This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How to disable history from about:newtab without disabling the new tab page entirely?

  • 2 replies
  • 7 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

Is it possible to make it so that the about:newtab page doesn't show my history/visited pages, and firefox doesn't save thumbnails from those pages, but still let me have pinned pages/bookmarks of my choosing on about:newtab with thumbnails for those pinned pages?


I know I can change "browser.newtab.url" in about:config to "about:blank", but I don't want to disable the new tab page, just not have it show my history + save thumbnails of visited pages.

I also know about adding "browser.pagethumbnails.capturing_disabled with value: true" & "pageThumbs.enabled with value: false" but I assume that'd remove all thumbnails entirely and wouldn't stop about:newtab from showing my history.

I guess I could also fill all of the slots with pinned pages of my choosing, but that wouldn't stop firefox from making thumbnails of my visited pages.

I'd also rather not clear history every time I shut down firefox or use "Never remember history"/"Always use private browsing mode".

Thanks in advance.

Is it possible to make it so that the about:newtab page doesn't show my history/visited pages, and firefox doesn't save thumbnails from those pages, but still let me have pinned pages/bookmarks of my choosing on about:newtab with thumbnails for those pinned pages? I know I can change "browser.newtab.url" in about:config to "about:blank", but I don't want to disable the new tab page, just not have it show my history + save thumbnails of visited pages. I also know about adding "browser.pagethumbnails.capturing_disabled with value: true" & "pageThumbs.enabled with value: false" but I assume that'd remove all thumbnails entirely and wouldn't stop about:newtab from showing my history. I guess I could also fill all of the slots with pinned pages of my choosing, but that wouldn't stop firefox from making thumbnails of my visited pages. I'd also rather not clear history every time I shut down firefox or use "Never remember history"/"Always use private browsing mode". Thanks in advance.

All Replies (2)

more options

Take look thru this AMO search for an extension which provides the features that you want.

more options

If you disable thumbnails via the prefs that you mentioned in your above post and pin all tiles with bookmark and history items then you won't see visited websites.

  • name: browser.pagethumbnails.capturing_disabled with value: true
  • name: pageThumbs.enabled with value: false

Delete the thumbnails folder in the Firefox profile folder to remove already stored web page thumbnails.

You can also reduce the number of tiles via these two prefs:

  • browser.newtabpage.columns (3)
  • browser.newtabpage.rows (3)