" (myfav.es, read 2026-10-24).

The site shows real signs of age. Its sitemap file is dated 2010-05-26, sixteen years before this read, and lists only the same three pages that exist today (myfav.es/sitemap.xml, read 2026-10-24); its robots.txt address returns a plain 404 rather than an actual file (myfav.es/robots.txt, read 2026-09-28). The help page itself points visitors to a Flickr group for sharing their page and calls its own how-to video "coming soon," both signs it has gone a long time without an update.

There are no widgets. Weather, a clock, a news feed or anything else that refreshes on its own is not part of the product; it is icons and a background, and nothing more. There is also no public demo account you can enter to try the product before signing up, only a preview panel on the homepage. Trying it out past that preview means creating an account first.