Hi greyareas, if the recent history isn't useful in Highlights, you can turn that off and just show bookmarks and downloads. Or you can remove the section completely. Here's my settings for comparison (I don't bother with Highlights myself):

To get to that panel on the Options/Preferences page, either click the "gear" icon at the upper right of the new tab page, or:

• Windows: "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options
• Mac: "3-bar" menu button (or Firefox menu) > Preferences
• Linux: "3-bar" menu button (or Edit menu) > Preferences
• Any system: type or paste about:preferences into the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it

In the left column, click Home and then you should find the settings on the right side.

More info: Customize your New Tab page to hide or display content

One other thing: do you want to remove the history of your shopping from Firefox? If so, you can either:

(A) Bulk delete visits to a site from the Library window. Call that up using either

• Ctrl+Shift+h
• menu button > Library > History > Show All History
• (menu bar) History > Show All History

You can click the first item you want to remove and then shift+click the last to select them all, then press the Delete key on your keyboard. Wait for several moments, don't be tempted to press it again, because it can be slow.

(B) Do your shopping in a private window. Firefox won't keep history, and you won't have to delete it.

However, some trackers will be blocked, which may cause some sites to work less well. Keep an eye out for a "shield" icon at the left end of the address bar if a site doesn't seem to be working right.

Thanks for you good intentions, but I'm aware of most of that already. I (like many I'd wager) just find it useful to retain occasional odds and ends displayed in highlights, to remind me of things I came across but was already busy with something else to pursue at the time. Also, I made my living with a hammer and I can't count the times I've wondered if it might help get my computer to cooperate a bit better, lol (not a techy here at all) so much computer whatnot is well over my head.

greyareas said

Thanks for you good intentions, but I'm aware of most of that already. I (like many I'd wager) just find it useful to retain occasional odds and ends displayed in highlights, to remind me of things I came across but was already busy with something else to pursue at the time.

How about bookmarking those interesting sites?

I often do just that if it looks like someplace noteworthy after a quick peek. I just think the "highlights" holds lots of value and that the frustration of cleaning it up could be streamlined so much by a few very basic tweaks on firefox's part.

greyareas said

I just think the "highlights" holds lots of value and that the frustration of cleaning it up could be streamlined so much by a few very basic tweaks on firefox's part.

Like what?

For example, right now, there is no obvious way to multi-select boxes to perform the same action on all at once. That could be faster.

But then probably if you visited a lot of pages in your session, they would fill in again. It would still take a lot of work to dismiss two dozen pages.

Not sure it's worth it. Next idea?

Note that you shouldn't use Dismiss because that stores hashes of the removed website in a pref on the about:config page.

• browser.newtabpage.pinned stores websites that you have pinned to a tile.
• browser.newtabpage.blocked stores websites that you have removed by clicking Dismiss in a tile.

It is better to use "Remove from history" or just remove the last hour history or use a Private Browsing mode window for visits that you do not want to record.