You can press the ESC key to stop loading pages and/or highlighting that location bar content, so when you start typing you replace the current URL. You can consider the set the new tab page to about:blank it you do not use the home page that often and middle-click the Home button to open the home page in a new tab.

That did in no way solve the problem. The issue is that I DON'T want to click and press additional buttons. I want to press my new tab shortcut, then start typing. I don't want to click new tab, then esc within a specific window, then failing that click into the search bar, or wait until pages have loaded before I can type for fear of losing half my search criteria and having to do it all again.

If the custom new tab extension isn't working properly for you (i.e needs extra waiting time) then you will have to use other ways to accomplish this. Extensions usually only kick in when the page has finished loading, so if your current new tab page takes a bit more time then you need to wait longer before starting to type or press the ESC key.

So you aren't going to touch the issue about how firefox is broken since the update then? Righto. Moving to chrome. Bye!

It appears that the problem you are experiencing is down to a third party addon

• Custom New Tab 1.7.1
  • download available from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/custom-new-tab/
  • developers site http://ednovak.net/projects

You may wish to ask the developer about your problems.

When you move over to Chrome you may wish to take your Firefox bookmarks with you

• Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks

I have the exact same preference i like firefax better but i hate that when i open new tab i haz to click on the navigation bar. Did you get the problem solved? Reply to me if so thank you

cyborg1337,

Your problem may look the same but may have a different cause.

• do you even have Custom New Tab 1.7.1 installed ?

1. Please start your own thread using /quetions/new
2. Follow the prompts to provide full troubleshooting information
3. Answer the above question in the new thread
4. If you wish Post back in this thread to confirm you started the new thread so everyone is able to follow it, and help you.

The issue was never with the add on. The add on was added on because firefox stopped working the way I wanted it to. Apparently it is a big enough issue that a third party developer had to go and make an add on just to fix it

But it appears you now have an issue with how your addon does or does not work. As for development issues and Firefox enhancement requests; they are out of scope for this forum.

Did you read the subject of the issue? That is literally... the issue. Nothing to do with additional add-ons, the add-ons are just an attempt to remedy the symptoms.

Frank questions: Is English your first language? Can this issue be dealt with by someone else?

Ta

I am not sure that you are describing a problem or regression in Firefox. You appear to be describing the expected behaviour, and the behaviour with an extension enabled.

English Is my first language. Anyone who cares to may reply to your question, and others already have done.

The title plus the first sentence of your question is:

Firefox update 23.0.1, no longer automatically highlights the address bar content when I open a new tab. 

The above. When I opened a new tab in the past, before the new update, firefox would automatically highlight the text in the address bar, and I could simply start typing from there the address of the site I wanted. 

I would normally expect that sort of statement to imply that a change has been seen in Firefox Behaviour caused by a change to Firefox itself some time after Firefox 22.

• If a new tab is opened in Firefox 23 by using Ctrl+T (Windows or Linux) or by clicking the new tab [+] icon the cursor will appear in the Address bar of the newtab.

• If a new tab is opened from a link within the current page, or for instance using an about: protocol then move to that open new tab. The cursor will not move to the address bar. The cursor focus will be within the page content.

The above is not a new behaviour of Firefox.

This behaviour will have changed at sometime, after all we have not always had tabs available, but the behaviour has AFAIK been constant and consistent across recent versions, certainly going back as far as Fx10.

It appears you are describing behaviour of Firefox when you have extensions enabled. Do you recall what version of Firefox was in use when you first modified Firefox by installing and enabling Custom New Tab

• If you are seeing changes to Firefox due to use of an extension take those problems up with the extension developer.

• If you are seeing changes in the behaviour of Firefox between Fx22 and Fx23 please describe exactly what you see in Fx 22 and exactly what you see in Fx23. Please describe the results obtained whilst using Firefox in Firefox's Safe Mode.
  • Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode

No. What you're missing here is that previously (firefox 22 and before that ad infinitum) new tabs (obtained through clicking "new tab" or through short cut) would appear with the address bar CONTENT ALREADY HIGHLIGHTED. Not simply the cursor would be there.

Secondly, enough about the add-on. Lets just go ahead and pretend the add on doesn't exist and was never mentioned OK? Given as I have stated FROM THE BEGINNING that the add-on was only sought AFTER the problem started, ergo, AFTER the 23 update. Ergo, REACTIONARY to the issue. Cause BEFORE effect.

Lets describe exactly what I see in firefox 22 and 23:

Firefox 22: new tabs (obtained through clicking "new tab" or through short cut) would appear with the address bar CONTENT ALREADY HIGHLIGHTED.

