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.

Avatar for Username

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

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

How to prevent Firefox from opening the new tab page on launch!

Monk of YHVH
Monk of YHVH
more options

My start-up preference is: Restore previous session! However, when launching FF, it does not do that exactly right. It does open up my pinned tabs (from previously), but it also, always opens a full tab of the new tabs page. Of course, no other major browsers do this; my Chrome browser just opens up the pinned tabs from the previous session (only). But for some illogical reason, FF is different in that regard. Is there a fix? Is it a bug? LMDE-4 on a NUC-PC, if that makes any difference, though the behavor is browser-side so I doubt it. Home > New Windows and Tabs are both set to FF Home (default)

My start-up preference is: Restore previous session! However, when launching FF, it does not do that exactly right. It does open up my pinned tabs (from previously), but it also, always opens a full tab of the new tabs page. Of course, no other major browsers do this; my Chrome browser just opens up the pinned tabs from the previous session (only). But for some illogical reason, FF is different in that regard. Is there a fix? Is it a bug? LMDE-4 on a NUC-PC, if that makes any difference, though the behavor is browser-side so I doubt it. Home > New Windows and Tabs are both set to FF Home (default)

All Replies (4)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

You referred to pinned tabs. Are you leaving at least one non-pinned tab open when you end your session, or only pinned tabs? Possibly Firefox always needs at least one non-pinned tab at startup; I've never tested that.

Also, are you ending your previous Firefox sessions using one of these procedures:

  • "3-bar" menu button > Exit/Quit
  • (menu bar) File > Exit/Quit
  • closing the last window (because you only need that one restored)
Monk of YHVH
Monk of YHVH Question owner
more options

Thank you for replying. As you said: Firefox always needs at least one non-pinned tab at startup! That's the bug, or the program glitch, or whatever one calls it. Now, I do not have/use any proprietary operating systems such as MS & Mac, I'm Linux only, and FF comes as the default browser for most Ubuntu based OS packages (I'm currently LMDE-4). But I also have Chrome and Opera on one or more machines, and they do not require this; they will simply launch with the pinned tabs only. But yes, if you exit with one unpinned tab, it will open with just that same one tab: This glitch is only when there are pinned tabs at exit. Thus, each time I launch FF I have to close the new-tab tab that opens in front of the pinned tabs that I wish to launch.

Modified by Monk of YHVH

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

You can set the startup page to a blank page. You need to make the change directly to a pref on the about:config page to set the startup page. You can set this pref to 2 on the about:config page.

  • browser.startup.page = 2
Monk of YHVH
Monk of YHVH Question owner
more options

I followed these instructions (browser.startup.page = 2). The only change in behavior is that now, the new tab page is blank instead of the normal New Tabs page, but it's still there at start-up. I reverted back to 3. But thanks anyway; I will now logically assume this is a design glitch, and thus not able to be changed or fixed in any setting. Perhaps the designers will see this (it was who I've been trying to contact all along), and make the correction in the next update. But I am truly thankful for those who tried to help in this.