How can I turn off the New Tab pictures? I want a blank page

[Night Wing]

Seriously, what do you guys get up to that makes you so ashamed for anyone to see your 9 most viewed websites. You're going to have to come up with something a lot more convincing than 'on-line banking' !

Bottom line; just because the Firefox developers like it and want it as a default or power users like it and want it as a default, doesn't mean I as a non technical user, have to like it or want it as a default. I don't like this new default feature in Firefox just like some people don't like someone hovering over their shoulder while they work which includes me. When I open up a new tab, I want a blank page and nothing else. No nine other sites and no icons.

Power users have much more knowledge when it comes to making changes in "about:config" than us non technical users do. If this new feature wouldn't have been designated "default", I wouldn't have noticed the New Tab Page. Changes like this for non technical people like myself would have been easier to do in Options; Tabs but, it's not there because that was the first place I looked.

Since Opera and Chrome have had this feature way before Firefox did, if I liked this feature so much, I would have had the Opera and Chrome browsers already installed on this computer and these two browsers aren't on this computer and I use this computer 95% of the time.

[Frank Lion]

Bottom line; just because the Firefox developers like it and want it as a default or power users like it and want it as a default, doesn't mean I as a non technical user, have to like it or want it as a default. I don't like this new default feature in Firefox just like some people don't like someone hovering over their shoulder while they work which includes me...

Well, it's good to see that you've thought this stuff through.

The reason the devs wanted this feature is to do with the mobile stuff and they wanted to keep features cross platform (translation - easier for big fingers on little screens and they put it on desktop versions as well)

Power users/technical users (i.e. guys like me, who have to open up a good few pages pretty quickly) don't need/want this feature, as we use Hotkeys for everything and for stuff like this - Ctl + L (or Ctl +T) Enter and Tab down (or mouse) the urlbar autocomplete dropdown.....or Ctl+ B for the Bookmarks sidebar, Ctl + H, etc. etc, in fact almost anything than waste time using stuff like this.

It also strikes me that if Mozilla are going to bring out stuff like this, then at least do it properly, for example - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... -tab-king/ Whatever people think of features like this, you have to admit that looks a lot better and has far better functionality.

Incidentally, just look at that extension on a clean profile or something, don't use it, questionable privacy, etc - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... g/privacy/
http://www.newtabking.com/

[I do My Own Stunts]

Thanks for the About tips!

(That 9-square trick is the opposite of what I was asking for. I want the "feature" gone for good!)

[stevecrye]

I'm glad I found this thread.

The problem with FF, and the reason I and so many others have gone from loving FF to hating it, is the endless stream of CR**P that we have to put up with in each new release, every 6 weeks. Now, every 6 weeks, I have to waste time googling around to figure out how to TURN OFF all the new, useless drivel that keeps me from GETTING REAL WORK DONE.

Gawd how I wish there was a way to just apply security fixes and LEAVE THE FEATURES the way I had them in V 3.6.

Disgusted WAY WAY beyond my ability or desire to describe here,

Steve

[Frank Lion]

Just to recap.......

Enter about:config in addressbar, ignore very weak geek 'joke' message and change (right click entry) browser.newtab.url to about:blank and toggle browser.newtabpage.enabled to true.


As for needing to change these settings for elderly relatives over the phone *sigh* ...we'll see what demand there is - it will take a theme/ext dev about 10 minutes (just convert an existing extension to do just this) to make a 2 pref changing extension.

[James]

James: clicking the toggle is not the solution because that simply hides it, and it can easily be toggled back on again. But going to about:config actually gets rid of it.

Does anyone understand the mindset of FF developers?

Um again I just pointed out that the browser.newtabpage.enabled preference gets toggled true or false each time you click that little nine square image box. Type about:config and the filter for browser.newtabpage.enabled then go to the new tab page and click on the little nine square image box then go back to about:config and you should see the browser.newtabpage.enabled value was changed from one to other value. I could manually change the browser.newtabpage.enabled to false but if I were to click on the little nine square image box this preference would be set to true again.

[BrianAAA]

The nine boxes in a new tab just started happening to me with the ver13 update. It was easy enough to stop by clicking the nine boxes in the upper right corner.

I just wanted to say that it is a stupid and annoying feature. I am sure there are many other people who didn't look up how to stop it and are just frustrated. Maybe some people like it but I just want to put in my vote for having it go away as a default in the next update.

