Charlie Harvey

Tip: Get rid of visited sites thumbnails in Firefox 13 and up

Written by Charlie on

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Since version 13 of Firefox and Iceweasel, it does an annoying thing when you open a new tab. It shows you thumbnails of the sites you’ve visited the most. How very chrome. And how frankly depressing. I don’t want to be reminded, Firefox!

setting the browser.newtab.url in firefox 14

Fortunately it isn’t too big a deal to get back to having a nice blank new tab. And saving a half second of irritating thumbnail rendering time into the bargain.

  • Open up your firefox and type about:config into the address bar
  • You may get a cute warning about how dangerous this is. It isn't so click "I understand".
  • Search for "browser.newtab.url". Just type it into the address bar.
  • Its set to "about:newtab", change it to "about:blank". You could set it to an URL you used often if that’s your bag.
  • You can also set "browser.newtabpage.enabled" to "false". I haven’t done testing to see if it makes any difference. Let me know in the comments of you know more than me.


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