You can set the startup (home) page to about:newtab

• Tools > Options > General > Startup: Home page
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/How+to+set+the+home+page

Note that Firefox supports multiple home pages separated by '|' (pipe) symbols.

You can use pages like these:

• the default new tab page with the tiles is about:newtab
• the default home page is about:home
• for a blank page use about:blank

Thank you for your response. Allow me to clarify my question. I am not looking to create a new tab with tiles. My preference is to create a new tab using about:home

With previous versions of Firefox, one can change the default behavior of new tabs by:

      * Opening about:config
      * Setting the variable browser.newtab.url to about:home

What are the equivalent settings for Firefox v56.0.1?

You can no longer do this via a pref on the about:config page. If the home page is set to about:home then you can middle-click the toolbar Home button with the mouse wheel to open a new tab with the about:home page.

You can alternatively do this with code in a mozilla.cfg file.

//

/* NEW TAB */
var newTabURL = "about:home";
Components.utils.import("resource:///modules/NewTabURL.jsm");
NewTabURL.override(newTabURL);

You can use the mozilla.cfg file in the Firefox program folder to set or lock preferences and run privileged JavaScript code.

The mozilla.cfg file needs to be in the main Firefox program folder.

These functions can be used in the mozilla.cfg file:

defaultPref();	// set new default value
pref();	// set pref, allow changes in current session
lockPref();	// lock pref, disallow changes

This requires a local-settings.js file in the "defaults\pref" folder where the channel-prefs.js file is located that specifies to use mozilla.cfg.

//
pref("general.config.filename", "mozilla.cfg");
pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0);

The mozilla.cfg and local-settings.js files need to start with a comment line (//).

See Configuration:

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Enterprise_deployment