(MONEY Magazine) – The Internet is all about getting exactly what you want, but when it comes to home pages, most Web surfers just take what they're given. A home page is the site a Web browser loads automatically upon start-up: Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer, for example, are usually preconfigured to whisk their users to the Netscape or Microsoft Websites, while America Online starts you off at--here's a shock--AOL.com.

But there's no reason to settle for a cookie-cutter home page when plenty of sites let you design one. After registering at a site (typically with your name and e-mail address), you can choose the information you want--news, stock quotes, sports, weather, even horoscopes--and often rearrange the page's layout and color scheme. The site then updates your page every time you launch your browser.

Nothing against horoscopes, but we decided to evaluate how useful the customizable sites are to someone whose primary interest is investing. Among the questions we asked: How powerful and flexible is the portfolio tracker? How extensive, timely and reliable is the business news and other financial information? Is the site truly customizable? How easy is it to use?

We tested the nine leading Internet start sites, as well as electronic brokerage E Trade's soon-to-be-launched Destination E Trade area, which is designed to be a comprehensive, free investment information hub. Already available to E Trade customers, it will be open to non-customers later this summer. (For a look at E Trade's evolving business strategy, see the story on page 46.)

The quality of the sites varies widely. A bare-bones portfolio tracker and ugly (and inflexible) design make Microsoft's MSN Internet Start almost laughably bad (so far), while Compaq's Alta Vista and Infoseek offer little or no customization (for now). On the other hand, the best customizable pages are impressive indeed. Here are the ones we like most:

FOR ADVANCED INVESTORS (who want it their way)

My Yahoo (my.yahoo.com)

Pros: With news of earnings surprises from Zacks, brokerage upgrades and downgrades as tracked by Briefing.com, business and industry news from Reuters and Standard & Poor's, and easy access to dispatches from the Motley Fool and the Street.com, My Yahoo offers the richest assortment of financial content available on a customizable home page. The portfolio tracker is formidable. It allows you to set up multiple portfolios and choose what information you want to see about the stocks in each one. You can also compare your holdings' returns with various domestic and foreign indexes.

Cons: The breadth of My Yahoo's options occasionally veers into the absurd. You could, if you really wanted, tinker with more than 589,000 possible layout color schemes.

Note: My Excite (www.excite.com) follows the same basic design as My Yahoo and runs a very strong second, even beating its competitor in some areas. For example, Excite's portfolio analysis section is an eye-popper, and you can set up the home page so that recent headlines about stocks that you want to follow are displayed directly on your home page rather than a few clicks away.

FOR ADVANCED INVESTORS (who don't want to tinker)

E Trade (www.etrade.com)

Pros: E Trade aims for relative simplicity, giving you a choice of four standard pages: Snapshot View, Analyst View, Trader View and Tech Spotlight. All four display your list of portfolios, but the Analyst View, for example, highlights recent stock analyst upgrades and downgrades, while the Trader View features intraday market commentary from Briefing.com. Most investors will find the Snapshot View--with business news from Reuters and market index graphs--the most useful option. Unlike other sites, E Trade offers real-time stock quotes. The portfolio tracker is powerful and flexible, and E Trade is by far the sharpest-looking site, with sophisticated graphics and charts.

Cons: You have to use E Trade's general log-on screen as your home page and sign in with your user name and password every time you visit (unless you're returning within an hour of your last visit) before the site will load your personalized view. This extra step is a hassle, but it's for security reasons (this is a brokerage, after all).

Note: Although the site is relatively free of marketing pitches for E Trade, that could change. And while E Trade says it's committed to keeping the site open to noncustomers, Internet business models have a way of changing.

FOR BEGINNERS

AOL.com (www.aol.com/mynews)

Pros: Like the rest of America Online, this service aims for novices who want solid information (provided here by Reuters and the Associated Press), a comfortable atmosphere and maybe a modicum of customization. The portfolio tracker powered by Quicken.com (and identical to Excite's) is a standout. It includes an analyzer from Value Line that will tell you how much of each asset class (large-cap, small-cap, international stocks, bonds and cash) you are holding in each of your portfolios. You do not have to be an AOL member to use this service.

Cons: Business news coverage here is thinner than at other sites. You have almost no control over page layout.