Firefox Community Forum

Hi Mozilla team,

After a recent Firefox update, my Home/New Tab page changed dramatically and became hard to use. The issue is not just that the layout looks different — the new page is functionally worse for me because the shortcuts are oversized, they obscure the search bar area, and the trending/recommended stories are difficult to read.

I tried the usual fixes:

   I changed the New Tab/Home settings.

   I tried the about:config change to restore the older layout.

   The page returned to normal once, but only for one instance; after that, it went back to the problematic layout again.

So I think there are two problems:

   The redesigned Home/New Tab layout is too cluttered and interferes with basic use.

   My preference change is not sticking, because the page resets after a restart or later reopening.

What I need help with is:

   Why the Home/New Tab page is reverting after I change it.

   Whether this is caused by a Firefox study/experiment, session restore, a profile issue, or an extension.

   How to make the older compact layout stay permanently.

   My Firefox version is 153.0 (aarch 64).

   The problem happens after every restart of Firefox.

  Troubleshoot Mode changed nothing.

   The browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.nova.enabled setting was reset to false and that has held.

   I'm on macOS

   Using Sync across devices.

In addition I cannot find session restore - I was going to try unchecking it to see if that helps

FIXED IT - browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.nova.enabled turned to False! Ok to delete my question. I don't see how to do it. Thanks.

Firefox was updated yesterday. Now I have a large white area above the Firefox logo, and the second row of the tiles is at the very bottom of the screen. I have poor eyesight, and I need to use the internet Zoom setting at 120%. Everything was fine before the update. Please see attached - this is just the left side snippet, but you can see the center of the page is all in the lower half. I'm not tech-savvy, so please give me plenty of steps. Thanks.

Firefox generates a list of icons of frequently visited sites on start or opening a new tab. I want to delete some but the "Dismiss" function from the drop-down menu on clicking the three dots on the top of the icon which worked in the past no longer does. Please advise. Thanks.

When I have Picture of the Day enabled, the text labels for the Shortcuts is unreadable if the picture's colour clashes with the text colour. The text labels should have a bubble of contrasting background, perhaps with 50% opacity (like the icons do, and like the widgets below do).

I've attached a screenshot. I had to blur out the shortcuts that are over the trees in the image, which is unfortunate because they were the worst ones to read. The one over the roof tiles is hard to read though. Even the Firefox logo text is partly over some tree foliage and the low contrast is an issue there too.

Hello, In my prior versions of the Firefox browser for Windows 10, I saved and used 1 row of shortcuts right under the search field of the browser. When I updated to v151, the same saved shortcuts keep overwriting with recently viewed pages, just like the history list. Is there a way to stop the browser from overwriting my saved shortcuts row? Presently, I have to manually delete every single overwritten shortcut to maintain a clean list of saved shortcuts after having browsed to other websites; this cleanup process is getting old! FYI, I do used the bookmark toolbar also, but there just a few saved shortcuts that I like to have and frequently use in the single row of shortcuts. Please advise how to save my succinct row of desired shortcuts if that's now possible to do. Thank you.

Had an IMPORTANT list of websites that were listed just below the top search bar. They have disappeared, and I need them back where are they and how do I place them back where I had them. Signed, Technically challenger senior that requires step by step instructions, basic skills please :)

Hello, I am trying to customize the "Shortcuts" section on both Firefox for Android and Desktop homepage. I only want this section to display websites that I have explicitly pinned or added myself. However, if there are any empty slots left in the shortcut grid, Firefox automatically populates them with random websites from my browsing history. Is there a hidden setting (perhaps in about:config) or a native way to completely disable these auto-generated history shortcuts, so that only my manually added sites are shown? Thank you

I tried to use 'Change location' in the weather widget on the New tab page. I can type my location name in the search box, but it doesn't give any results. Thanks for reading my question!

On the "New Tab" page i have ChatGPT pinned so i can go to chatgpt easier, but when i click it it says "Problem Loading Page", but when i search chatgpt on the search bar and click ChatGPT on the results, it works. I tried changing the link but it still doesn't work. It used to work but then this problem just started happening. All of the other links that i have pinned for example Youtube works, only chatgpt doesn't work. I hope someone can help me with this.

I had all 32 homepage shortcut tiles in use. I tried to replace 3 of them, but, after removing those 3, the last 3 tiles won't appear under cursor. I just have dead page space under cursor where those 3 tiles should be. There is no page reaction to hovering cursor over those spots.

TIA, joe

bold text So I get the latest update to Firefox this morning, open a new tab, and all the tiles I had arraigned the way I wanted them no longer in that order, some are missing, some are duplicated 2-3 times. Why can't you guys quit with the window dressing BS and just make the browser stable. Why do we need to hunt for functions that were the same for many years that you decided needed to be changed? I remember when 'Settings' was on the new tab window instead of on the drop down menu in the tool bar.

My new tab tiles are a mess and I don't think I'll ever forgive you for that!

I'm struggling with the changes to my homepage in recent releases. I use (and love) the about:newtab setup. Frankly, it's a big reason I use Firefox. I had the old 5x8 setup of thumbnails, with everything where I wanted it and could easily find. I'm 67 so this is probably much more important to me than someone younger, Changing the number of columns when you switched it to 5x10 threw off where everything was, so I had to rearrange. Okay., I did. But then you go and change it back to 5x8 and now I've lost a bunch of stuff and have to rearrange everything again. Can I get 5x10 back? If so, please let me know how. Thanks.

Place a remove icon, not a delete app icon, in the three dots for the icons on the landing page.

Your last update placed 24+ hot links on my landing page. If I click on the 3 dots or right-click on the icon, there is no removal option. How do I get rid of the background app icons on my landing page now?