Share Your Thoughts on the Home / "New Tab" Page! 🖥️ [thread 2]

[Justine]

Hi everyone 👋

I'm Justine, a product manager on the Firefox Desktop team! It's been a while since we last reached out for your invaluable feedback on the homepage, and as part of our effort to develop and enhance the experience, I wanted to open a new thread to hear your thoughts, ideas, and pain points.

Here are some questions we'd love to get your feedback on:

• How do you feel about the default homepage, and what improvements would enhance it for you?
• What, if any, type of content would you be interested in seeing on the homepage?
• Is there something on another browser's homepage that you wish Firefox had as well?
• Do you use third-party websites or extensions as your homepage? If so, what motivates your choice?

Your sentiments, suggestions, and insights are important to us. Whether it's a simple thought or a detailed message, we'd love to hear your from you!

If you are a MOBILE user and would like to provide feedback on that experience, please do so in this thread: Mobile Homepage Experience - Thread

[naina]

Hello Justine, it's fantastic to see the Firefox Desktop team actively seeking user feedback for homepage enhancements. The default homepage offers familiarity, but improving its personalization options could enhance the experience. Introducing customizable widgets for news, weather, or bookmarks could cater to diverse user preferences. Observing elements from other browsers, like speed dials or quick access to frequently visited sites, might be valuable. Many users choose third-party websites or extensions as their homepage for specialised content or productivity tools. Enriching the default homepage with these functionalities could reduce reliance on external options. Your proactive engagement with users underscores Firefox's commitment to user-eccentric development.

[Justine]

Hi @naina,

This is such great feedback, we really appreciate it and are taking notes! If you think of anything else, feel free to let us know.

[Andrewjosh]

 it's fantastic to see the Firefox Desktop team actively seeking user feedback for homepage enhancements. The default homepage offers familiarity, but improving its personalization pfannenset mit abnehmbaren griff could enhance the experience. Introducing customizable widgets for news, weather, or bookmarks could cater to diverse user preferences. Observing elements from other browsers, like speed dials or quick access to frequently visited sites, might be valuable. Many users choose third-party websites or extensions as their homepage for specialised content or productivity tools. Enriching the default homepage with these functionalities could reduce reliance on external options. Your proactive engagement with users underscores Firefox's commitment to user-eccentric development.

[T9]

1. I like it already. Add wallpapers with a toggle to turn them off when required.
2. Get the best wallpapers from unsplash.com for new tabs because I hate to set wallpapers after a while. Make it a toggle to turn them off. Many times I disable data-consuming features to save my bandwidth. This applies to mobile as well.
3. Brave browser has this feature which I am talking about.
4. This addon (Tabliss) also gets wallpapers from Unsplash.com. I have stopped using this addon as it is buggy.

Please release early features into the nightly channel whether they make it to the stable release or not. Nightly has no exciting features. It is boring.

[Justine]

Thank you for the feedback, it has been noted! We definitely hear this community's desire for wallpapers and it is being discussed 😊

[T9]

I forgot to mention one more thing. Please do not show NSFW websites in shortcuts on the home screen (in Firefox Android.)

[Synchro]

Thank you for asking.

1. I would like to have a "+" button to pin a new site on the homepage. Now, for this purpose I have to edit one of the last frequently used pages: at first I pin it, then edit its URL and name. Also it would be great to have an option to hide this button through the "gear" menu when I don't need it.

2. I would like to have more characters to be shown in a pinned site name. Now, for me this number is just 9-10, and sometimes this is no enough.

3. Now I can change only a number of rows of pinned sites, but not a number of columnes. I think it would be more convenient to pick both parameters of a grid: 2x5, 2x10, 4x10, 8x8 etc. This would help me to organise my homepage: 1st row is for social medias, 2nd row is for sport news, 3rd row is for local news.

I don't use any extensions for my homepage as I rely on a standart browser kit. I believe that Firefox provides good privacy and would like to see it just more flexible and customizable.

[Justine]

Thanks for the feedback @Synchro

As we continue talking about how to tailor the page to each person, this is the type of feedback we really look forward to!

[nickvalery]

Please provide a way of permanently removing the new tab ribbon beneath the menu bar. If this can't be done, please let me know how to roll-back to Version 115 or earlier.

I've been a loyal supporter of Mozaic/Mozilla since long before it was called Firefox. Don't make me switch at this late stage to Chrome/Chromium or (Heaven forbid!) NS Edge....

Nick

[Justine]

Hi Nick,

Are you referring to the bookmark section under the address bar? If so, you can right-click on it, hover on "Bookmark toolbar", and select "Never Show". I'll attach a screenshot below.

[Himraj]

Hey I like the look of the Firefox in your screenshot, I want to make my Firefox look like this.

How can I do this man. Please tell me.

[Justine]

https://color.firefox.com/

[FireFan11423x]

1. I like it, it's minimalist. But I don't really like how the shortcuts to the websites look, since I feel they are very small and have those gray colors around them, I wish they were a little bigger and didn't have those gray lines on the sides.

2. I think not, I'm not a big fan of browsers (mobile/pc) having their home page oversaturated.

3. Opera browser, on the home page you can put a variety of colors and customizable wallpapers.

4. No.

Image #1

Regards, Justine!

[Justine]

Appreciate your feedback, thank you!

[tspoon765]

I have a (crazy) suggestion, which is that Firefox settings actually work as advertised.

 In my settings I selected to use a webpage as my homepage. Then I selected to have a blank page when opening a new tab. Then I changed my mind and selected Firefox home page again for new tabs. Then I deselected the web page for home page and reselected Firefox home page. Now it still loads a blank page and there's no way obvious to change it.

