As you may know, Firefox 57 came with a new user interface, also known as “Photon.” It’s a more modern, sleek look for the browser, replacing the previous “Australis.” It features new menus, a new settings window, and tabs without rounded corners. If you don’t like the new look of the tab page, you can revert it to its classic look and disable the activity stream feature.
Firefox 57 is a huge success for the Mozilla Foundation. The browser comes with a new user interface, codenamed “Photon”, and features the new “Quantum” engine. It was a tough move for developers, because with this release, the browser completely drops support for XUL-based add-ons!
So all classic add-ons have been moved to the new WebExtensions API. Some of the classic add-ons already have modern versions or some alternatives. Unfortunately, there are many useful add-ons that have not been converted yet.
The Quantum engine can process multiple pages in parallel. It is developed with a multi-threaded architecture that helps in processing CSS and HTML, which makes the application much more reliable and faster.
But let's see how you can enable the classic new tab page in Firefox 57.
At the time of writing, there is a special hidden option in 'about:config' that you can use to restore the classic look of the new tab page. At some point, it will be removed, so it is a temporary solution.
To enable the old tab page in Firefox 57, do the following.
Open a new tab and enter the following text in the address bar:
about:config
Accept the risk, you will not lose the guarantee to proceed to the following tab.
Place the following string in the search box:
browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.enabled
Double-click the search result to set the value to false and restart Firefox.
That's it, but let's see how you can also disable Activity Stream.
Open a new tab to see the new tab. In the top right corner, you will see the tiny gear icon. It opens the page options. Click the button and deselect (turn off) the items you don't want to see on each new tab page.
That's it, enjoy your new browser!
