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I can no longer customize a new tab after my antivirus removed an add on

shellsterof4
shellsterof4
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My antivirus accidentally removed an add on in my firefox that enabled the new tab to be customized. I no longer see a pin or the little button on the top right to show or hide popular sites. How do I reinstall the missing add on? Which add on do i need? My new tab just brings me to a firefox start page that says You're not on the latest version of Firefox. Upgrade today to get the best of the Web! I click the link and it says I have the latest version. Thank you

My antivirus accidentally removed an add on in my firefox that enabled the new tab to be customized. I no longer see a pin or the little button on the top right to show or hide popular sites. How do I reinstall the missing add on? Which add on do i need? My new tab just brings me to a firefox start page that says You're not on the latest version of Firefox. Upgrade today to get the best of the Web! I click the link and it says I have the latest version. Thank you

All Replies (1)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 10 Contributor
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There's a hidden setting for new tabs that you can change without an add-on.

(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?

Two gotchas:

  • If Firefox ignores the setting, one of your extensions may be overriding it. You can review, disable, and/or remove extensions on the add-ons page:

    orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
    in the left column click Extensions
  • If the change works but at the next startup is back to Google (or other page), you might have a user.js file in your personal Firefox settings folder (your Firefox profile folder). This article describes how to track down and remove the file: How to fix preferences that won't save.

Any luck?

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer