Mozilla is rolling out a patch in the next week or two to eliminate the massive blank space dominating the top of the Firefox 151 New Tab page. The layout fix will move the Firefox logo to the upper left corner and pull the shortcut icons back up the screen.
The Firefox 151 update pushed a visual refresh called Nova. It immediately angered desktop users. People with three or four rows of pinned sites suddenly found their bottom shortcuts shoved below the taskbar horizon.
A massive thread on Mozilla Connect filled up with screenshots of the wasted vertical real estate.
Firefox desktop product employee Amber Meryman spent a day responding individually to dozens of angry forum posts. She admitted the current spacing pushes shortcuts too far down and confirmed a structural fix is imminent.
She also repeatedly asked users to stop modifying their advanced settings to escape the new UI.
We previously detailed the flag tweak in our guide to reverting the Firefox 151 homepage. Disabling the activity-stream.nova.enabled setting forces the browser back to the old layout.
Meryman warned that flipping that flag will lock users out of future features. The blank space is not just bad padding. Mozilla is actually clearing room for a brand new desktop widget system.
The developers plan to drop optional widgets into a dedicated row and along a vertical right-hand navigation bar. They essentially shipped the empty container before the actual widgets were ready.
Users also hated the oversized Firefox logo blocking their custom background images. The layout patch will temporarily hide the logo for people who have disabled all other homepage features.
A proper toggle switch to disable the logo completely is scheduled for the Firefox 152 release at the end of June.
Mozilla is also experimenting with allowing users to add more shortcut tiles to fill the wider unused areas on larger displays.
Plus, the company is reviewing user requests to add folders for pinned websites on the New Tab page. The representative stated that the folder feature is currently in the development backlog.
While all this still needs to be prepped and finalized, some people are asking for smaller icons. Others are dealing with missing columns in the recommended news feed. The UI rollout has been messy, for instance, we highlighted the VPN text sizing bug Mozilla just addressed.
Most users in the forum thread are refusing to undo their config tweaks until the promised layout fix actually arrives and works.
Dwayne Cubbins
2715 Posts
I cover fast-moving stories across apps, online platforms, and everyday tech — phones, wearables, consoles, and whatever else people are fighting with this week. Bugs, rollouts, scams, policy enforcement, and the occasional internet-culture rabbit hole are all fair game. My goal is simple — make confusing tech news readable. When I'm not working, I'm working out or chilling with my dog. Got a tip? You can find me on X @dcubbins.
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