Here you go : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/hide-or-display-content-new-tab?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=hide-or-display-sites-new-tab-page fyi :If did not know there is a Menu when Click the 2 Buttons in the Address Bar

fyi : https://www.howtogeek.com/333110/how-to-customize-firefox-quantum-and-remove-the-white-space-around-the-title-bar/

Here's a more comprehensive project which affects not only tabs but brings back the old "grid-style" options menu. https://github.com/axydavid/FirefoxUI/blob/master/README.md

It isn't completely possible to use the Australis design with Firefox 57, but depending on what you want, you might be able to customize the UI to look more like the old one: This project: https://github.com/wilfredwee/photon-australis lets you have the old tab bar appearance back in Firefox 57. You can remove the space around the address bar by right-clicking on the spaces, and choosing "remove from toolbar". Note the Black Theme is just a Example and can be found in Customize.

Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.

Thanks for that.

I had already managed to get a blank tab via toggling on and off criteria in the back end over using the simple method (it was not permanent)

However, sadly there is no option in your stuff or anywhere else I can find that allows the new tab to simply be a chosen home page. I have even replaced the string in the code with my home page's full URL and yet all I get is either an error message when I try to open a new tab 50% of the time and the other 50% is the blank tab page.

There has to be a way to get a new tab to automatically open at a specific URL that is nothing to do with the tab or search engine crap or recent Hx crap etc etc etc

thanks for the attempt but will wait and see if anyone else has a code for me to put somewhere

Cheers