Stick to only 1 opening as a rookie?

I'm wondering what's the best way to start off as a "beginner".

Is it better to stick to one opening and try to hone that one or is it better to start and try new openings in every game?

I would be glad to hear how the more advanced player did it when they started.

And if you stick to one for how long are you playing and studying one before you pick up a new opening?

I think you should have one opening which you play most of the time (maybe one for white, one for black), but you should have some fun and try to experiment with different kinds of openings every now and then.

Both extremes are bad for different reasons (too random causes you to lose any sense of what is good and bad and repeating the same moves over and over again means you don’t learn about any other kinds of positions and it’ll get somewhat boring at some point)

The opening doesn’t matter that much at the beginner level as long you learn to put your pieces in decent positions and for the most part if you don’t hate your position by move 10, your opening was a success.

@MangoMankey thanks a lot. Is it allowed to use the opening explorer for online games? And if so it is it a good idea to rely on it or should I try to really memorize all possible counters to my opening?

You are not allowed to use the opening explorer during a live game, and it would be a bad idea to use it anyway..

You don’t need to memorize all the counters to your opening, just play it a few times, see what do people your level like to play against it, and then you can try to improvise in your future games.

Again, openings don’t really matter that much at your level, it is more important to learn to be able to respond to your opponent’s ideas than to play your opening perfectly

@MangoMankey gave some good advice IMO. For example how both extremes are bad.

I want to add that one thing I did as a new player that helped (mostly because my buddy was an expert and pushed me to do it) was to play over some GM games to find something I could get excited about. It could be for any reason really. For example I remember thinking the grunfeld looked fun because for many moves in a row black was pressuring white's pawns. A different time I liked the Catalan for white because all of white's pieces seemed defended.

In other words it's not really the opening that matters as much as getting excited about some kind of middlegame idea linked to the opening. As you get better, what attracts you will be more sophisticated. Over time, looking at GM games slowly builds into strong intuition, and in the meantime leads to you play good middlegame ideas, and also gets you excited about playing.

And historical games are full of good ideas. Just because modern professionals know that in a very particular variation black has a way to equalize on move 22 therefore it's not good for white to play for a win doesn't mean it's not a good variation for nearly everyone else.

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For example I remember looking at old Caro Kann games. For a while they all started like this game (below). And I thought, holy crap, white really has a lot of attacking on the kingside by pushing all those pawns. I want to try that!

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So my advice is look at it like that. Look for a side of the board (kingside, center, or queenside) and look at how it was done (pawns, pieces, or a mix of both) and look for pawn breaks (for example black played c5 and white played f5 in the game above).

Are some of the moves in that game really hard or confusing? Sure. But just ignore them  Understanding every move is not the point of looking at games. Look for a basic idea that's exciting to you.

@llama44 thanks for the nice summary.
I did also try to analyze some GM games but for me, as a noob (and unfortunately not having an expert friend) it's quite hard if its a non annotated game to understand the reasoning behind some of the moves :/ 

When I looked at GM games it was usually very frustrating for me because I wanted to understand the reasoning behind some or all of the moves.

But in hindsight I realize looking at GM games was useful. Just ignore the confusing moves! And don't play over GM games as your main activity. Just look at 1 or 2 games a day, and only spend maybe not more than 10 minutes on a single game. Just look at the most basic ideas like if they played on the kingside, center or queenside

This is why you should pick up beginner level books and study that way, not via unannoted games from the chess.com database.  I recommend Yasser seiriwan.

Play Winning Chess

Winning Chess Tactics

Winning Chess Strategies

Winning Chess Combinations

Winning Chess Endings

I agree @Huberand I can't under stand games without annotations..

Sure, for your main source of study books are much better.

I only mean look at 1 or 2 GM games a day, and only spend maybe 10-20 minutes.

@ThrillerFan Thanks. I actually started reading multiple books. 
One from Bobby Fisher, Jeremy Silman and Irving Chernev. 

will have a look at Yasser's books.