Start.Me Customization Not Working

[VexedOldHag]

Hello again guys, I got a lovely swift awnser yesterday and am hoping for the same today with a new issue:
I updated to 27.1 yesterday; of a sudden my Start.Me has "lost" its customization!

I had it nice and "blank", none of the widgets, and used Ublock's element hider to block other stuff, and loved it.

TODAY...oh my Gawd...it is coming up "you must create an account/login wiith your social media" etc etc (I use no social media and actually loathe it)
WTH I hate this visual assault...

I could NOT get past the "you must login/create account". Had to go another route to even get to Start.Me without that coming up; then it would not allow me to remove ANY of those awful widgets.

I had NO problem doing so before (on same system/OS etc {Linux Mint 18.1}) despite NOT creating an account. Now it is strongarming me into creating an account just to get beyond that visually aggressive page!

This is killing me, I am such a minimalist and I loved my pretty homepage with just the "log cabin" scene.
I immediately changed my homepage to a blank one so I can avoid this new start.me

Help? Thanks....
(if this is not considered a Linux specific issue, Mods, please move thread)

EDIT:
just updated to 27.1 on another machine (also w/Mint 18.1) and did NOT encounter this issue; start.me stayed as I had it
BUT
I tried on the machine with the issue, with Ublock Origin/element hider disabled and I WAS able to get it back how it was (widgets deleted etc)

Can't get Gmelius to work though and am hesitant to keep starting threads...can't find any threads on Gmelius for Pale Moon on Linux...anyone have a clue?

[niemehr]

It looks like i have the same login problem. How did you manage to get around the login screen?

[gracious1]

Hello again guys, I got a lovely swift awnser yesterday and am hoping for the same today with a new issue:
I updated to 27.1 yesterday; of a sudden my Start.Me has "lost" its customization!

Hello, and welcome to the Pale Moon Forum!

Here is what I have done.

In my default profile I customized Start.me by moving everything around, adding and removing links and widgets, etc. just the way I like it. As long as you have cookies enabled --and you whitelist start.me and palemoon.start.me with your cookie-crusher (if you use one) -- it will retain the info.

But just to be safe.... Click on the little generic profile picture and select Preferences. Then click on "Account Settings". (This is for your free Anonymous account that didn't realize you created.) There is a URL there for recovery. Save this URL.

Even better, you can use this URL as the home page in your other profiles (if you use other profiles) and you will always get the identically customized page.

Hope this helps.
G.

[Moonchild]

I guess people still don't really understand how this works.

The short version, you have 3 ways in which you can use start.me:

• Guest mode. You use the pages as we've designed as a generic start page, no customization.
  Pros: works immediately, and is the same anywhere.
  Cons: you can't customize, and if we decide to change the layout/shortcuts, that will also happen for you.
• Anonymous mode. You create an anonymous account by customizing the page. This account is directly bound to a cookie in your browser with account details and can be "transported" by getting the unique URL for your anonymous account. This was something start.me specifically implemented when we discussed Pale Moon integration, considering the relatively large percentage of our users who don't like account logins. I'm not sure if any other portals out there have something like this available.
  Pros: You can customize and your page will be the way you want it. You don't have to surrender any personal information to use this.
  Cons: Cross-device usage can be a little annoying. If you lose your cookie, you lose access to your page customizations, and if anyone else learns of your unique page credentials they have equal full access to it.
• Account mode. You create a start.me account, either with start.me credentials or social media login.
  Pros: You can customize, your page will always be yours when you log in, regardless of the device or computer you use. The page customizations are safe and not bound to a computer, cookie or accessible URL. You can upgrade the account to a paid account and be ad-free.
  Cons: None that I can think of.