Ability to separate Home Page and Startup Pages

[tolgauho]

After having websites that I am visiting on a daily basis, I am still searching ways to separate home page which is a search engine and other pages to load on the startup.(Yes, I know there is a thread for this but not solving my problem) The pages I am expecting to load during startup are not considered as homepage. Homepage is just a search engine. Edge, nor Chrome does this easily. I don't think it's going to be too much problematic to have this option.

On the other hand, while opening a web page by clicking middle button on the mouse or right click and selecting open in a new tab from a folder at the bookmarks tab, please have an option to open them at the background tab. I want to open several pages at the same time by staying at the current screen but each time I click on the page, it immediately directs me to that one and expect me to click pages one by one which is really tiring and unefficient way to do that. These 2 reasons are leading me to use another browser while I am a user of Firefox since the beginning and I would like to continue using Firefox. Therefore, please consider my ideas.

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[Anonymous]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/startup-tabs/

[tolgauho]

I was finally be able to solve the problem with the middle button issue while opening pages from bookmark toolbar as a background tab and not switch to them immediately. It was some settings at the about:config page. However, the problem continues about the home and startup pages. I am respecting Mozilla Community and defining them really crucial for better, safer and free for internet. Please consider this option again and bring back the ability to separate home and startup pages.

[puetter11]

I would like this implemented as well I want firefox to start up with multiple pages and only one home page when I click to go home like how chrome and nearly every other browser does so and not open all the startup pages again like what!? why would anyone want that :'D

[tolgauho]

It has been more than four years since I opened this idea in August 2022. Since then Firefox has shipped roughly fifty major releases, a full Settings redesign in Firefox 152 where the Home panel was even renamed to "Home and startup", and on September 29, 2026 the new Firefox design started rolling out to everyone. Yet the one thing this idea asks for is still missing, and the idea is still sitting at "New idea" status.

Let me describe the problem once more, as concretely as possible. I want Firefox to open a set of pages I use every day when it starts. I want the Home button to open only one page, my search engine. Today this is impossible through Settings. If I enter several URLs as the homepage, every click on the Home button reopens all of them as new tabs, on top of the ones already open. If I keep a single homepage, I lose my startup set. The answers given in support threads are always workarounds: pinned tabs combined with session restore, a third party add-on, or editing about:config. None of these is a real setting, and a user should not need an add-on for such a basic browser feature.

Chrome and Edge solved this long ago with independent options: what opens on startup (a list of pages), what the Home button opens (a single URL), and what a new tab shows. This single missing setting is the reason I still keep Chrome and Edge installed next to Firefox, which I have used since its early days and would love to use exclusively. The comments in this thread and related ideas here on Connect ("Start page, home page and new tab settings", "Start-up Tabs & Windows") show that I am not alone.

The request is small and clearly scoped:

On startup: Open previous windows and tabs / Open Firefox Home / Open a specific set of pages
Home button: Firefox Home / Blank page / One custom URL
New windows: Firefox Home / Blank page / Same as Home button
New tabs: unchanged

Firefox already separates the startup behavior (browser.startup.page) from the homepage URL (browser.startup.homepage). What is missing is a separate startup URL list and a place for it in Settings, which fits naturally into the redesign you are rolling out right now.

Could someone from the Mozilla team please review this idea, update its status and let us know whether it is on the roadmap? Loyal users have been asking for this for years. We would really appreciate being heard.