A further example is the setting to not jump to a new tab when opening from a bookmark. Which doesn't work. You go out on the internet, some clever person has told a bunch of stuff in about:config you can change. Which still doesn't work (Also - why should I?).

Why can't basic settings just work?

[Justine]

Hi @tspoon765 

Thank you for the feedback. I agree that your settings should be easy and intuitive to use. I have a couple of questions:

1. What prompted you to change your homepage initially? And what prompted you to change the new tab page to 'blank'?

2. What prompted you to change it back to the default settings?

3. In settings, does it indicate that your New Tab page is set to a blank page? Or is it set to Firefox Home, but it opens blank pages anyway?

Thank you!

[sujit_pal]

Please split "Sites you save and visit" into two options: "Sites you save" and "Sites you visit". Many of us do not want visited sites to come up in Shortcuts. It will make homepage look clean. This is available in Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi and many other prominent browsers too. I hope you will implement this very soon. I have attached a screenshot.
Please up vote this idea. Thank you.

[rico1]

This is a very good idea. Firefox developers should implement this.

[Justine]

Thanks for the feedback! It has been noted a few times and I've added it to our backlog

[MrZipp]

Hi Justine - as an age old Firefox user, I'm probably one of the fewer (sounds like), that prefer a blank home page and also a blank new tab. I know you work hard on the project, but I want you to know that at least one of us prefer a clean home page. Thanks so much for your work and interest in our likings

[Anonymous]

I want to be able to choose the exact number of shortcuts that appear on the home screen. At the moment, unused shortcuts are filled with pages from my browsing history, which bothers me quite a lot.

[rico1]

Yes, I want it too. I hope developers will take it seriously.

[Justine]

Thank you for this feedback! Its been noted 😊

[BelFox]

Hi Justine,

Firefox allows you to generate a thumbnail for your pinned websites, which I think is really cool. You enter the URL and voila ... an image (if hyperlink to jpg/png) or screenshot (if hyperlink to website) is retrieved and stored.

The only thing is ... with the latest redesign of the New Tab Page, these screenshots/images are cramped into the tiny white squares (80x80), making them barely readable.

Maybe a more flexible grid could be offered (think of the tiles in the Windows 8 Start Menu), where you can choose to increase the size of the rectangles containing screenshots (Small, Medium, Large ...). Users could even make a combination of small and larger tiles. Larger tiles could also contain other content.

Being able to choose different backgrounds (solid color using a color picker, own photo through file picker or wallpaper from gallery) would be my no. 1 request though.

Thanks for listening!

[Justine]

Allowing the page to be more customizable is definitely something we are interested in implementing. Thank you!

[Himraj]

I like the simplicity of the homepage it's great but it will be even look better if we can set background wallpaper just like chrome. Simple like now but with background wallpaper. And one more thing the Firefox logo should stay on top of it because the logo makes it look like Firefox.

[Justine]

This is definitely a feature within our backlog and a popular request!

Thanks for the feedback. Hope to have an update for you in the near future 😊

[CBSDnL]

Turn off the RED X on each tab - the old X was just fine. (If this is the right tread to complain.)

[Himraj]

-infinity kudos from me

[Rhonda1]

Hello Justine. This is probably not the correct forum, but I have a problem with Firefox. I share a lot of things to Facebook. For a long time on different computers all running Ubuntu 22.04.03 LTS, when the share window pops up, if it is not a complete window covering the whole screen, it immediately begins to dance to the left side as far as it can. It stops when it gets there. Irritating. I have not figured out a way to make the pop up window automatically be full screen. Or perhaps full screen is the default setting but once you downsize it, you can't get back to the default.

Thank you and my best regards to you.

P.S.  Firefox has been my default since at least the early 90's, I think.

[Tones48]

Hi,

Love the new look!!  Looks smarter, cleaner, less busy but more relevant!!

I use English and New Zealand dictionaries, not much else.

PS - Sorry, I was carried away.  I was referring to ThunderBird, not FireFox.  DUH!

[agoodale]

Justine, this is sort of homepage related as it pertains to what I want when Firefox starts.  If this is not your area, PLEASE pass it on appropriately.

Currently I have 3 windows open with 68, 109 and 27 tabs respectively.  This is heavy on the memory and processing power of the PC.  I would like to have a greater number of smaller windows, and only open the windows that I need at any specific time.  To do this I would need to be able to name a window when I close it, and a means to open only the window(s) that I want, when I want them.  Firefox has for a long time saved the contents of ALL windows when I choose EXIT, rather than CLOSE, and then opens ALL windows when I restart.  It would seem to be a simple task to allow me to name these windows upon closure, and to choose which ones I want to open the next time.  This would greatly improve my PC's memory and CPU use, improve system stability overall, and greatly help me to organize my browsing sessions according to the selected tasks at hand.

[Justine]

Thank you for the feedback. I will make sure that this gets passed along to the appropriate product managers.

[eastbigwood]

after the latest update the function of dragging by mouse to open a new tag is dissapeared that makes annoying and lack of conviniences obviously , could you please turn it back ?

[worewarewix]

Thank you for laying this out! This is incredibly insightful and I'm making note of them to bring back to the team.

We really appreciate you taking the time to detail your feedback and we're committed to improving mobile's user experience!

[ytyyt1]

in other browsers (such as Chrome),Themes can include new tab backgrounds. Is it possible that a future update include this?

[Justine]

It's definitely possible! And it's a request we are very aware of and have at the forefront of our minds.

[ytyyt1]

Awesome. It would be great if we could download themes with matching images directly from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/themes/ .Thank you for considering this suggestion!

[LMP]

The new design has worsen some of the user experience. But I think a lot of people already mentioned this and didn't like the change as soon as the design was changed. When you have multiple tabs open it's so difficult now to find what tab has an active video playing on it... this was not an issue before. I'm constantly trying to locate the tab now.