I want to use Microsoft Edge on my Windows 10 system, particularly since I’ve been reading about how battery friendly it is, but there’s no “home” button, and I want one. Help!
The development team at Microsoft would be very happy to know you’re enthused about its Edge browser, and with good cause, it’s a very well designed program with a nice, austere interface and clean design that really shows just how tired and old Internet Explorer has become by this point in its lifecycle.
However, you’re right, one of the default settings in Microsoft Edge is to not have a home button, which can make navigation a bit tricky if you’re used to being able to reorient yourself and start your Web journey over with the click of a button or tap of a spot on the screen.
Fortunately it’s easy to restore your Home button in Edge and even specify where you should go — or not go! — when you click on the Home button itself.
Let’s have a look, starting with Edge on the Bing home page…
Look closely and you’ll see the left and right arrow buttons, and the “circular” arrow to refresh the page, all on the top left, but no home button. Not good.
To fix it, click (or tap!) on the ellipses button (“. . .”) on the top right. A menu pops up:
This is one easy place to make the text on a given page larger or smaller through “Zoom”, but to fix the home button problem, click (or tap) on the “Settings” choice at the bottom of the menu.
A new menu opens up:
Lots of options and note in particular the lower portion of this menu where you can fine-tune what happens when you open up a new window or tab. Options include your Start page, a new tab page, a specific page or set of pages, or, off the pop-up menu, choices like “Top sites and suggested content.”
Still not what you want, however. Remember these options and scroll downward on the menu with your mouse, trackpad, finger, or left elbow. Okay, just kidding about the elbow as an option!
That’s what we seek: “View advanced settings“, the grey button. Tap/click on it to bring up quite a few additional preferences and settings for the Microsoft Edge browser.
And there it is, first option on the advanced settings: “Show the home button“. As you can see, it’s off, so it’s no wonder I don’t have a home button on the navigational bar in Edge!
A swipe/click and it’s enabled, at which point you can then choose the URL of what you’d like as your home page:
Want Bing as your default home page destination? Easy enough, just paste that URL into the box.
And the home button has reappeared in the meantime too:
Not too bad to get set up, and now you can back up and figure out what you want to have happen with new tabs and blank windows too, customizing your Microsoft Edge experience as desired!