Firefox Community Forum

In a few previous updates, FF keeps messing around with the New Tab layout, ruining its previous good look. I learned to revert it back to its former setting by disabling browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.newtabLayouts.variant-a and also browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.newtabLayouts.variant-b in about:config.

Now in Firefox 141, browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.newtabLayouts.variant-a has completely disappeared, no more allowing the poor user to get the look he wants.

Why? Am I missing something? What is the use of making the product worse or less user friendly?

This has been asked before here, but it seems currently there is no solution:

Firefox's default behavior when using the mouse middle-click on an empty area of the tab bar area will create a new tab; I don't want this behavior. How can I disable it?

On the posts I found here, they mention using UserChrome.css, I enabled it and tried, doesn't work. custom styles are enabled but not disabling this feature.

I use DisplayFusion on my multi-monitor setup since years, and middle-clicking a window title bar or Chrome tab bar or Firefox tab bar will move the current window to a second monitor.

Currently with Firefox, middle-clicking the tab bar will move the window to the second monitor AND open a new tab. I use it a lot with YouTube, so when I move a playing video to the second monitor, I get an empty tab with audio in the background.

I recently moved from Chrome to Firefox, but this is driving me crazy.

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?

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.

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

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

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!

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 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.)

Firefox has shortcuts at the top of any new tab opened. These are usually your most visited pages. For most shortcuts, if you click the three dots you get a menu of: Pin Edit Open in a New Window Open in a New Private Window Dismiss Delete From History

This is the menu you get for almost all shortcuts EXCEPT for Amazon. For the Amazon shortcut you get: Pin Dismiss

That's it. No opportunity to edit it. And if you click on the shortcut, it doesn't take you to Amazon.com, instead it opens "Amazon.com Search" in the address bar. I don't want Search, I want to go to the Amazon home page but the shortcut doesn't take me to the Amazon homepage like it used to. Why is this broken now?

I installed Firefox on a fresh Win 11 install, and most of the the favicons are still generic on the Home Page several days later. Facebook, Ebay and Youtube are the only ones that appear consistently, sometimes other will display, but then be gone again the next time the app is launched. All other links just have the generic letter icons.

I tried deleting the 3 favicon files in the Profiles folder, but it did nothing. I've tried manually re-adding the links, still nothing. I removed the "S" from "https;//" and still nothing. The favicons all show up on my other machines which use Firefox on the same user account, so it is not a problem with the websites themselves.

Not sure if its related, but upon installing Firefox on this machine, it made Firefox on my Mac desktop absolutely freak out. I had to make a significant number of changes over the course of hours to fix everything, so many relating to favicons alone that I don't know what actually fixed it.

What else can I do to try and get these working? Why does Firefox apparently struggle with this particular feature across multiple OSes?

Thanks.

As of today, the wallpaper I'd set for my homepage/new tabs pages is gone and there's no way to choose a different one. Is this just me or or are other people having this problem?

I have two Mac systems, a 2018 Intel Mac Mini, and an M1 2020 MacBook Pro, both running Sonoma 14.7.6. On the Mac Mini, Firefox opens to the familar "Recommended Stories". On the MacBook Pro Firefox opens to a long list of items I'm not the least bit interested in. How do I get the MacBook Pro back to nothing but the "Recommended Stories"? I don't want/need NHL, NFL, NBA,Television, MLB, Pro Soccer, Education, Food, Health, Parenting, etc., etc., etc.

I am trying to set up a new computer. I have customized the homepage and new windows to a preferred page, however I cannot customize the new tab settings. The only options for a new tab are either Firefox homepage or blank page. I am trying to find a way to have my preferred homepage open when I open a new tab.

I noticed recently that my 'Add Shortcut' button has disappeared. I've been through other articles and they were of no help. I have 4 rows selected for shortcuts so theres no reason for it to be gone.

Dear Firefox Team,

It has re-occurred to my Firefox Browser of the latest version of 115.28 with some websites which I have recently visited however which have appeared 8 grids of blank or white pages again under "Recent Activity" as attached with the image for your technical troubleshooting suggestion.

Those 8 grids of Recent Activity in the older version of Firefox browsers used to have shown colorful graphics or images representative of the recent websites I visited in the recent past.

May I know what I am supposed to do to recover those graphics or images?

Kindly offer any suggestion or solution?

Thank you for your kind attention.

Mr. Topaz Chiu