I want to restore the new tab features after Yahoo somehow took it over.

See this article about the New Tab page (about:newtab):

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/new-tab-page-show-hide-and-customize-top-sites

Try to reset some preferences to the default with the SearchReset extension:

• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/searchreset/

Note that the SearchReset extension only runs once and then uninstalls automatically, so it won't show on the "Firefox > Add-ons" page (about:addons).

Sorry, but, this doesn't solve my problem. When I open a new tab, there are no squares there for me to add any sites to. I even tried changing back to an older version of FireFox

If there any any squares then you either do not have the about:newtab page or you need to click the grid icon in the top right corner to make the squares appear.

You can check the browser.newtab prefs on the about:config page.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config