With Firefox 41 (and higher), it's no longer possible to customize the page shown in a new tab via changing the preference browser.newtab.url in about.config. Because of the fact that hijackers abused the preference in the past, Mozilla decided to remove it (see bug 1118285). Fortunately, by removing it, Mozilla also introduced a new API to bring this functionality back to life as an add-on. This add-on allows the user to choose a certain page in a new tab.

New Tab Override (browser.newtab.url replacement) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-tab-override/

This is also available using Classic Theme Restorer (Customize Australis) {web link} Restore squared tabs, appmenu, add-ons bar, small button view and more on Australis UI (Windows/MacOSX/Linux + Fx 29+).

If you want the same page for your home page and new tab page, this extension is the simplest way to do that:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/new-tab-homepage/

I'm not sure what you mean by this:

I tried the %7C and it wiped out my entry of my home page.

Thank both of you for your help. Of the two entries from FredMcD the first one loaded, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work. Maybe It was my setup, I didn't see any change. The second, the URL wasn't found. Thanks, maybe if I played with it some more I could have gotten the first one working.

The second reply from jscher2000 loaded and worked right out of the box except that I got two pages on startup. So I got rid of the second URL in setup and it worked perfect. Thanks!!!

Problem solved.

Firefox needs an extension to do this simple thing that should be built in? Please fix this!

BTW, this was asked previously and answered, but that answer seems to no longer apply: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1036802

Can that somehow be marked as no longer relevant?

See also:

• [/questions/1086813#answer-789449]

You can achieve this via code in the mozilla.cfg file in the Firefox program folder. You can modify the newTabURL = "about:blank"; line to set a different new tab page.

// mozilla.cfg needs to start with a comment line
newTabURL = "about:blank";
Components.utils.import("resource:///modules/NewTabURL.jsm");
NewTabURL.override(newTabURL);

A mozilla.cfg file in the Firefox program folder can be used to specify and lock pref values and run privileged JavaScript code.

A local-settings.js file needs to be placed in the "defaults/pref" folder where also the channel-prefs.js file is located to specify using mozilla.cfg.

pref("general.config.filename", "mozilla.cfg");
pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0);

See Configuration:

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Enterprise_deployment
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locking_preferences