Strange!!

If you use the Back button at that point, does the problem repeat, or can you stay on the new tab page as long as you like?

Is it normal that you get a redirect to Google Canada based on Google's location detection?

Thank you for sharing your add-ons list. None of those seem likely to cause this issue, but just in case, could you test in Firefox's Safe Mode? In Safe Mode, Firefox temporarily deactivates extensions, hardware acceleration, and some other advanced features to help you assess whether these are causing the problem.

If Firefox is running: You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
• Help menu > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

and OK the restart.

If Firefox is not running: Hold down the option/alt key when starting Firefox. (Windows users: Hold down the Shift key when starting Firefox.)

Both scenarios: A small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Refresh).

Any improvement?

Yes, the backspace leads back to a stable Firefox tab suggestion page Yes, restarting in safe mode allows + tab to work normally. Subsequent reboot back to annoying behaviour. I did not install anything new yesterday... And no, I'm not usually redirected to Google CA unless I specify it.

Could you try disabling each of your extensions for a brief time (e.g., 15 minutes), one at a time, to see whether that makes any difference?

You can view, disable, and often remove 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 you can switch between enabled and disabled on the right side.

Any improvement?

Oh DRATS, it's my French spelling dictionary! I'm a francophone! (hence the frog... ;) ) Half of my internet life is in French! I use this all the time. I've had the French spelling app for ages! It was never a problem!

What are my options? I need that app.

It's probably not intentional, and it's hard to imagine what is causing it.

Before reporting it on their forum -- I think:

https://www.dicollecte.org/forum.php?prj=fr

-- could you test with different parts of the new tab page disabled? If you click the gear icon on the right corner, you can hide different parts of the content to see whether one of them in particular is having this odd interaction.

In the "old" new tab page, occasionally there was an odd issue:

When Firefox wasn't able to generate a thumbnail for the page's tile, it would make a background request to the URL to try to generate it. This once caused loud music to play -- that was fixed by muting the site content -- and it occasionally caused Firefox to ask which external application to use for content that wasn't a web page so of course a thumbnail couldn't be generated.

In those cases, it was necessary to figure out which tile was causing the problem and block it from the page.

I have no idea whether that issue affects the newer design, but if you see any tiles that you don't need, you could try removing them (hover the tile, click the ••• button, click the X Dismiss command on the menu).

I have 5 controls for tabs, tried each of the 5 individually, the Google page always returns. Based on your second comment, I also tried turning off all 4 sections and keeping only My Top Sites, then dismissed a whole bunch of streaming links from my top ones, still the Google page returns.

(

Hi there is something that may work for you : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-tab-override/ How about doing this please and see if it turns up anything that could be the issue : Please use more than 1 scanner as each uses diff tech :

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware

Save your Report and google each before deleting anything as do not want to delete something you need, If need help :

• https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/9573-im-infected-what-do-i-do-now/

Post in only 1 forum, then wait.

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

I don't need to "override" my new tab, I like and use the top links format offered by FF I don't see any scan tools in that mozilla link you provided...

I would try the developer's forum and see if they have ever heard of anything like it. Maybe they can think of some way that their extension interacts with the page that isn't visible to us.

You can try to toggle these prefs on the about:config page to disable specific sections to see if that has effect.

• browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showSearch
• browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showTopSites
• browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.section.highlights
• browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.snippets

Isn't the about:config the exact same controls as the controls available on the new tap page itself? I've already toggled all those there. I've posted to the forum suggested by jscher2000, but I don't have high hopes, the forum specifically states it's not for "user help". When I click the creator of the French dictionary, Licopodes, in Mozilla add-ons, it does not seem to provide any contact or troubleshooting options?

TNT666 said

When I click the creator of the French dictionary, Licopodes, in Mozilla add-ons, it does not seem to provide any contact or troubleshooting options?

Just curious : where in Mozilla Add-ons do you see that add-on by 'Lipocodes'  ?

Your system details indeed show : French Spelling Dictionary 3.7 (FrenchSpellingChecker@lipocodes)

But in Mozilla Add-ons I can only find : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dictionnaire-fran%C3%A7ais1/ by 'OR' ......

'Found this :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/french-spelling-checker/?src=search by Lipocodes ......

Under 'More Information' you can click on 'Support Email'.

Clicking on their link to lipocodes.com gives me this :

http://lipocodes.com/cgi-sys/defaultwebpage.cgi

See at the bottom of 'About this extension': Privacy statement: 1. when selecting text and checking it, you send it to lipocodes.com, where the check gets performed.

Whoops, I had the wrong extension and Happy112 found the correct one.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/french-spelling-checker/

They actually just released an update an hour ago... maybe that will help?

Well I'll be darned! I installed the new dictionary, and yeah! it causes no "new tab" issues! thanks

The admin of the Dicollecte Forum you provided answered that I should contact the dictionary's author. The admin also looked at the extension's code and could see that the opening of Google.com was written into the code.

How were you aware of a new version of the dictionary? I don't recall getting update notifications about my extensions?

TNT666 said

How were you aware of a new version of the dictionary? I don't recall getting update notifications about my extensions?

Firefox usually updates extensions automatically, but perhaps only checks once a day, I'm not sure.

The reason I became aware of it was I looked at the extension Happy112 mentioned and when I scrolled down the left side I saw the version number did not match yours, so I clicked the "See all versions" link to figure out what was going on:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/french-spelling-checker/versions/

So at that point, it became obvious since I had missed it on the main page.

Good Grief!

The Google redirect is gone, but now the same extension is causing a "justiceaboutcomputers" popup when I click + for new tab. What's going on with Licopodes. Maybe he's been hijacked himself?

If you are using this add-on (I'm still not sure .....) :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/french-spelling-checker/?src=search

and that's the 'SciFi add-on' - why not remove it and give this on a try :

https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/grammalecte-fr/

as recommended by the author of :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dictionnaire-fran%C3%A7ais1/

Won't hurt to try .....

Note that the dictionary isn't builtin, but XHR (AJAX) is used to contact the website.

• http://valeuraddons.com/FrenchSpellingDictionary/ajax_query.php

The extension has code to show pop-up ads. There is a last_popup_ad date stored in local storage and there is a last_day_usage. So you can expect a lot of 'noise' when you use this extension.

event.js:

function popup_ad()
{
 var d = new Date(); 
 var n = d.getDay(); 
 var milliseconds = (new Date).getTime();    
 var difference = milliseconds - localStorage["last_popup_ad"];
	  
 console.log("difference="+difference);	
  	  
 if(difference > 4*60*60*1000)
   {  
     localStorage["last_popup_ad"] = milliseconds;
	 chrome.windows.create({
     url: browser.extension.getURL("https://justideasaboutcomputers.blogspot.com/"),
     width: 750,
     height: 130,
     type: 'popup'
                            });
	}   
}

There is also this code (the Google.com part is disabled (part of a comment):

var d = new Date(); 
var n = d.getDay();
if(localStorage["last_day_usage"]!= n)
  {
    localStorage["last_day_usage"] = n;   
	var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() 
	{
    if (this.readyState == 4 && this.status == 200) 
	  {
       //document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = this.responseText;
      }
    };
  xhttp.open("GET", "http://valeuraddons.com/FrenchSpellingDictionary/daily_users.php", true);
  xhttp.send();

  }
/*else if(localStorage["user_permission"] == "1")
{ 
 var milliseconds = (new Date).getTime(); 
 if(milliseconds - localStorage["installation_time"] <  2*24*60*60*1000) return ;
 
 url = tab.url;

 if(url == "about:newtab")  
	 { 
      browser.tabs.update({url:"https://google.com"});
	 }
}*/