It used to be that way. Now I can choose Firefox Home screen or blank. 99% of the time I use a search engine to look up something in another tab, while writing in the first. My homepage is set to a search engine. I’d like to have that open when I open a new tab. It is currently not possible. Or just allow the setting of a custom URL for tabs the same as the homepage. I currently have to open tab and then hit home. This is just a QoL request. Thank you
The old preference was removed in Firefox 41 due to relentless attacks by malware. Since then, extensions like the following allow changing the new tab page: