This is the most frustrating tech problem i've faced in a while. There are various solutions for various versions of Firefox, but none of them seem to work anymore because apparently Mozilla is waging a silent battle against people who want control over their own new tab page. For some reason.

Sorry. Just frustrated.

I'm making an HTML page that i would like LibreWolf to load by default every time i open a new blank tab with ctrl+t or the new tab button. I'm aware that i can set a new window page in my settings (not what i'm talking about), and i'm also aware of the browser extension that allows you to set a new tab page but is real buggy about local files. I'm even aware that i could hypothetically set my new tab page to a hidden page on my website that redirects to a local file, and i'm aware that that won't work because links from HTTP(S) to File are disabled.

I have tried following the following guides and solutions.

• https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/c8z0hx/help_set_new_tab_page_to_local_file/
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1251199
• https://github.com/n6v26r/.dotfiles/blob/main/firefox.md
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1498059
• https://superuser.com/questions/471713/set-the-new-tab-page-in-firefox
• https://www.reddit.com/r/startpages/comments/g3qndt/psa_how_to_set_a_custom_new_tab_page_in_firefox/
• https://codeberg.org/librewolf/issues/issues/1864#issuecomment-12463542
• https://codeberg.org/librewolf/issues/issues/2313
• https://gitlab.com/fazzi/nixohess/-/blob/main/home/modules/apps/browsers/librewolf/default.nix?ref_type=heads#L49

As you might guess, none of them worked.

Here's my current setup with this stuff.

I'm running GNU/Linux Debian 13 (trixie) with the KDE Plasma desktop environment version 6.3.6, KDE Frameworks version 6.13.0, and Qt version 6..8.2. But i doubt any of that matters.

LibreWolf was installed via apt and extrepo, and is on version 153.0.4-1.

I have a file at /usr/share/librewolf/defaults/pref/autoconfig.js:

// 
pref("general.config.filename", "autoconfig.cfg"); 
pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0); 
pref("general.config.sandbox_enabled", false); 

I have a file /usr/share/librewolf/autoconfig.cfg:

// sets the new tab page to out local newtab.
ChromeUtils.importESModule("resource:///modules/AboutNewTab.sys.mjs").AboutNewTab.newTabURL = "file:///home/indigo/Documents/browser-home/browserhome.html";

A copy of that same file is at /home/indigo/.config/librewolf/librewolf/librewolf.overrides.cfg

None of this seems to be doing anything at all. Maybe LibreWolf handles some of these file paths differently from Firefox, and that's why no guides work. I don't know.

Does anyone know a way to do this that works in version 153.0.4-1? Right now it seems like my best options are to stick with a blank page, switch to a Chromium-based browser like Vivaldi that actually lets me do this, or use New Tab Override to load this page from my website and potentially re-download a couple megabytes of images every time i open a tab. I don't like any of those options.

So, again, does a solution currently exist, or has Mozilla won the war against customized home pages for new tabs? Does one of these still work and i just did it wrong? Will LibreWolf figure out that people want this and find a good way to implement it as a normal setting that doesn't require a CS degree?

When trying to download the appimage from dl.librewolf.net it takes a long time as mentioned in the title. Speeds are like 6/7KiBps, but usual package manager downloads are fast at 4-5MiBps. Are there other mirrors one can use?

EDITED: Oops, I thought that was a codeberg link turns out it's not. I've edited and replaced codeberg with dl.librewolf.net

Just so I don't have to do a shallow menu dive to turn this on and off. There are still a few websites that seem to require this to be unchecked to work, like the Internet Archive, at least for the purpose of checking out books. I know there are some extensions that will do this, but it might be nice to have it built in to LW just like the option to dis/allow WebGL. Again, just a suggestion! 🙂

I just added a link to to my blog's RSS feed in the blog index page, and Librewolf now has a Reader View button for that page, which seems to let people read RSS entries instead of the normal HTML pages. The reader view also includes read time estimates. The index is about one minute, and an entry i clicked says 2-3. Where does this estimate come from?

In my userChrome.css file, I have the following so I can have a "compact view" of bookmarks, menus, etc.:

:root{ --arrowpanel-menuitem-padding-block: 2px !important;}

The Sidebar still displays bookmarks, history, & synced tabs "compactly", but the items on the hamburger menu and in the folders on my bookmarks toolbar are given "Normal" (spacey) density. Any way I can fix this?

I am trying to connect to a .local website, and LibreWolf says it can't connect to server (one of the worst UX error pages I've seen). Google and DDG are of no help, and I do not want to resort to using another browser for something that should be simple to disable.

I have added my domain to network.dns.localDomains and that did not appear to work. I have "DNS over HTTPS" disabled completely. I do not know what else to try.

Please help.