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How can I turn off or make sponsored conent invisible?

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  • 25 have this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I understand sponsored content and tiles - I want to only see tiles that I want to see. That does *not* include sponsored content. I would rather pay for Firefox than have ads fed to my desktop - it is my favorite browser to use and develop on. How can I deactivate sponsored tiles, aside from setting up an actual URL block in GreaseMonkey or similar?

I understand sponsored content and tiles - I want to only see tiles that I want to see. That does *not* include sponsored content. I would rather pay for Firefox than have ads fed to my desktop - it is my favorite browser to use and develop on. How can I deactivate sponsored tiles, aside from setting up an actual URL block in GreaseMonkey or similar?

Chosen solution

If you want to remove the sponsored directory links on the about:newtab page then use these steps:

Set the browser.newtabpage.directory.source pref to an empty string on the about:config page.

  • browser.newtabpage.directory.source = <empty>

Delete the directoryLinks.json file in the parent location of the disk cache to remove the currently stored directory links.

  • delete directoryLinks.json

See the about:cache page for the location of the disk cache and go one level up.

The "AppData" folder in Windows Vista and later Window 7+ versions and the "Application Data" folder in XP/Win2K are hidden folders.

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All Replies (5)

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hello, the new tab site provides a settings icon on the top left where you can switch back to the classical thumbnails easily: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/tiles/

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Btw, classic mode still shows sponsored content.

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that should initially as long as the tiles aren't filled with your own history - you can also speed that up by simply x'ing out sponsored tiles like you could do with any other thumbnail.

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The easiest way to deal with the sponsored tiles is to just change the newTab URL to something else.

Just throwing a SWAG out there, but in about:config the place I would start with is to blank out this URL from the two prefs that have this value for - https://tiles.services.mozilla.com/v2/links/ - to block what I think is the source for those sponsored tiles.

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Chosen Solution

If you want to remove the sponsored directory links on the about:newtab page then use these steps:

Set the browser.newtabpage.directory.source pref to an empty string on the about:config page.

  • browser.newtabpage.directory.source = <empty>

Delete the directoryLinks.json file in the parent location of the disk cache to remove the currently stored directory links.

  • delete directoryLinks.json

See the about:cache page for the location of the disk cache and go one level up.

The "AppData" folder in Windows Vista and later Window 7+ versions and the "Application Data" folder in XP/Win2K are hidden folders.