How can I make a browser always open at a particular home page?

Q I have the BBC website set as my web browser’s home page on my Windows 7 PC. I like to have this pointed to a local Liverpool page.

However, if I clear my browser’s history and so forth I find that, after restarting, the locale switches to London. I find it infuriating having to edit the page all over again, so that it reflects my own area.

Is there any way to force the BBC website to always display news and information about Liverpool?
James Dulson

A In common with many websites that allow personalisation, the BBC home page employs cookies for the purpose. These are small and essentially harmless files placed on your PC’s hard disk by websites in order that they can later be referenced for your display preferences or other personal information.

The trouble is, left to their own devices, the use of most web browsers’ privacy features will result in a vigorous shake-out of everything that may be used to identify you or your online activities in anyway – and this obviously includes cookies.

Fortunately, it is usually possible to customise the way that these removal tools work, so that all or just some cookies are protected from the deletion process.

You didn’t tell us which web browser you’re using but as your PC runs Windows 7, we’ll assume that it is Internet Explorer 8. This browser does offer some level of control over which cookies get deleted during a privacy sweep.

However, for reasons that will become clear in a moment, it is first necessary to mark the BBC home page as a Favorite – so visit the page then click Favorites followed by Add by Favorites.

To access Internet Explorer’s browsing history feature click Tools and then choose Internet Options. Now click the Delete button in the Browsing history section: the Delete Browsing History dialogue box will appear.

The boxes here are used to indicate which aspects of your browsing history will be erased – click to tick ‘Preserve Favorites website data’.

As the BBC home page has been added as a Favorite, cookies can now be marked for deletion by ticking the relevant box without deleting the one that stores your Liverpool customisations. Just click Delete to proceed.