FAQ

1. What is the Start Page Randomizer?

The Start Page Randomizer allows you to set multiple home pages in your browser. Each time you start your browser or click the "Home" button, you will be taken to one of the pages in your list - or if you're feeling adventurous, somebody elses list.

2. How does it work?

The browser start page is the first page your browser loads when you run it. Normally you can only set one start page in your browser, which can quickly become boring.

However, if you set the start page to a unique StartPageRandomizer URL (which you get after your acount is created), your personal list of pages is retrieved from a database. A random page is picked and your browser is automatically redirected to the new page.

There is nothing to install (except for a very minor change to your browser settings), there are no advertisements and the service is completely free.

3. How do I use it?

Simply sign in or with your username and password to access your list of pages. If you don't yet have an account, you can create one here.

The first time you log in, you will be prompted to set your browsers start page to your unique URL. If you want the Randomizer to pick a random page whenever your browser is started, you must set your startpage to this URL.

Once you have an account and have logged in, you will be taken to your list of pages.

To add a new page to your list, enter the web page name (eg: random.miszou.com) in the Add Page field and click the Add Page button.

To delete a page, simply click the red X next to the link to delete it.

4. What is the difference between public and private links?

Public Links can be seen by anyone who wants to see them. Links that do not require you to "log in" are public links. For example www.google.com and www.msn.com are public links, and can safely be shared to be seen by anyone.

Private Links are links that you do not want to share with anyone else. For example, the login screen for your hotmail account or a page that shows your local weather might be private links, since other users are unlikely to be interested in such things.

5. How do page categories work?

Whenever a new page is added to the database, it is automatically marked as uncategorized. Uncategorized pages may be marked public, but they will NOT be served to any other user until they have been checked for content and placed in an appropriate category by an administrator.

Once a page has been assigned to a category, it can be displayed to other users who have elected to view pages in the same category. This mechanism is intended to protect users from malicious web sites and unsuitable content while allowing greater control of the types of pages they see.

When a user receives a public page, they can be assured that the page will contain the type of content they are interested in, with no hidden surprises.

Individual pages can also be marked as Not Safe For Work. Refer to FAQ #15 for more information.

6. Why are my pages marked as uncategorized?

New pages are always marked uncategorized until they have been checked for content by an administrator.

This does not affect your ability to see your own pages, but other users will not be redirected to an uncategorized page until it has been checked and assigned an appropriate category.

7. Why can't I decide the category of my own pages?

Allowing users to assign categories to their own pages would defeat the purpose of categorizing pages. By moving this responsibilty onto the administrators of the Randomizer, users can rest assured that the sites they see within a chosen category will be appropriate.

8. Why does my page have to be checked by an administrator?

In order to reassure users that the random pages are not going to harm their computer with viruses, scams, phishing attacks or other objectionable content, all submitted pages are checked by an administrator for content.

The Randomizer is very broad-minded and a page would have to be fairly awful to be rejected. See FAQ 11 for more information.

9. Why does my page have to be viewed by an administrator and categorized for public display if I made it private?

In truth, it doesn't. But, some other user may add the same page and mark it public. Or you may mark it public yourself only to change it to private at a later date. If you're worried about an administrator viewing a private page in order to categorize it, there are a couple of points to remember:

Firstly, don't add it to the Randomizer if you don't want it to be seen! And secondly, ensure that the site is password protected (In which case the site will be categorized as "Not Public" and will not be publicly available, regardless of whether it is marked public or not).

10. A page I added has been incorrectly categorized! What can I do?

Every page has a list of comments associated with it. At the top of the comments page (which can be accessed by clicking the number in the "comments" column of your page list, or by selecting "comments" from the recent pages on the left hand side), is a link to "Report this Page" to an administrator.

Simply click the link, select the appropriate reason for reporting the page - adding any additional comments if necessary - and press the "OK" button. An administrator will examine your complaint and reassign the page category if necessary.

11. What is "Unsuitable Content"?

The Randomizer is fairly broad-minded, but certain pages will never see the light of day. This includes, but is not limited to, pages that contain spam, viruses, trojans, excessive pop-ups, browser hijack attempts, "drive-by" installations, scams, phishing, fraud and direct links to executables or movies (Please link to the containing page instead).

To be honest, we don't care if you add this stuff to your own account, but it will not become available to other users. In other words, you'll only be annoying yourself!

12. Where can I see a list of all the pages in a category?

You can't. This would ruin the "surprise" aspect of the Randomizer.

However, you can always see the last 5 public pages randomized and the 5 newest additions in the panel on the left.

There is also a statistics page that shows the top 10 pages for the selected time period (24 hours, 48 hours, 7 days etc)

13. How do I stop using the Randomizer?

Set your browsers start page to something else and you will no longer recieve random pages. In Internet Explorer, click the Tools menu, then click Options to change your home page.

If you do not use the randomizer for 6 months, your account will be automatically deleted.

14. I have an account and I've added some links, but I never get redirected. What's going on?

You need to set your browsers homepage to point to this website. Complete instructions on how to do this are available after you sign in, by clicking the "My Start Page" link in the menu on the left.

15. Why do my private pages have comments associated with them?

This can happen if someone else has added the same page and made it public. The comments you are seeing are actually being added to the other users page, but since the pages are the same, the comments and rating appear on your private page too.

16. What do the bombs mean?

The bombs indicate a page that is probably Not Safe For Work.

In your profile, you can enable or disable the Work Safe filter, according to your needs. Refer to FAQ 17 for more information.

17. What is the Work-Safe filter? And how do I enable/disable it?

When enabled, the Work-Safe filter will prevent certain websites from being selected during randomization. This can be useful if your workplace has strict internet usage policies and you do not wish to be seen browsing certain types of websites...

Note that the Work-Safe filter is ON by default, and you must explicitly disable it to see all pages. When the filter is disabled, a cookie is stored on your computer, so that the next time you request a random page, the Randomizer knows to filter the available sites. If the cookie cannot be found, then Work-Safe mode is automatically re-enabled.

By setting a cookie on the workstation itself, you can have different settings for your home and work computers. For example, you can enable the Work-Safe filter on your company PC, but disable it at home, while still keeping the same set of categories in your profile.

18. How does the rating system work?

Registered users can give a page a rating between 1 (awful) and 5 (awesome). The page rating is simply the average user rating given to a page.

The higher the average rating, the better the page is supposed to be...

At some point in the future, the Randomizer may make use of the page rating to determine what pages to serve you, based upon a user-defined threshold.