It continues to surprise me that people use the home screen, regardless of it being Firefox or Chrome. New window, new tab, I always set that to a blank page, in my mind that should be the default.
It continues to surprise me that people don't make their "new tab page" useful, it's probably the page you see the most everyday. Make it your own, put your bookmarks in there or whatever is useful (I use https://start.me/)
That explains the ton of extensions to manage that page. That does seem like a pretty dark pattern move, I recall it having three options, the last being a custom URL.
You're ignoring the fact that "Firefox Home" itself allows you to customize what it contains. You can remove the recommendations, shortcuts, recent pages, recent bookmarks etc. individually (or strip it all the way down to a search bar).
> You're ignoring the fact that "Firefox Home" itself allows you to customize what it contains.
Correct. I am ignoring that fact because I don't want new tabs to display "Firefox Home" and I am not interested in customizing what it contains.
I want new tabs to display an HTML file that I made myself. Firefox previously allowed doing so.
The replies that suggest using extensions to re-enable the disabled functionality probably have not actually tried doing so. What those extensions do is load the "Firefox Home" content, then (as if on page load) redirect to whatever you set as your custom new tab. Which is just wretched. I could have typed the URL faster than that.
And on the subject of pushing core browser functionality into extensions: Why are things like Pocket, Firefox Sync, Hello, and the like integrated / bundled with Firefox but the ability to set a custom URL for new tabs requires users to install / trust a third party extension?
See also: The deplorable state of "Classic Theme Restorer", another case of "Users who miss the disabled functionality can just install an extension."
For me, a new window or new tab is something that's only active for time it takes me to type in the URL of the site I'm going to. At least earlier having content on that page slowed down Firefox, which is annoying if you just want to go straight to entering a new URL. So setting it to about:blank was a major workflow improvement.
There's no point to the "new tab page", it would be better to have a popup to type the URL into and then hit "Go" and have that open a new tab. For me it's really just a distraction. Why would I open a new window/tab if I didn't know where I'm going?
It surprises me that you'd be surprised. It's convenient to have your most used sites a single click away on the new tab screen, and it still opens instantaneously, so I don't see any disadvantage. If there's something there you find distracting, you can remove it.
> If there's something there you find distracting, you can remove it.
Now you'll have me manage yet another thing, I just want stuff to require no management.
On being surprised, I suppose you're right, there are about as many ways of using a computer as there are users. It's easy to get lured into the feeling that anything you don't utilize yourself is weird and pointless. I never use the "home screen", nor do I really use bookmarks all that much. For bookmarks I get why they are there, I have maybe a hand full myself, but it's not something that I use enough to pay for, or even require, a bookmarking service. So seeing someone actively use one or even depend on it because a curiosity.
