New Tab King Improves Firefox's Blank Tab Page

Martin Brinkmann
Aug 31, 2010
Updated • May 9, 2012
Firefox, Firefox add-ons
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Some Firefox users do not like the blank page that is presented to them whenever they open a new tab in the web browser. Other browser developers, like Opera or Chrome, display website links instead which allow the user to quickly access often used websites.

Firefox users have to make use of add-ons to improve the blank tab page, and one of the most popular ones is New Tab King.

The new tab page in the browser is filled with life after the installation of the add-on. It may feel like a color shock on first use though, as it makes extensive use of background images which often reduce the visibility of the entries. Thankfully though it is possible to customize the display to remove those backgrounds.

new tab king
new tab king

The add-on displays the most visited websites, the recently closed tabs, a to-do list and a search form on every new tab page. View modes for the most visited websites can be changed to display thumbnails or analytics instead of text. It is furthermore possible to change the time frame from month to ever or week.

A click on a website listed there opens it in a new browser tab, a click on a recently closed tab restores it in the browser. Those are the two main features of New Tab King. The add-on offers more than that however. It is possible to remove websites from the listing, get detailed statistics about the pages visited on the site or to launch a similar site search on the Internet.

The search on top uses a custom Google Search engine by default, which can be changed to another search engine if desired. Two features of the add-on become only apparent in the options. The first, application shortcuts, can place links to applications on the computer system on each new tab page. Preconfigured are for instance links to Notepad, Calculator, My Documents and Windows Media Player, with options to remove or add file paths.

The second feature creates website shortcuts in the search form. We have already mentioned that the search uses Google Search. But that is not true if the entered search phrase is a website shortcut. Facebook for instance leads directly to the social networking site, AOL to the AOL homepage and so on. It is again possible to add or remove entries from the listing.

New Tab King fills the blank tab page in Firefox with life. It is currently compatible with Firefox 3 editions only.

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Comments

  1. junkinthebox said on February 22, 2011 at 9:05 pm
    Reply

    sorry, uh NOT, JUNK, doesn’t uninstall completely. speed dial much better. Even a reinstall of firefox didnt fix it. had to search profile and it still there., YES I followed FC5BAC7D-D696-4ba6-B913-CF8F000C33DF removal directions. kinda like a virus or spyware, hard to get rid of.

  2. Eaglenik said on September 1, 2010 at 11:32 am
    Reply

    Awesome thanks for that !!!

  3. Yoav said on September 1, 2010 at 9:12 am
    Reply

    Thanks! This is just what I was looking for – I’m going to give it a spin.

  4. Transcontinental said on August 31, 2010 at 5:25 pm
    Reply

    Gosh, I feel so lonely, so many users say so nice things about it, I won’t cry, no I won’t cry, I’ll just… I’ll just… maybe try it ? Otherwise I’ll have to rely on Firefox’s Bookmark menu, so far from my mouse, and another click or two, exhausting when an extension does it all for you. I must be mad not to catch that chance :)

    1. Martin said on August 31, 2010 at 10:15 pm
      Reply

      Well I would say that the blank tab page could be filled with contents that are useful to the user. It does not have to be the most visited links or anything like that, but a configurable option like Opera’s speed dial for instance can speed up the access to those sites quite a bit.

  5. The Genuine Islam said on August 31, 2010 at 5:04 pm
    Reply

    It seems cool , I will give it a try

  6. IPhone 4 battery said on August 31, 2010 at 3:56 pm
    Reply

    loved this new feature .i.e New King Tab.. Saves me a list of my visited sites..

  7. IPhone 4 battery said on August 31, 2010 at 3:55 pm
    Reply

    New Tab king is great..Now atleast we don’t have to retype the website we visit everyday.. It wil be very easy to open the sites we visit on regular basis. It will save us a lot of time..

  8. Eddie Weber said on August 31, 2010 at 3:47 pm
    Reply

    Cheers Martin for the review – greatly appreciated.

    @ Paul(us): we constantly keep the migration from one version to another as top priority. We’d be happy to follow up with you and learn about your experience

    @Transcontinental: It’s a free world – no offense mate – if NTK is not the tool for you then we’re fie with it ;-)

    Yours,
    –eddie
    http://www.newtabking.com – forget about the blank new tab

  9. Transcontinental said on August 31, 2010 at 11:42 am
    Reply

    Includes another declension of the principle “This is what you have visited, that is what you have most visited, here is what you will like” – When people tell me what’s good for me, I smile and move off. I consider the very concept of such extensions as essentially misleading as to what is useful when browsing.

  10. Paul(us) said on August 31, 2010 at 11:16 am
    Reply

    A ferry big bummer with this add-on is that it can’t migrate with you to a newer release/ version from firefox. So all your settings are getting lost. This is for me personally more than reason enough to wait white this add-on till the developer, has this for me ferry big problem fixed.

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