Fav4 is probably the most elegant of the start pages featured here—not counting the extreme-minimalist approach of about:blank. The arrangement is simple: You visit Fav4 and click on the customize gear in the lower right hand corner. From the customization menu, you can select your four favorite sites from the roster of provided sites or suggest a new site if they don't have one of your favorites. Drag and drop the four sites of your choice onto the customization side bar, and the sites will be displayed—as seen in the screenshot above—as four large icons in your browser window.

You don't need to sign up to use the service—it saves your settings on a per-browser basis using cookies instead of requiring a login.

Given how much of the average user's web traffic is directed at a small selection of sites, having only four sites in the bar isn't as restrictive as it would first seem.