DavidTom said

Today my home page was gone . . . . .

What do you mean, gone? Did something else take its place? What is it?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-to-fix-preferences-wont-save

Note: Some software, like Advanced SystemCare with Surfing Protection, can protect files in the Firefox profile folder against changes. If you have such software then check the settings or uninstall this software.

My Home Page was replaced by Welcome to Mozilla.

And what do you want your home page to be?

On the left side, what you are looking for is called the Sidebar and there are a few different ways to display that. For example:

• Bookmarks Sidebar
  • Press Ctrl+b (as long as the site you're on doesn't intercept it)
  • On the bookmarks menu button on the toolbar > View Bookmarks Sidebar

• History Sidebar
  • Press Ctrl+h
  • "3-bar" menu button > History > View History Sidebar

You also can use the Customize feature to add a Sidebars button to your toolbar or menu. See: Customize Firefox controls, buttons and toolbars.

Fred, If you would again read my original post I said "and after restoring that" (my prior home page) "I no longer have my bookmarks ... displayed on the left side in a column". Your last acerbic response has nothing to do with my problem which is displaying my bookmarks. Jscher 200 has now addressed that and I will use what he has provided.

However to both of you, and any one else reading this, I am most annoyed by how Mozilla periodically decides to reinstall itself wiping out all of my prior settings. I will keep Jscher2000's posting in a safe place so that I no longer will have to bother the community when next this wipe-out happens.

Hi DavidTom, you should not see drastic changes after an update. But! Beware of a bar that says Firefox is starting slowly and you can speed it up by restoring some default settings. If you click that button, it triggers the Refresh feature and then, yes, you'll lose your home page setting, toolbar layout, add-ons... as described in: Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings.

If you see an Old Firefox Data folder on your desktop containing a semi-randomly-named folder with freshly updated files, that's the most likely scenario.

As a side note, sometimes after Windows updates, Windows does not give Firefox normal disk permissions and Firefox has a mix of old and new settings and behaves oddly. Shutting down and restarting Windows usually fixes that.