Re Firefox browser: anybody else who uses it as default browser notice a change in browser home page?

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Oh, I think you mean when you open a new page or tab ! Open Preferences and click on the "Home" icon.

Also, if you have "clear cache when quitting Firefox" selected, the browser won't find those until you visit those sites again. Keep your most used sites bookmarked, and organize your Bookmark menu/toolbar carefully, after thinking through what you really want. I make heavy use of folders in my Bookmark Menu, never use the toolbar, but lots of other choices are possible.

There's also lots of things you can do with those tiles -- make some permanent, delete or block others -- hover on one of those tiles and look for the controls that pop up under the ellipsis (...). Pin and delete history are the two opposite extremes among your options.