Reviews for Blank New Tab
Blank New Tab by xofe
Response by xofe
Developer response
posted 7 years agoThanks for the review!
Regarding the URL flash, this is due to a WebExtensions restriction: the new tab page must be a HTML page included in the add-on, so Blank New Tab includes a basic page which immediately redirects to "about:blank". This is why you see that quick flash.
Regarding new windows, the page opened for them seems to be controlled by the "When Firefox starts" setting in Preferences -> General. Setting that to "Show a blank page" should work as you expect.
Edit reply: Definitely agreed that setting the new tab page should be a prefs option, though this extension was only created because such an option was removed way back in Firefox 41!
Yeah, that flash can be a little annoying. If you'd like the blank page without the flash, the "New Tab about:blank" add-on (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/new-tab-about-blank/), is practically the same as this one, except it doesn't actually redirect to "about:blank" (despite its name), it just uses a completely empty HTML page. The downside is that there's an "Extension (...)" message shown at the start of the address bar.
Regarding the URL flash, this is due to a WebExtensions restriction: the new tab page must be a HTML page included in the add-on, so Blank New Tab includes a basic page which immediately redirects to "about:blank". This is why you see that quick flash.
Regarding new windows, the page opened for them seems to be controlled by the "When Firefox starts" setting in Preferences -> General. Setting that to "Show a blank page" should work as you expect.
Edit reply: Definitely agreed that setting the new tab page should be a prefs option, though this extension was only created because such an option was removed way back in Firefox 41!
Yeah, that flash can be a little annoying. If you'd like the blank page without the flash, the "New Tab about:blank" add-on (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/new-tab-about-blank/), is practically the same as this one, except it doesn't actually redirect to "about:blank" (despite its name), it just uses a completely empty HTML page. The downside is that there's an "Extension (...)" message shown at the start of the address bar.
34 reviews
- Rated 5 out of 5by flo, a year agoIt can still be useful to have this add-on using Firefox 61+. Recent versions of Firefox have the about:newtab page as new tab. With this add-on it is replaced by about:blank. This allows me to work with mouse gestures on new tabs (using Gesturefy add-on). Thanks!
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 16734585, 2 years agoЭто работает и это то, что я искал.
It works and is what I was looking for.
xofe, thank you! - Rated 5 out of 5by Dizzy, 2 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Daniel_Laixer, 3 years agoTHANK YOU! I'm on FF56 and I was trying to change the new tab color with "browser.display.background_color", but the new tab wasn't about:blank.
Thanks to this add-on it is now :) - Rated 5 out of 5by sushi, 3 years agoNew tab for private browsing will display a dedicated screen.
I use private browsing so much that I wanted to turn it into a simple page.
I need this extension.
Pardon my broken English. - Rated 4 out of 5by AName, 4 years agoWorks well. The only downside is I have to wait a second when I open a new tab before I start typing a URL. This attacks me constantly.
Edit: Thanks bruh!Developer response
posted 4 years agoHey, just wanted to let you know you don't need this addon if you're using a recent version of Firefox. You can go to "Options" -> "Home" -> "New Windows and Tabs" and set it to "Blank Page" - no addons needed and no delays. Hope this helps you! - Rated 5 out of 5by ander, 4 years agoBlank New Tab. Yeah, baby! It's pretty simple. Something like this either works or it doesn't—and this does. FF's "personalized" new tab screen is well-meaning, but it seems creepy always being reminded which sites you visit most, like someone's watching over your shoulder. I much prefer to create keyword shortcuts to jump to my favourite sites (e.g. "yt" for YouTube), and doing that is easy in FF. Install this, then you can have a blank new tab every time you run. Open a new tab, it's blank too. Beauty. If only the rest of life were so easy. :?)
- Rated 5 out of 5by Sageru, 5 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Laurence Daigle, 6 years agoLove the fact that the search bar is immediately focused
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14156277, 6 years agoI do not like my history appearing in the new tab, since my Firefox is sometimes shared with the other in the work. I already install another adds on, it worked but it also disturbed Firefox and address bar irritatingly while this extension works very well and never bothers me and it is hidden in Firefox.
- Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 13266151, 6 years agoGood addon but unfortunately ff61(.0.1) introduced a small issue:
open new tab, enter some url, press backbutton
expected: blank page
actual: some url is still shown, seems to be gfx buffer or something, cant click anything and switching to other tab and back does clear the contents
edit after reply: framebuffer issues like these could be anything really i guess and may be specific to my system :) i had not noticed the new blank page feature so that saves us both the hassle i guess, thanks for the reply!
ps. it was about the site-content-area, not the url-bar, i should have been more clear i see nowDeveloper response
posted 6 years agoThat's odd - it seems to work for me in v61. When I press back button, I get the usual "Search or enter address" text in URL bar.