[KWierso]

You're voting in the wrong polling place: http://www.mozillazine.org/about/

[FFisWearingMeDown]

Bottom line; just because the Firefox developers like it and want it as a default or power users like it and want it as a default, doesn't mean I as a non technical user, have to like it or want it as a default....

Since Opera and Chrome have had this feature way before Firefox did, if I liked this feature so much, I would have had the Opera and Chrome browsers already installed on this computer and these two browsers aren't on this computer and I use this computer 95% of the time.

I'm with you 1000% and I'm not really a "non technical" user. I'm just sick and tired of having to dig up esoteric config settings to undo whatever the latest nonsense the FF folks have thrust upon me this time, or spending hours sifting through addons looking for one that will put my browser back the way it was before FF developers ran over it with the lawn mower again. If I wanted to program my own browser I wouldn't be using FF, and if I wanted my browser to look and behave like Chrome I'd be running Chrome.

The constant update cycle is ridiculous as well. I put off going from 3.6.xx for as long as possible, then when I was finally forced to update to 11, here it is 2 versions beyond the last update ALREADY and it's only been like a month!

Seriously! Fer cryin' out loud! I have better things to do with than expend time energy and the few brain cells I have left trying to forestall FF from doing silent updates, making it easy for people to nose through my history, and moving real estate around so the dang browser turns into a Chrome Clone.

This is a FF user trying to deal with FF and it's ridiculous development cycles :

[DVB]

You're voting in the wrong polling place: http://www.mozillazine.org/about/

Where?
Seriously, I would like to express my annoyance with yet another unnecessary "improvement" to FF -- and as several others have said on this thread, the entire policy of FF updates, which are a pain in the backside and are ruining what used to be an excellent browser.

I used to be a programmer. Yes, I can go into config settings and fiddle around with them -- but why on earth should I have to? FF developers seems to have forgotten that the vast majority of computer users are precisely that: users. They want a browser that is simple to use and that doesn't keep changing in unpredictable ways.

Ask a hundred computer users which they would prefer, innovation -- or stability.

[Gingerbread Man]

Where?
Seriously, I would like to express my annoyance

Open the Help menu and choose Submit Feedback.

[WaltS48]

Interesting meeting notes.

You have to scroll down to the Firefox Planning, Feedback summary, but it looks like New Tab, and Home page aren't winning the hearts of the users, and the update is still throttled.

New tab page (probably about 60% negative)

Home page (about 80% negative):

FF13 released yesterday! Full unthrottling will wait till after Patch Tuesday next week.

I like the Home Page, makes preferences easier to get at, but saying that, I do have another site set as home.

Rant: I love when you spend time composing a reply, click Submit, and get "Sorry the board is unavailable".

[itsjustmehere]

Hi there,

I dont want to make things even more complicated but I am still going to: keeping the question of whether this is a good or bad feature aside for the moment (personally I agree with what has been said before that it is rather unnecessary) I have the following 'problem'

I have decided to turn off this 'feature' by clicking on the little image on the right upper corner. However, what I see is that it takes more time/CPU to open a new tab. I suspect that when opening a new tab there is still something being loaded but then hidden. I reinstalled FF12 and I noticed the following: in FF12 when opening a new tab, the tab came up instantly. Now, what I get with FF13 that for a split second or so I get the little circle indicating that sth. is loading and then the tab. It might seem unobservable and I still can see this behavior.

Did anyone else notice this? I think it all comes down to the question: even with the feature turned off, is the behavior of opening a new tab still absolutely and 100% the same in FF 13 as in FF12?

Thanks!

[Frank Lion]

... It might seem unobservable and I still can see this behavior.

Did anyone else notice this? I think it all comes down to the question: even with the feature turned off, is the behavior of opening a new tab still absolutely and 100% the same in FF 13 as in FF12?

Well, short of wading through the source code, you would seem to be the ideal person to answer you own question, seeing as you can observe what might seem unobservable.

So, what you reckon?

[JayhawksRock]

I don't think so, but doing this from this and other threads, will

Just to recap.......
Enter about:config in addressbar, ignore very weak geek 'joke' message and change (right click entry) browser.newtab.url to about:blank and toggle browser.newtabpage.enabled to true.