You can set the home page to about:newtab.

• Tools > Options > General > Startup: Home page
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/How+to+set+the+home+page

Note that Firefox supports multiple home pages separated by '|' (pipe) symbols.

You can also check the browser.newtab.url pref(s) on the about:config page and, in case the pref is user set (bold), reset this pref via the right-click context menu to the default value.
Also make sure that browser.newtabpage.enabled is true.

• You can open the about:config page via the location bar
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config

See this article about the New Tab page (about:newtab):

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/new-tab-page-show-hide-and-customize-top-sites

You might have been using a "speed dial" extension, of which there are several. Did you reset Firefox, or clean up your add-ons?

I think Firefox updated

I think you are misunderstanding me. Sorry my fault for not being clear enough.

Its not about the Tabs but it was one screen which had mini squares for each website. I had 8 of these on the one page and every time Iopened a new Tab they showed

hello wildecoyote1966, i think you might have adware present, which is overwriting the default new tab page. please go to firefox > addons > extensions and disable or remove RightSurf 1.0.0 & ZenSearch 1.0!

Remove a toolbar that has taken over your Firefox search or home page

I did that the only add on I have is troubleshooter 1.1a still not fixed

ok, i was mentioning them because they are listed under "more system details" on the top right of the page which you apparently captured the state of when you submitted your question.

another thing to try is installing the searchrset extension which will automatically revert certain customizations in firefox (like the new tab page) to the default.

please also run a full scan of your system with the security software that you have in place and different other tools like the free version of malwarebytes & adwcleaner to make sure that adware isn't present in other parts of your system.

Sorry for the confusion. Home Page (shows when you open a new window pressing Ctrl+n) and New Tab (shows when you open a new tab pressing Ctrl+t) are separate settings.

To spell out the steps for the second part of cor-el's response in more detail:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste newtab and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the browser.newtab.url preference and enter your preferred page:

• Page thumbnails (default) => about:newtab
• Blank tab => about:blank
• Built-in Firefox home page => about:home
• Any other page => full URL to the page

Press Ctrl+t to open a new tab and verify that it worked. Fixed?

Since that is the built-in behavior, the fact that it changed usually would be due to an add-on. But an add-on usually doesn't choose a blank page, it chooses a search engine or advertising, so... no idea what happened, and hopefully after you change the setting, it will be fine going forward.

Thank you all for your advice. It is fixed now and thanks again