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How can I clear out "about:newtab" for privacy?

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  • 2 have this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

renniksr
renniksr
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When I (or a visitor) enter "about:newtab", recently-visited sites are shown on the screen. I do not want my recently-visited sites shown. I want to remove this information from "about:newtab".

When I (or a visitor) enter "about:newtab", recently-visited sites are shown on the screen. I do not want my recently-visited sites shown. I want to remove this information from "about:newtab".

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cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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You can change the order of the boxes on the about:newtab page and drag an item to a different tile to pin it to that position or you can remove a website by clicking the close X to block that URL.
You can drag a bookmark or history item and drop them in a tile on the about:newtab page to pin them and have your own favorites sites showing.

Changes made manually on the about:newtab page are stored in the browser.newtabpage.pinned (default = [null]) and browser.newtabpage.blocked prefs that you can check/modify on the about:config page.

You can create these Boolean prefs on the about:config page to prevent Firefox from generating thumbnails for the about:newtab page.

  • name: browser.pagethumbnails.capturing_disabled with value: true
  • name: pageThumbs.enabled with value: false

Delete the thumbnails folder in the Firefox profile folder to remove already stored web page thumbnails.

See this knowledge base article about the about:config page.