You can set your Safari Home Page to be anything you want. By Default, Safari is set to open the Apple home page for new Windows and Top Sites for new Tabs. Neither of these page loads very quickly. In fact, Top Sites loads verrrry slowly.
I recently found two options for Home Pages that load very quickly and still give you a "launching pad" to the websites you frequent most often.
Fav4. Fav4 launches a page the has just 4 big buttons on it for your favorite sites. You can set your Fav 4 by clicking the Gear icon on the bottom right of the page.
Zenstart Zenstart quickly loads lists of 150 common websites. You can edit the order of the websites on the list by hovering over the website name and clicking the grey up and down buttons.
The downside to both of these fast loading sites is that you can't add your favorite sites that aren't on their lists. The ones that are missing you can always add to your Bookmarks Bar.
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