Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

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

new tab backround color

more options

all of a sudden the backround color for new tabs is black, I hate black. How do I make only the new tab backround white. It seems like every new version has different default values. Why is it not possible to allow users to try, then choose which new interface changes we want.

all of a sudden the backround color for new tabs is black, I hate black. How do I make only the new tab backround white. It seems like every new version has different default values. Why is it not possible to allow users to try, then choose which new interface changes we want.

All Replies (1)

more options

Firefox 95+ is taking more and more cues from your toolbar area theme for how to style other aspects of the browser. There is a setting for some of these, but not all of them.

(A) Right-click context menus, toolbar drop-down panels

Starting in Firefox 89, these would flip to a dark background if the text on the inactive/background tabs was white or light. Firefox 96 has extended this adaptation to more parts of the browser. As far as I know, the only built-in way to avoid this is to change your toolbar theme to one with dark text on the inactive/background tabs. (The other way is the not-officially-supported userChrome.css file route.)

(B) Built-in pages, and websites that have light/dark responsive themes

Starting in Firefox 95, Firefox would inform pages that you preferred a light/dark theme based on your Firefox toolbar theme instead of your system theme. I have attached a composite screenshot of how Firefox 96 renders the new tab page with a "Dark" theme (light text) and a "Light" theme.

There is a way to decouple your page (content) theme preference from your toolbar theme. At this point, it's only available through the back door...

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

More info on about:config: Configuration Editor for Firefox. The moderators would like us to remind you that changes made through this back door aren't fully supported and aren't guaranteed to continue working in the future.

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste layout.css.prefers-color-scheme.content-override and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the preference to display an editing field, and change the value to whatever you prefer from the list below, then press Enter or click the blue check mark button to save the change.

  • 0 => Force a Dark background
  • 1 => Force a Light background
  • 2 => Follow the System theme (default in Firefox 94)
  • 3 => Follow the Browser toolbar theme (default in Firefox 95+)

The about:config page should immediately reflect your saved change.