I-Firefox Community Forum

Hi, since the last update for Mozilla on my laptop (version 153.0.1 (64 bit), all the website shortcuts in the Firefox homepage that I had pinned have disappeared. I also can't add new shortcuts. I checked in about:config and in browser.newtabpage.pinned the shortcuts are all there. The display settings for shortcuts are active.

Does anyone know how to resolve this?

Kind regards. Stefano Tavella

At some point I decided to use default tab wallpapers by Mozilla. With an update of home menu 151.0 , there is a new logo in the center "Firefox". You can see it on (screenshot 1). It covers any background picture, in my case a tail of the fox. I can't figure out how to hide this logo. I have one icon on my taskbar already; having it in the layout is just a redundancy. Obviously i know that i use Firefox there is no need to remind me that

A little extra note: The layout reflow of the logo works bad when the window is resized. It's not centralized.(screenshot 2).

The only band-aid that i see is in Settings >> New tabs >> Blank Page. It turns of wallpapers and whole layout of homepage which is not my target (screenshot 3).

I use Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS , snap Firefox 151.0.1

Today my goggle searches, are being sent to the address bar, and have the google tag in front of them, I cannot use any of the other search engines that drop down from the upper search bar, so just google, and that is really hijacking my search.

How do I get searches (my default is Google) to STOP going to the address bar? This started out of the blue and it is making me crazy. I don't want to be asked which search to use, and I don't want it to search in the address bar. I want it in the search box. Thanks.

I'm sorry, maybe the problem was there in previous versions however I just noticed it. Or rather the absence of it. The problem is when I open a new tab where I had that mini weather report widget enabled (and I checked that the button in the settings is set to be enabled) the widget is not there anymore, nowhere to be seen.

I made two screenshots of my browser's new tab with no weather widget and one with the settings open to show that the weather widget on/off button is enabled. I'm sorry however that I had to blur things I thought it would be sensitive information.

My OS is Win11 Home Greek and my Firefox is in Greek as well.

hi i am unable to use the middle search bar on the firefox screen , i understand that this search bar is a dummy bar, i have been told that to make this bar work you have to alter the settings using about:config process, and changing the handoff from ture to false , to which I have done in the past and it has worked , but for a reason I cannot understand this seems not to work now , i am completely lost now and i am reaching out to the community for help and advise thank you . K.

I have left Shortcuts toggled on, since I want to see the 18 shortcuts that I have manually pinned. Fine so far.

I have unchecked Sponsored Shortcuts, but I still am seeing sponsored shortcuts added to my dashboard whenever I open a new article. What am I doing wrong?

Firefox on macOS. After most recent update, when I open new tabs I get

Oops, something went wrong loading this content. Refresh and try again

I went to settings to make sure Firefox Home was the default loaded on New Tabs, which it is. How do I fix this?

Moderator note: This question has been edited to correct the formatting and correct the OS mention.

Previous solution: switch browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.improvesearch.handoffToAwesomebar to false does not work anymore.

Please help.

Regards, Victor

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

Following a recent Firefox update, 1.48.0 I think, the search box in the middle of the page no longer works, any attempt to type there ends up in the address bar. I have tried setting "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.improvesearch.handoffToAwesomebar" to false and other suggested fixes on the internet but it made no difference. I am running Windows 11 Pro, fully updated. Hope you can help Regards Keith

Below I have attached two images, what it currently looks like, and an approximation of what it used to look like. Since the last update, the logo has been far lower down, and the shortcuts spaced out more (I believe.) It feels rather uncomfortable and difficult for everything to be on the lower half of the screen, whilst the tabs and bookmarks are on the top half of the screen. Is there a way to revert this change?

Hello Long ago I turned off search in address bar. Today it decided to resume search on that area. I searched help and the followed instruction for about:config. I've and see I've already set as required "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.improvesearch.handoffToAwesomebar" it is set to false. What do I do to fix this. I really find search in address bar confusing.

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.

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

---

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);

---

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?

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.