Firefox Community Forum

I deleted all the shortcuts from Firefox desktop browser's homepage and now I cannot add them back.

There are no blank shortcut icons on the page anymore. No setting to enable them. Shortcuts are enabled. Page is mostly blank, only has Firefox icon.

I tried to close and open Firefox as well as disabling and enabling the shortcut setting. Adding more rows did not do anything.

Before this issue occurred, I had one shortcut on the page that was linking to localhost. I opened the edit window to the shortcut and pasted the same address and saved changes. After that I removed the shortcut. All of the blank tiles immediately got removed from page and I had no way of adding more shortcuts.

I'm on Linux.

I've been using this method to setup a custom new tab page for Firefox for almost 4 years, and it has worked great: https://jamesnorth.net/knowledge-base/article/firefox-new-tab-page

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Navigate to /usr/lib/firefox.

Create autoconfig.cfg:

// var {classes:Cc,interfaces:Ci,utils:Cu} = Components;

/* set new tab page */ try {

 Cu.import("resource:///modules/AboutNewTab.jsm");  
 var newTabURL = "file:///home/james/ff/index.html";  
 AboutNewTab.newTabURL = newTabURL;  

} catch(e){Cu.reportError(e);} // report errors in the Browser Console

Create defaults/pref/autoconfig.js:

// pref("general.config.filename", "autoconfig.cfg"); pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0); pref("general.config.sandbox_enabled", false);

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However, upon updating to Firefox 136, I only get a blank page. All of my autoconfig files still exist in /usr/lib/firefox.

When I create a new tab with Ctrl+T, it's a blank page. When I create a new window, it loads the local page I want it to load with the file path in the URL (which it never had before; the URL bar was blank in Firefox 135). So it seems to be partially working.

Any tips?

The AccuWeather part of the Firefox homepage says I'm in Portland, Oregon, USA, but I'm not even in the same country. I tried to change it according to the directions I found earlier, but the only drop-down for my city was another city in the US but none in any other countries. So now I can't change my location. How do I change my location? It wasn't like this yesterday and I have no memory as to how it became "Portland, Oregon" since last night. I don't even have a VPN so it isn't that. How do I change it back to my area without using my exact location?

I opened Firefox this morning and all of my pinned shortcuts have disappeared. Shortcuts are enabled in the settings. I checked the browser.newtabpage.pinned pref on the about:config and all of my pinned shortcuts are still there, but they're not appearing on the actual page itself. Are there any other settings that I'm not aware of?

hi

the element i really like / liked about Pocket were the curated stories that firefox publishes on its new tab page.

yes i used the "save to pocket" option but one can easily enough just visit the article and bookmark in the normal way.

NOTE: i think i wasn't appreciating the offline easy-to-read aspect to pocket (because i'd just read the article online and/or save to pocket) but it's too late now!

I've seen articles on multiple websites and reddit about pocket alternatives but people seem to only talk about pocket in terms of the capacity to save-to-read-later, tagging, book marking management, etc.

Btw, i've read the mozilla pocket FAQ support page (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/pocket-recommendations-firefox-new-tab). It was updated mid march 2025 (when mozilla surely knew they were shutting down pocket) and ironically it recommends for more articles to visit pocket.

1) this FAQ really needs to be updated to reflect pocket ceasing

2) it could reflect what is happening with the "thought-provoking stories" feature within firefox browser

My questions:

1) will the "thought provoking stories" feature aka curated articles of interest continue in firefox in any capacity after pocket ceases?

i don't know given i believe they're sourced from pocket.

EDIT: i've just discovered about "pocket hits" (or "ten tabs" as reportedly it's being renamed to) email newsletter. I knew nothing about this. Might the content / curated articles replace those from pocket on the new tab page?

2) if not, can people suggest alternatives to pocket's curated articles (i'm less fussed about saving the articles because i've seen many recommendations on that)?

thanks,

Gary

Hi everyone, I'm asking for help following the latest update (Firefox 143.0.1): the corners of the top site preview boxes have changed, as shown in the first screenshot. I was wondering if it's possible to permanently restore them to the same state as in the second screenshot, perhaps via userContent.css.

Good morning One and All Why is the 'customise' facility, bottom right of tab, not available if the tab is blank? I have downloaded a personal photograph as my background but it is ruined by the Google search bar and the Firefox logo above it. Why can't these 2 items be moved either to the side, below or above?

I have change my home page to DuckDuckGo, but when I click on a new tab, "+" I get Firefox. I tried blank and it is indeed blank, so how do I set new tab so it opens DuckDuckGo? (Read all help articles.)

