How to change the homepage in the Firefox browser

[harlan4096]

The following guide offers instructions on changing then homepage of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. The homepage is the first page that users see when they open the web browser, and when they click on the Home button on the Firefox toolbar.

Mozilla loads a First Run experience on the very first start of Firefox, which offers some customization options. The default homepage of Firefox is the same as that of the New Tab page.

If you don't see the Home button in Firefox's interface, select Menu > Customize Toolbar to open the interface customization options of the browser. Locate the Home icon on the page, and drag & drop it on the toolbar to place it there. You may also use it to remove the Home button from the toolbar in case you don't use it.

If you prefer to use the keyboard, use the keyboard shortcut Alt-Home to load the homepage of the Firefox browser.

Firefox supports setting different pages for the homepage in its interface.

Setting or changing the Homepage in Firefox

Here is the quickest option:

1. Load about:preferences#home in the Firefox address bar.
   
2. Locate "Homepage and new windows" under New Windows and Tabs on the page.
   
3. Use the menu to change the default homepage.
   

Tip: you may also activate the settings icon on the homepage to jump to the page, or select Menu > Options > Home to display it.

Firefox offers three options for the homepage:

• Firefox Home (Default) -- this is the browser's New Tab Page and the default selection.
  
• Custom URLs -- Select one or multiple webpages as the new homepage by typing or pasting URLs, using the pages that are open currently in Firefox, or by using pages from the bookmarks.
  
• Blank Page -- Firefox displays a white page without content.
  

Tip: to add more than one custom URL, use | as the separator, e.g. to add ghacks.net and wikipedia.org, you'd type ghacks.net|wikipedia.org in the field.

You could make Ghacks the homepage in Firefox, if you want.

When you open a new window in Firefox, the homepage or pages set as the homepage are loaded (not in Private Browsing Mode). Also, when Firefox is starting, it is loading the homepage by default as well unless you have configured the browser to restore the last session.

Advanced Firefox Homepage changing options

Advanced users may change the homepage using configuration files or about:config. All options are provided and it may be useful for users and administrators who want to configure the homepage for managed devices.

1. Load about:config in the Firefox address bar.
   
2. Confirm that you will be careful.
   
3. Search for browser.startup.homepage.
   

The preference's value sets the homepage.  Just double-click into the value field to make it editable, and add your preferences.

• Firefox Home (Default) -- Type about:home to restore the default homepage of the Firefox browser.
  
• Custom URLs -- use the same syntax as in the field in the Settings. Use | to separate addresses.
  
• Blank Page -- Type about:blank to set a blank homepage without content.
  

Tip: you may set other internal Firefox pages as the homepage, e.g. about:config, about:downloads, about:profiles, or about:telemetry.

Now You: do you use the homepage option of your browser?
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