Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but today I realized how to fix the browser homepage:
For months I'd been wondering why the browser insisted on using Google as homepage, no matter what I set up in the Preferences dialog. Turns out the default "webbrowser" application shortcut passes
http://google.com as parameter - so I edited that file*, removed the parameter and now everything works as expected.
*don't recall the exact location right now, should be easy to find though