so as far i understand to now have a "about:newtab" page open when ever i launch a firefox i need to sacrifice my homepage as "about:newtab" which i dont really want but have no option left to do.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-to-set-the-home-page

Before the current Firefox, you could set the options for:

• What page loads when starting the browser
• What page loads when pressing the Home icon

The 'when starting' option was removed, so the user is left with just the home page.

A workaround is to create a shortcut to the browser and include the wanted page in the Properties of the shortcut. You could create as many as you need, but they will need different names.

I don't think there were any major changes to the home page/new tab settings recently. Could you clarify what page you want in these different situations:

• New window (Ctrl+n): ? (uses the home page address)
• Home button: custom URL (uses the home page address)
• Startup: last page shown in last session? always about:newtab/about:home?

Before the current Firefox, you could set the options for:

• What page loads when starting the browser
• What page loads when pressing the Home icon

The 'when starting' option was removed, so the user is left with just the home page.

What version was that?

I don't know when. This shows the options on my Firefox v54. The 'When Firefox Starts' is not listed in the current version. It's possible the option is listed on the about:config page, but I don't know.

This shows the options on my Firefox v54. The 'When Firefox Starts' is not listed in the current version. It's possible the option is listed on the about:config page, but I don't know.

I think the about:preferences layout changed in Firefox 56. The preference still exists:

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

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste browser.startup.page and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the preference to display an editing field, and change the value to your preferred start behavior (see below) then press Enter or click the blue check mark button to save the change.

• 0 => Blank page
• 1 => Home page(s) designated on the Settings page (default)
• 2 => Last visited page (from history)
• 3 => Restore Previous Session (checks the Restore Previous Session box on the Settings page)

previously it was better when you have freedom of customization. but now if you use home page to custom url then you lost the ability of using about:newtab page as your landing page if you use last restore page to open from history and you have close the browser with no page store. it will persist to open your homepage instead of newtab page. so last restore history wont work if you have new tab page load when you close the browser.

the only way to have it work is set "about:newtab" as your homepage so when you close the browser with no tab open then when you launch browser again it will use your home page which set to be "about:newtab: for the landing page. but then you loose the ability of having a separate home page tab.

it was so convenient before then now. this update break it.

@ jscher2000 I tried what you suggested and I still get 4 tabs opening whenever I either start Firefox or open a new window. Before some recent update I could start Firefox with blank tab, click home to get my 4 desired start tabs and get a blank tab in a new window. Cannot get back there with the current release. Thanks.

You can use "Restore Previous Session" for the startup setting if you prefer to start with the pages you had open in the previous session.

• Settings -> General -> Startup

A new window always opens with the homepage(s). You can always open a bookmark if you want to open a specific page. You can append an URL to the target line of the Firefox desktop shortcut to open a specific page at startup.