Mozilla Firefox is widely celebrated for its commitment to user privacy, but the browser still needs to generate revenue to fund its development. One of the ways Mozilla achieves this is by placing “Sponsored Shortcuts” on the Firefox Home (New Tab) page. These look exactly like your regular, frequently-visited website shortcuts, but they are actually paid advertisements subtly injected into your daily workflow. While they are not malicious, many users find these disguised ads intrusive and visually distracting. Fortunately, Firefox provides a very simple toggle to disable them entirely.
How to Turn Off Sponsored Shortcuts
You can remove these paid placements directly from the New Tab page settings.
- Open the Mozilla Firefox browser.
- Click the + button at the top of the window to open a New Tab.
- Look at the top-right corner of the New Tab page (just below the main browser toolbar) and click the small gear icon (Personalise New Tab).
- A settings panel will slide out from the right side of your screen.
- Under the “Shortcuts” section, look for a secondary checkbox labelled Sponsored shortcuts.
- Click this checkbox to uncheck it.
The sponsored icons will instantly vanish from your shortcut grid, leaving only the websites you actually visit on a regular basis. You can now enjoy a cleaner, ad-free New Tab experience.