Recently, when I open a new tab in Firefox (Windows) I started getting a drop-down box for Google instead of shield, lock, and sliders followed by the query/address bar. See attachment. I have no way to drag and drop this search query address. If I follow this by clicking on the search icon in the Google query field below, I get the normal Firefox address bar with the lock icon and the ability to save the query address by dragging and dropping the lock icon. How can I get back to the normal Firefox browsing address bar.

The weather widget on my FireFox homepage, as well as the information when I type "weather" into the address bar shows me as in Montreal QC, Canada. But I am in New Hampshire, USA. When I try to type a different city name after clicking the 3 dots next to the widget and choosing change location the only cities that come up are Canadian cities.

I am not running any kind of VPN, and when I check my location with an IP lookup it shows me in the correct location, my locale settings in Windows are set the the US as well.

Thanks for any help!

My browser has been hacked by searchingswift.com, I've read all the article's I can find on getting rid of it with no luck. I've completely uninstalled everything including the mistake that brought it in (Coverseen miss pick file), but no luck.

Here's what I get after a complete reinstall and deleting any Firefox stuff I can find.

"https://searchingswift.com/?path=firefox/newtab&u=ee6fb4108559ab17&subid=11119&channel=1"

I'm getting ready to do a backup from a month ago, but I'm not sure if this will come back in with my Firefox sign in.

Windows 11 and New Firefox

A little over a week ago, I noticed icons for the shortcuts on the start page started showing wrong icons for some of them. For example, gmail and reddit show youtube icons and this behavior continues even for the favorites. X(Twitter) also has a generic icon instead of the normal one. Is there a way to force refresh on these or some way to correctly apply site icons?

As of Updating to 142.0.1 (64 bit, Windows 10) yesterday, the Home Page / New Tab page now has DOZENS of RECOMMENDED STORIES under different Topics, instead of the former more compact and manageable grid or 15 or 18 items.

Under SETTINGS - HOME - RECOMMENDED STORIES it seems you can only toggle RECOMMENDED STORIES ON or OFF.

On the Home / New Tab page itself, you can only Select whether to FOLLOW or BLOCK Topics. The page is now TOO LONG and much TOO BUSY and not worth endlessly Scrolling to find the two or three articles of possible interest.

QUESTION: Where is, or Why is there Not, an Option for the former "Legacy" RECOMOMENDED STORIES? The Alternative is to turn RECOMMENDED STORIES OFF - which defeats the purpose of supporting your News or Advertisers to Support MOZILLA.

The Display Options for SHORTCUTS offers choices of 2 rows, 3 rows, etc ... Why Not an Option for RECOMMENDED STORIES limiting to a fixed number as well ?

Thank you for your consideration ...

Where are my shortcut tiles? I used CCleaner and they all disappeared and I can't get them back even though I make sure they were on and have 2 rows selected and restarted my computer since. This happened last week and still no sign of them. See pic for reference.

I used to have an image (dark, stormy sky) in my new tabs, that appeared as a background to my grid of websites (8 columns x 4 rows). Suddenly, I haven't seen it today - just noticed that it's just black. Can't seem to find where to access the different images. Would like the path to find it, or learn if it's no longer available or if I can make my own. Thanks.

I cannot change the background image when my Firefox app opens on my MS Windows laptop. During set-up, the system had me select an image, but I want to change it as I find it distracting. Thanks!

When I have stories (articles) recommended through Pocket on new tabs that I'm not interested in I will typically "thumbs down" or "dismiss" the story. What I have found recently is that causes them to be promoted to me more rather than less. I believe it's interpreting my interaction as engaging with the content rather than not wanting to see it again. For example, I was shown an article on American football three weeks ago and I gave it a thumbs down. Later that day it was three articles. I gave them the same thumbs down. After repeating this process for days, weeks later I'm still getting multiple articles recommended per day related to football. I've never read one out of interest, and I didn't have any recommendations related to sports until the first one I gave a thumbs down. Based on that, I'm convinced it's having the opposite than intended effect. Dismiss doesn't seem make a difference. Please give me a way to tune the algorithm to what I actually want to see, I like this feature and don't want to have to turn it off.

Hi, I just want to ask about the customization option on the new tab's low right corner (the little pencil icon). I've had a background image called "Galaxy" that i thought was pretty, but it disappeared (probably sync settings on other devices, idc) and now the background is just system gray. The issue is that i cannot find the system background in "Themes" nor in the "Customization" (picrel) - there is only "reset to defaults". I really like Firefox and this was pretty cool so I'd like it back. Thanks in advance :)