That comes from sites you go to not from FF.

Thank you, Westend, but why do they load and how do I get rid of them?

Here are a few things to check:

Home Page Setting

Does the extra tab appear in a new window? You can open a new window from the menu button or by pressing Ctrl+n.

If an extra tab appears in every new window, it might have been saved with your home page -- Firefox can show multiple tabs as your home pages. This article has more information on updating your home page setting: How to set the home page.

If you change that and test it out in a new window, does that work?

Does it stay fixed the next time you exit Firefox and start it up again?

If the extra tab only appears in the first window when you start Firefox, please check:

(1) Could an extension be at fault?

You can view, disable, and often remove unwanted or unknown extensions on the Add-ons page. Either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a (Mac: Command+Shift+a)
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
• type or paste about:addons in the address bar and press Enter/Return

In the left column of the Add-ons page, click Extensions. Then cast a critical eye over the list on the right side. Any extensions Firefox installs for built-in features are hidden from this page, so everything listed here is your choice (and your responsibility) to manage. Anything suspicious or that you just do not remember installing or why? If in doubt, disable (or remove).

Any improvement?

(2) Could your Firefox shortcut/icon be hijacked?

The Firefox icon can be set up to launch specific pages at startup (or more specifically, when you use the icon). To check whether that is set:

First, open the shortcut as follows:

• Desktop shortcut: right-click the icon, choose Properties
• Pinned taskbar icon: right-click the icon, right-click Mozilla Firefox, choose Properties

Windows normally will select the Shortcut tab. If not, go ahead and click the Shortcut tab.

You'll see the Target highlighted. On Windows, that usually is no more and no less than the following (depending on 32-bit/64-bit):

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"

If anything follows after that, try clearing it out.

After OK'ing the Properties dialog, you can test right away to confirm that Firefox now launches only your home page. Either:

• double-click desktop shortcut
• right-click pinned taskbar icon, click Mozilla Firefox

Success?

Something helped. Had already checked addons and shortcut and homepage, but "dismissed" the offending items. they did not reload upon restart. Thanks!