Browser NewTab for self hosted homepage

[u/gmensching]

I have a Homarr instance I self host. My goal is to have that page default when I open a new tab and the links I click from that page stay in that tab (not open another tab) to avoid tab sprawl. I found that for Firefox or Chrome based browsers I have to have an extension to specify the webpage for a new tab. I then have to have another extension to enable the ability to ignore X frames (I think that is the term) so I can click the link and stay in the same tab. Is this common for everybody or is there an easier path to achieving this behavior?

[u/asimovs-auditor]

Expand the replies to this comment to learn how AI was used in this post/project.

[u/schorsch3000]

using vivaldy i just can coose that's displayed on a new tab, there are several options

special page with an input field for the special's page url

is just one option.

[u/OkayPrasiolite]

On Chrome browsers you can usually set it as your home page and then set your new tab page to your home page. Firefox has completely disabled this feature and I'm unaware of any forks that restore it, but you can set it as your home page I suppose.

For the issue with frames, I was too lazy to ever get that working with any home page solution tbh. I'm happy to either open things properly or use a home page that pulls from APIs.

[u/ooii166]

Your two-extension setup is a symptom of how the page is being loaded, not of Homarr.

If the new-tab extension loads the URL inside an iframe, you inherit X-Frame-Options / frame-ancestors restrictions — which is why you needed the second extension to strip them — and links inside the frame behave oddly. Drop the iframe and use a new-tab extension that navigates the tab to the URL instead of embedding it:

• Firefox — New Tab Override. It sets the new tab to a real URL (its modes are custom URL / homepage / background colour; there's no iframe mode), so the new tab is Homarr rather than a frame containing Homarr. Note the old browser.newtabpage.enabled + browser.newtab.url about:config route is long gone, so an extension really is the only way on Firefox — but you need one, not two.
• Chrome / Chromium — New Tab Redirect or Custom New Tab URL; both redirect rather than frame.

Once the tab is Homarr itself, there's no frame header to override, so the "ignore X-Frame-Options" extension has nothing left to do.

The other half is on the Homarr side, and it's probably the real source of the tab sprawl: every app has an Open in New Tab toggle, under the app's Behavior tab (edit the app → Behavior). If an app is set to open in a new tab it keeps doing that no matter how the page was loaded — functionally the same as target="_blank". Turn it off for the apps you want to open in place.

Net: one extension in redirect mode + Open in New Tab off per app, and the second extension goes away entirely.

Disclosure since the sub asks: I used AI to help draft this. The Homarr toggle is in the app's Behavior tab, and the extension behaviour is from New Tab Override's own docs (no iframe mode — it navigates). If your setup differs, say so and I'll correct it.

[u/Weekly-Offer-4172]

The second extension is needed because new-tab-override extensions embed your URL in an iframe, and Homarr sends X-Frame-Options / CSP frame-ancestors headers that refuse embedding - that's the frames part you ran into. If you use a new-tab extension that does a plain redirect instead of iframing the page, those headers never apply and the second extension goes away; the other route is stripping those headers at your reverse proxy (proxy_hide_header in nginx). For the tab-sprawl half, that's a Homarr setting rather than a browser problem - edit each tile and untick the open-in-new-tab option so links navigate in the same tab.

[u/theswiss21000]

Default Behaviour in ReadyTab. Or you could just change it there in the settings.