How to Change “New Tab” Button URL in Mozilla Firefox?
UPDATE: In newer versions of Mozilla Firefox web browser, you can change New Tab page URL to open any desired website without using any extra add-on/extension.
Open about:config page and change value of browser.newtab.url preference to desired URL.
You can set its value to about:blank to always open a blank page or set its value to about:home to always open homepage or set its value to any website URL.
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To learn more about about:config page and changing preference value, check out this guide.
Today we are going to share an excellent add-on for Mozilla Firefox at the request of our reader “TheAslan“. He asked us:
Is it possible to change “+ a.k.a new tab button” to open homepage instead of new tab?
Yes. It’s possible. Not by default but by using an add-on.
By default, Mozilla Firefox doesn’t allow changing “New Tab” page URL. When you open a new tab, a blank page is opened.
“NewTabURL” is an add-on for Firefox which allows you to change New Tab page URL. You can set it to:
- Blank page
- Homepage
- Current page
- Custom URL
It also allows you to:
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- Load URL from clipboard in new tab
- Automatically select URL in addressbar after loading the tab
- Always keep a new tab opened
All above options are really helpful IMO.
You can download it using following link:
I hope this essential feature will be included in future Firefox versions…
Using the Stratiform 1.2 add-on it is possible to set the home button as a tab “look alike” in the tab bar.
img801.imageshack.us/img801/2277/73438666.jpg
Download it from the homepage: sogame.cat/newtaburl/
Thanx you so much for this!! It works very well in Firefox 5.0, and i really love how it makes opened tab active after clicked!
Thanx you so much Vishal!
PS: Thanx you so much for mentioning my name in this topic!
Hiya Vishal!
I think that you really should share this great add-on here in AskVg, it’s called FireGestures, what it does it brings a Opera like mouse gestures in Firefox, it works with 3.5 -5* versions of Firefox, and i was surprized how well it worked with Firefox, and i think that it worked even better it never worked in Opera, this is such a great add-on and should be listed here in AskVg.
And if you don’t want to show close button in tabs and use mouse gestures instead to close tabs, then you can use this:
about:config -> browser.tabs.closebuttons -> change value to 3 -> close buttons are gone and you can use mouse gestures to close tabs and windows, i think that it’s more fun to close tabs with mouse gestures than clicking close buttons in tabs, though you can use mouse gestures to close tabs while close button is showing, but when you disable close button in tabs it brings minimal and sleek look in firefox’s.
FireGestures is here:
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firegestures/
Created by Gomita
I forgot to mention one important thing in my last message:
When you disable that close button in tabs first time you have to set the value to 3, then restart browser, then change the value to 2, this ensures that there’s not this “x” button in toolbar, if you leave the value to 2 it creates “x” button in toolbar which closes browser window.
But change the value to 2 and it removes that toolbar button.
if you leave the value to 2 it creates “x” button in toolbar which closes browser window.
I meant if you leave the value to 3 not 2, then it creates that button in toolbar….silly me…
Vishal, I’m running the latest 64-bit Firefox (52.0.4 as of 1/18/18) under Win 10 Pro and it seems with this newer version your suggested UPDATE “no-addon” solution above will not work. Mozilla has added a lot more options under “about:config” for “browser.newtab”, as I understand to mitigate abuse of the new tab. I tried a few addons and the best I found is at addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/new-tab-homepage/. This addon has a huge installed base, great reviews, but does need some subtle configurations to establish permissions. The site gives an excellent guide on how to set the permissions. The only minor downside is after installing, “new-tab” installs its own icon in the menu icons, which of course can just be removed after everything is proven out ok.
Vishal’s work here is extraordinary, he deserves my admiration.
It appears that this does not work on the new Firefox 63.0.1. The page comes up with a messag about it not being compatible with my installed version of FF. What do do?