I know this is an old thread, but I was forced to investigate this today. I thought I'd post an answer with clear information on the problem.
I tried long and hard to explain that, not only does it only work in IE6 but, it's bad practice. Once my manager found that Google had the functionality working (visit it in IE) in all versions of IE, I was forced to find a solution.
So, while document.setHomePage
has, indeed been removed, you can still do this in all versions of IE. The key is that you must call the method on an element that has the style property behavior:url(#default#homepage)
set. The following link will work in IE if placed on your page. You will have to find other methods for other browsers. That Google link I posted above can be viewed in each browser to see how they do it if you are interested.
<a
href="#"
style="behavior: url(#default#homepage);"
onclick="this.setHomePage('http://google.com');return false;">
Make Google your Homepage!
</a>
It looks like IE7+ might require this to happen on a click even though. I couldn't get the code to run in console when I tried.
Here's the MSDN page on the behavior. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/ms531418(v=vs.85).aspx
Now to go hang my head in shame.