[Firefox Tip] Remove Firefox Icon and Let’s Get Started Tour from New Tab Page

In newer Mozilla Firefox versions, as a part of the new Photon UI, Mozilla has added a new Firefox icon/emoji on the top-left corner of new tab page.

Fox_Emoji_New_Tab_Page_Firefox.png

If you click on the icon, it launches “Let’s Get Started” tour which helps users in understanding and finding useful Firefox options and features such as performance, private browsing, screenshots, add-ons, customize, default browser, etc.

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Getting_Started_With_Firefox_Page.png

This tour window contains a button “Skip Tour” at the bottom-left corner. If you click on this button, it closes the tour and the Firefox icon is disabled on the new tab page.

If you don’t like the Firefox icon and want to remove it completely from the new tab page, you’ll not find any option to remove it. Fortunately, there is a built-in preference in Firefox’s hidden advanced configuration page to show/hide this new Firefox icon and get started tour from new tab page.

So if you want to remove the Firefox icon and get started tour feature from new tab page, this tutorial will help you.

Check out following steps to get rid of Firefox icon from new tab page:

1. Open Mozilla Firefox and type about:config in the addressbar and press Enter. It’ll show you a warning message, click on “I accept the risk!” button.

2. Now type onboard in Search filter box and it’ll show some result in the window.

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3. Double-click on browser.onboarding.enabled preference and it’ll change its value to false. Alternatively, you can right-click on the preference and select Toggle option.

Restore_Fox_Face_Icon_New_Tab_Page_Firefox.png

That’s it. Now open new tab page and you’ll no longer see the Firefox icon.

PS: There are 2 more preferences related to this feature:

  • browser.onboarding.newtour
  • browser.onboarding.notification.finished

If you check carefully the browser.onboarding.newtour preference, it’s value is set to:

performance,private,screenshots,addons,customize,default

This value determines which sections should be displayed in the let’s get started tour. If you change its value and remove a few sections such as customize, default, it’ll disable those sections from the tour window. If you remove everything and set the value to blank, the tour will be disabled automatically.

The browser.onboarding.notification.finished preference indicates whether the “Let’s Get started” tour has been run for the user or not.

Also Check:

[Tip] Set a Blank Page as New Tab Page and Homepage in Mozilla Firefox

[Firefox Tip] Disable New Compact Menu (Photon UI) and Restore Classic Main Menu

Published in: Mozilla Firefox

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  1. Thank you, thank you, thank you! It took me forever to find this. Do software developers realize all the annoying cr*p they plaster in every nook and cranny?

  2. Seconding Joe’s comment. Why couldn’t they have put a check box for that annoying icon on the new tab page customization popup?

  3. One more way you screwed up Firefox in the latest revisions. That, and adding in all the Yahoo crap. Too bad the people who control Firefox have no interest in being kind to their user base. It’s all about imposing your desires on the audience and not serving those who use Firefox. That’s why I rarely use Firefox anymore. It wasted far too much time getting rid of the so called “improvements”. Yay for Chrome!!!

  4. Hey man!!

    Thank you for the great info.

    And in the schema above, why doesn’t FireFox developers, allow users to control (similarly to how NoScript) controls java scripts in the BookMarks database? That way we can take a little more control of our surfing privacy and safety. For the bank, turn everything on, for other sites, turn off everything google.js or yahoo.js, or enable just enough to allow the webpages to function sans all the advertisements, etc.

    In any case thanks again. Your icon removal strategy works well. Cool!

    tron

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