Firefox 3 "smart address bar" (wildcard search) -- how to disable it

[Darren Dirt]

http://matthom.com/archive/2008/04/22/firefox-3-smart-address-bar-wildcard-search/feedback

http://onlyubuntu.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-disable-smarter-address-bar-in.html

The first step, in the address bar, enter in about:config

It should give you some warning. Just disregard it.

In the search bar, enter: browser.urlbar

Change the browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped boolean to True. (Double click it)

Next, change the browser.urlbar.maxRichResults integer to 0. (Double click and enter in 0 instead of current number)

(NOTE from Dirtman: in my own little test just now, "browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped" remaining as "false" is better, since setting it to "true" will prevent the "normal" lookahead that some of us enjoy
-- but the "richtext max results=0" still prevents the "smart" lookup)

[Thorin]

Trying to hide your pr0n searches?

[Darren Dirt]

Trying to hide your pr0n searches?

Nope. Worse. Anarchy-themed videos and sites

[Tom]

I happen to like the new bar. I didnt even really notice it changed, I'm used to a dropdown poping up to help auto complete stuff.

[Mr. Analog]

The new bar sucks ass, the FF team really screwed up here.

First week in the "how to disable" article occupied more than one top spot on their support wiki.

FAIL

There are a lot of other idiosyncrasies that I didn't like to I'm back to FF2 for a while...

[Tom]

I honestly don't see why people hate the new bar at all..

[Thorin]

I'm with you, Tom, I don't mind it.  To be honest, I was so used to having to type the whole URL that I don't even remember what Firefox 2's address bar did.

[Tom]

I was always annoyed with the old style bars that didn't search the urls in a smarter way when I typed in the address bar. Now I don't have to rely on my shotty memory to remember what the url happens to start with exactly. Now I just have to remember the jist of the address, something that happens to exist in the domain name, or possibly the title.

[Mr. Analog]

I was greatly annoyed with the new bar because where the old URL search would figure out I wanted to go to Slashdot when I typed "sl" rather than some naff website I visited over a week ago.

Also, it's fricking huge and cluttered and it sucks

[Tom]

Its not large or cluttered here... And all it takes to remember your visiting habbits is using it a little more. It dynamically changes your preferences based on the items you select after starting to type something.

[Mr. Analog]

Its not large or cluttered here... And all it takes to remember your visiting habbits is using it a little more. It dynamically changes your preferences based on the items you select after starting to type something.

I don't have time for it to learn that "sl" matches "slashdot" when FF2 does that out of the box.

The box is huge if you use Windows XP with the Large Font settings enabled. As well, instead of going to a nice compact list of URLs you get this big boxy multi-line dreck.

Even if it is working it adds one more click. In my above example, I can get to Slashdot with about four button presses (s, l, tab and enter). With the new one I have to arrow around to find the "right" URL (which is sorted by site title, not by URL).

The number one thing that bugged me about it, far beyond how it looks and works, is that there was no easy way to get rid of it. You have to muck about with settings outside the GUI. Not a good decision. You can argue up and down about its virtues but at the end of the day the real problem is the Firefox team made a decision that I couldn't easily change. That shows more than a little hubris on their part and possibly signifies a change in thought within the team. What other decisions might the FF team make in the future for everyone I wonder?

[Darren Dirt]

big boxy multi-line dreck.

+1

[Lazybones]

I am voting for I like the new bar, it works even better if you tag your bookmarks.

You can EASILY revert it if you think you need to with a simple plugin.