By the way, Blank New Tab isn't needed any more with v61 as Firefox have added an option to set the new tab to a blank page by default. I'll add a note about this to the add-on description. - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13944698, 6 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by default-username, 7 years agoI quit on a blank tab so the next launch will not load any tabs into RAM (until I click on them). Deleting the built-in Activity Stream add-on from the .../browser/features folder makes the New Tab page blank, but those blank tabs are not restored when restarting Firefox. This bloat-free extension allows me to empty the "features" folder and start on a blank tab. (Update: with this add-on, the blank tabs are restored the majority of the time, not 100%.)
New tabs open with the cursor in a blank address bar for me. Firefox 60, macOS - Rated 4 out of 5by Francis Lee, 7 years agoGreat add-on! A small annoyance: in Firefox Quantum the new tab does not select the URL field. So to type a new URL you need to hit CMD-L first. Otherwise perfect!
- Rated 5 out of 5by sergeykish, 7 years agoThank you!
Works perfectly if not noisy flicker in address bar, fixed by removal and only afterward found you've ponted on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-tab-about-blank/ in the comment.
It's funny that "Blank New Tab" displays "about:blank" and "New Tab about:blank" displays blank tab - Rated 4 out of 5by smuj, 7 years agoMostly works. With ff v58 it flashes a moz:// extension URL (too quick to be more precise) in the URL bar before switching to about:newtab. Also, for whatever reason, it doesn't override the standard new tab page when opening a new window. Hopefully these are things that can be fixed! :)
Edit: my mistake; opening a new window shows about:home, which by default is set to the 'Mozilla Firefox Start Page', which is seemingly about:newtab. But about:newtab appears to be the standard new tab page, not the one overridden by this extension. That doesn't feel right, but it's Firefox's behaviour, not that of this extension's author. Changing the Home Page in prefs to about:blank fixes the problem for new windows.
Edit2: by weird coincidence, I wrote the Edit above while you were responding to my first review!!! So I ended up repeating what you said anyway!! :)
It's a shame about the flash; it actually makes the extension too annoying to use. The real answer to such a trivial feature is for Firefox to let users set their own 'new tab' page in their prefs, in the same way as setting the home page. Hopefully, that basic ability will be added sometime! Best of luck! :)Developer response
posted 7 years agoThanks for the review!
Regarding the URL flash, this is due to a WebExtensions restriction: the new tab page must be a HTML page included in the add-on, so Blank New Tab includes a basic page which immediately redirects to "about:blank". This is why you see that quick flash.
Regarding new windows, the page opened for them seems to be controlled by the "When Firefox starts" setting in Preferences -> General. Setting that to "Show a blank page" should work as you expect.
Edit reply: Definitely agreed that setting the new tab page should be a prefs option, though this extension was only created because such an option was removed way back in Firefox 41!
Yeah, that flash can be a little annoying. If you'd like the blank page without the flash, the "New Tab about:blank" add-on (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/new-tab-about-blank/), is practically the same as this one, except it doesn't actually redirect to "about:blank" (despite its name), it just uses a completely empty HTML page. The downside is that there's an "Extension (...)" message shown at the start of the address bar. - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13727369, 7 years agoIt does what it says and it requires no spurious permissions. Thanks.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13718684, 7 years agoHi johan, I did what you said. When I double-click the .html file, it opens a dark background page. However, how do I set it so that it opens this file when I press 'new tab'?
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 6648216, 7 years agoWorks as advertised!
Enough for me.
But as someone asked:
For a "night version", just create a text document with this:
<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><style>body{background-color:#222222}</style></head><body></body></html>
Name it bg-blk.html (for example, anyhing ending with .html)
Double-klick for a dark opening. :)
222222 is dark, 000000 is pitch black &c.
Also set "Open new windows in new tab instead", obviously. - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13378804, 7 years agoThanks! i Finally Fixed it https://youtu.be/ixoyvUhD0ws
- Rated 5 out of 5by jlvanderzwan, 7 years agoIt just works just as advertised :) The only thing that could make it better is if I could set the color (a big white screen is blinding at night, I'd like to make it black)
EDIT: Maybe a separate "dark new tab" add-on would make more sense, since those are the two main use-cases and it will keep the code nice and minimal like it is now.Developer response
posted 7 years agoThanks for reviewing!
Due to the way this add-on works (it redirects to the built-in 'about:blank' page), it's not possible to set the colour directly. A separate add-on that used its own blank page (instead of 'about:blank') with a smidgen of CSS to change the background would be fairly easy to create - perhaps someone will give it a shot?