Are you sure this isn't from an extension? Mine doesn't have any ads or even "Thought-provoking stories".
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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I have seen the "thought provoking stories" on a new FF install I did a couple of days ago, it seems to be the replacement for Pocket stories since that's been removed. You can still remove it in about:preferences#home and uncheck "Recommended stories".
However I have never seen the ad below it either. Not even sure where that's coming from, there is a ... button on the top right of it, I would be tempted to see if that gives any hint where it's coming from.
"thought-provoking stories" has been part of Mozilla's Firefox for a while, originally tied to their Pocket branding. I guess Pocket is dead but sadly not this part of it.
You can disable sponsored content in the new tab page in the Firefox settings.
Edit: You can also disable Firefox Studies.
that does not look like a vanilla Firefox. You should not have those ads there. Check out installed extensions
What part of it doesn't? Besides the massive banner added the bottom of the screen, everything looks like it's the default. That icon in the top-left corner comes preinstalled. The search engine is still the default. The only customization I see here is an extra theme and a couple of add-ons.
having a big banner ad at the bottom is not a vanilla experience
I wondered why this was downvoted before I saw the original message in my notifications
yeah, thanks Mr/Ms obvious, you described exactly the reason of why it does not look vanilla at all, that big giant bottom ad banner
Anyway, my point is that I would assume Firefox would look different if there was evidence the user caused this banner by accidentally injecting malware into the browser within Linux.
That probably counts as a privileged page, as in something uBlock Origin can't access or modify.
Mozilla has probably been running another "experiment", meaning not every user is affected. In the past they claimed it's not advertisements because they are "continually looking for more ways to say thanks for using Firefox". (Bullshit.) If you go to Settings > Home, you disable anything you don't want to see, or just set your home page to a blank page, period.
You probably downloaded some shitty addon, or installed firefox from the wrong source
This was installed however the fuck endeavour installs Firefox
This? https://endeavouros.com/
Yep
This narrows the possibilities down to ~~three~~ four interesting options.
- Mozilla did this, and you're the first person to talk about it online
- Your OS did this, and you're the first person to talk about it online
- A protected browser page got hijacked by malware on Linux
- You did this and forgot, somehow
Some other comments have been annoyingly dismissive, but I hope you push onward to figure out what the hell this is. Because if it's one of the first two, it's a big deal.
Crap like this is why I set mine to about:blank
Pretty sure you can disable those by click on the settings wheel visible in the bottom right. Or just use librewolf :)
you can disable these in about:preferences#home
NTP
Network Time Protocol?
I think new tab page, but I've never seen it written as ntp
cogwheel in bottom right of the page, untick whatever you don't want to see.
This is something new. What's under the 3-dot menu? And to cover our bases, can you look through your browsing history to determine where this copy of Firefox came from?
Why do you blame Firefox? It's like blaming the car for how you drive it...