Firefox 23: new tabs no longer have the address bar content highlighted.

What is complicated about this to you? Before: SOMETHING HAPPENED. After: IT STOPPED HAPPENING.

Now, the question I want to know is, can this be put back to the way it was, is it just my specific version of firefox (I have uninstalled, clean wiped and reinstalled it about 4 times now from the firefox official website download link).

There is a setting inside "About:config" which refers to the newtab auto highlight setting, however changing this to true, or false achieves nothing.

Is there anyone with some higher understanding of the new workings of firefox who might be able to offer ACTUAL help in this issue instead of just pointing the finger at an extension? Given that I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN. I ONLY INSTALLED SAID EXTENSION AFTER THE ISSUE BEGAN.

Please do as I suggested and try Firefox in safe mode.

No. What you're missing here is that previously (firefox 22 and before that ad infinitum) new tabs (obtained through clicking "new tab" or through short cut) would appear with the address bar CONTENT ALREADY HIGHLIGHTED. Not simply the cursor would be there.

1. That is not what I am seeing.
   Does anyone else see this in Firefox 22 WHILST IN SAFE MODE and with all plugins disabled, and all prefs at default settings ?
2. If a new tab is opened using Ctrl+T there there should be no content to highlight within the addressbar (Unless you or software has changed what NewTab {about:blank} is displaying)
   • What do you normally get when you type into the addressbar and navigate to about:blank . Maybe you would like to attach a screenshot.

since the replies aren't being of any help, i signed up just for this. I was having the same problem as yours. see if this works (it worked for me):

open a new tab and write "about:config" without quotes in the address bar and press "enter"

find "browser.newtab.url" and double click on it. a window should appear named "enter string value". delete whatever is in there and replace with "about:blank" without quotes. and click ok.

close the tab. open a new tab, it should be fine now. cursor will now highlight the address bar area.

if it doesn't work, just uninstall and reinstall the browser and repeat the process (in case other add ons mixed things up). it'll definitely work with 23.0.1 I've got two computers (one xp sp3 and other one is 7). Same trick worked for the both. Before entering the config, only possible relevant change i made with firefox beforehand, is that i set the homepage to "about:blank" (without quotes) for both (i did it long before 23.0.1). It shouldn't be relevant; still, I'm no specialist.

in case you want to backup the extensions, browser history, saved passwords etc ; I'd suggest febe(add on) selective backup (not full profile backup, it resets the whole stuff). I'm sure you know how to deal with that.

cheers. and i understand your frustration with all the tedious, unfruitful replies. happened the same to me.

Hi ChrisYeomans, a change has been noted in other threads relating to google.co.uk

The http URL now automatically redirects to https. Since you did not specify the protocol in your newtab.url setting, Firefox tries http and this is immediately redirected to the https domain. You should be able to see this happen unless your computer is way faster than mine.

Firefox is not handling this redirect elegantly -- the URL in the address bar is not selected unless you click a different tab then click back.

To bypass the problem, update your newtab.url to the complete URL https://www.google.co.uk/

YES!! Thank you jscher2000! You sir are a legend. Thanks for this, changed the newtaburl in about:config, totally worked. Nope, never saw it happening! Speedy machine this one :P Yep, that change completely sorted the issue, just opened about 741 new tabs through the shortcut on my mouse just to celebrate. Thanks guys who helped, no thanks those who didn't.

I was experiencing this same issue. I noticed I had long ago installed the New Tab Homepage add-on. Since it was no longer functioning as desired, I disabled that and instead installed Custom New Tab, making sure to follow the instructions here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/custom-new-tab/reviews/481246/. Now it works like it used to, highlighting what's in the address bar when I open a new tab. (Would be nice if FF did this without add-ons.)

Hi elaton, Firefox 25 does highlight (select) the URL bar on the new tab page if you use a custom URL. However, it must be the final URL. What I mean by that is: if the server redirects the URL you've entered then there is a timing problem with the selection feature and the cursor ends up blinking at the end of the URL.

To see what I mean, you can test these values:

(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 type or paste the test URL (make a note of what you have so you can go back to it later):

• https://www.google.com/ => unless you are redirected to a specific country site, the address bar should be selected
• https://google.com/ => redirects to https://www.google.com/ resulting in cursor blinking at the end of the address
• http://www.google.com/ => redirects to https://www.google.com/ resulting in cursor blinking at the end of the address

If your computer is slow enough, you'll see the redirect in the address bar.

Anyway, the bottom line is, copy the full final URL from the page you want, and use that as the URL for the new tab, and then it should be selected when the page loads.