New Tab Page vs Home Page vs Startup Pages

Browsers have three different "start" pages, and the settings for them sit side by side, so it's easy to change the wrong one. If you have set a home page and your new tabs still look the same, that's why. Here is what the new tab page, the home page and startup pages each do, and where to change them in Chrome, Edge and Firefox.

The three pages at a glance

Most people open a new tab dozens of times a day, click Home rarely, and start the browser once. That makes the new tab page by far the one you see most, and the one worth getting right.

In Google Chrome

Startup pages

1. 1
   Click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner and choose Settings.
2. 2
   Open On startup.
3. 3
   Choose Open the New Tab page, Continue where you left off, or Open a specific page or set of pages, then add the addresses you want.

Home page

1. 1
   In Settings, open Appearance.
2. 2
   Turn on Show Home button.
3. 3
   Choose New Tab page, or enter a custom web address.

New tab page

Chrome's new tab page is changed from the page itself, with the Customize Chrome button in the lower-right corner. There's no setting to make it open a website. Full steps are in How to change the new tab page in Chrome.

In Microsoft Edge

Edge keeps all three in one place: Settings › Start, home, and new tab page.

• When Edge starts: open the new tab page, continue with tabs from the previous session, or open specific pages.
• Home button: turn on Show home button on the toolbar, then choose New tab page or enter a URL.
• New tab page: layout, background and the news feed are set from the gear icon on the new tab page itself. See How to change the new tab page in Edge.

In Mozilla Firefox

Firefox ties the home page and new windows together, and keeps new tabs separate. Open Settings › Home:

• Homepage and new windows: Firefox Home (the default), custom URLs, or a blank page. Whatever you choose here also opens in every new window.
• New tabs: Firefox Home or a blank page. There's no custom URL option for new tabs.

What Firefox does at startup is under Settings › General: turn on Open previous windows and tabs to continue where you left off, or leave it off to start with your home page. More in How to change the new tab page in Firefox.

Note: If a setting is greyed out with a message that an extension or your organization controls it, that extension or a company policy has taken it over. Turn off the extension to get the setting back. More on fixing this.

Which one should you change?

It depends on what you're after:

• "I want to land on the same site when I start my day." Set it as a startup page.
• "I want a one-click way back to one site." Set it as your home page, or simply pin the tab.
• "I want my sites in front of me every time I open a tab." That's the new tab page, and it's the one you'll use most. Customize it, or replace it with an extension.

Trying to force a single website onto every new tab usually isn't what people really want. What they want is fast access to a handful of sites. A page of visual bookmarks does that better than any one website, because everything you use is one click away. If you still want one specific website, see How to set any website as your new tab page.

All your sites on every new tab

Speed Dial 2 puts your bookmarks on the new tab page as visual tiles in groups, so the page you see most is the most useful one. Free for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Brave.

Get Speed Dial 2  –  it's free

Pro Tip: Want Speed Dial 2 to also open when the browser starts? Set your startup page to "Open the New Tab page" in Chrome or Edge. In Firefox, see Set Speed Dial 2 as start page in Firefox.