We're calling on all EU-based Mozillians with iOS or iPadOS devices to help us monitor Apple’s new browser choice screens. Join the effort to hold Big Tech to account!

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

How to prevent Google from auto-loading itself in Firefox when opening a new tab

  • 2 replies
  • 12 have this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

Minde_J
Minde_J
more options

Google somehow gets auto-loaded when I open a new tab in Firefox. I tried:

1) Reset homepage to blank page 2) Reset homepage to another website 3) Check "don't load tabs until I select"

None of this works. It's so very annoying that Google gets loaded automatically whereas I simply want a blank page.

Google somehow gets auto-loaded when I open a new tab in Firefox. I tried: 1) Reset homepage to blank page 2) Reset homepage to another website 3) Check "don't load tabs until I select" None of this works. It's so very annoying that Google gets loaded automatically whereas I simply want a blank page.

All Replies (2)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

There's actually a separate, hidden setting for new tabs: they don't automatically follow your home page setting.

(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:

    Tools menu > Add-ons > in the left column click Extensions
  • If the change works but at the next startup is back to Google, 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

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

Please update to the current Firefox 25 release.

  • Help > About Firefox

The Firefox 19 version that you currently run is no longer supported with security updates.

  • It is important to update Firefox and add-ons to the latest version to get all security fixes.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window.