[compscistd]

Firefox > Preferences > Home > New Windows and Tabs (very first option!) > Homepage and New Windows, New Tabs > Blank Page

I like that Firefox Home is the default option because you as the user are offered something. If you don't like it, you say no, go to the settings page, and are never offered it again. If you do like it or don't mind it, you keep it. Win-win.

If Firefox Home wasn't on by default, those that might have preferred it wouldn't know what they're missing. It seems difficult to think someone would actually prefer ads but if there's some engagement, then that speaks for itself.

[LeifCarrotson]

The default option should be "show options", letting you choose with one click between Blank, Mozilla Ads, Your Recent/Favorite Pages, and a custom URL or set of URLs.

There are 6 levels to your process above. Imagine being tech-illiterate and asked to navigate that - or, maybe easier, imagine trying to dictate that process to someone you know who is tech-illiterate over the phone. Even if you know exactly what to do, it might go something like this:

> "You saw an ad you don't like on a new tab of The Internet? OK, what you need to do to fix that is set the New Tab preference to Blank. Click the Firefox menu - no, it doesn't have the familiar File/Edit/Help menu bar, it uses a hamburger menu - the stack of three horizontal lines - in the top right. Something about a library? No, that's supposed to be a bookshelf icon, it has vertical lines, you want the horizontal lines to its right. The menu went away? Make sure to single-click the menu, not double-click. Look in that menu for something named Settings ... not Customize, no, that's kind of like settings but different, oh yeah, it was called Preferences. In Preferences, look for the Home section ... shouldn't have to scroll, it's in the menu to the left ... yeah, that's a menu, it's just separated by whitespace instead of a line. On the Home preferences screen, there's a drop-down box for New Tabs, click that dropdown and set it to Blank. Great, you're all set. Talk to you later. Bye!" Ring - "Hey again - it didn't work? You closed and reopened Firefox and the ads were still there? Oh, right, that gives you a new window, not a new tab. Let's go back through the menus one more time, it was just above the New Tabs dropdown, yeah, we were just there. Click the three horizontal lines for the Firefox menu...."

It's disingenuous to say that those who prefer the ads might not know what they're missing, even more disingenuous to say "you're offered something". No, with ad tech, the user is the product being offered to the advertisers, and I expect that more people don't know how to turn it off or that turning it off is a thing you can do than that like being advertised to.

[kelnos]

> The default option should be "show options"

I fully understand why you think that should be the case, but please understand that most people are not like you. Putting barriers between first start of an app before the user can actually do something with the app is the way to annoy your users.

Sane defaults are nearly always the right choice. You personally may not believe their default is sane, but you're in the minority, clearly.

(It's telling that you call it "Mozilla Ads"; such hyperbole only serves to weaken your point.)

[ziddoap]

>There are 6 levels to your process above

Hit options -> Click dropdown of "new tab" field and select "Blank page". 2 steps.

If the parent post is being disingenuous with their point, yours is as equally disingenuous by being an incredibly over-complicated deconstruction of hitting options and reading 2 fields down.

If they have to be walked through finding the options menu (half your paragraph is about opening the options menu, really?), they are going to have difficulties with every browser and every option -- including understanding what a "custom URL or set of URLs" is.

>"Oh a URL? That's the address thing you see at the top. Oh but it's not shown completely in some browsers. And, if you want multiple URLs you have to use the pipe operator symbol. Oh, the pipe operator? Look above your enter key. No, not the one on the number pad, the other one near the backspace." Etc..

[compscistd]

My mistake, I was on a Mac and I intuitively look for app settings in the main menu bar, which is what I was describing. I should have looked up the process on other platforms to determine if it was just as intuitive