Transferr

Transferr.com is a customized home page through which users can quickly and easily access their favorite websites. The site provides users with a customized, tabbed home page which shows each of their favorite sites as an icon. The icons are thumbnail images of their corresponding site, making it easy to recognize favorite sites. Icons can be re-arranged by dragging and dropping, and the user can choose to have links open in the same browser window or a new window. The customized home page can be multiple pages, and the user chooses between pages by using convenient tabs. Users can add icons by clicking on the “Add an icon” button that is shown on the home page. The user is prompted to enter the URL for the site, a title, which tab to add the icon on, and the color of the icon. The site also provides bookmarklets for Internet Explorer and Firefox which allow users to add an icon by simply clicking on the bookmarklet while they are on a site. This takes them to the Transferr site where the icon is added to the tab the user chooses. When a user joins the site, they are given the option of importing their existing bookmarks, or they can choose to do this later at any time. Users can email icons to their friends who are also using the Transferr service. The Transferr site was launched in December 2007. Competition to Transferr comes from NetVibes and iGoogle. Both of these sites offer similar functionality to Transferr but with more features. The NetVibes site offers a customized start page, plus the ability to add a variety of widgets to the home page. NetVibes has a much larger userbase, with an Alexa page rank well below the 100 mark. IGoogle is also more popular than Transferr, and also provides more functionality, including the ability to add gadgets. The Transferr site has an outdated look and feel. Advertising is displayed on the site, but it is relatively unobtrusive. Navigation is highly intuitive, and the site is quite responsive. The site was undergoing a server upgrade at the time of testing, and the initial generation of icons was somewhat slow. There is a convenient top menu bar for navigation shown on all the user’s tabbed pages. Links on the navigation bar included Settings and Logout. The bookmarklets for adding icons performed well in Internet Explorer and Firefox. Registration to the Transferr site is free and is required to use the site. The registration process asks for username, first name, password and email address. Confirmation of the email address is not required. Users registered via a free account have full access to the site and there is no premium membership to the site offered. The Transferr site is not recommended to anyone. If you are looking for a customized start page there are much better alternatives available.