Firefox 3.0 address bar question

dirtydog · 11 Mar 2008 at 09:07

When you start typing in the address bar in previous versions of Firefox, it helpfully pops up with a list of likely URLs from sites you have previously visited. I found this very useful indeed.

This behaviour has changed entirely with Firefox 3.0. The results it pops up with are not helpful. Is there some way to change it back to make it behave like it did in previous versions?

eg. in FF2, if you type 'am' it will pop up with amazon.co.uk and all the URLs I've visited there from that domain.

In FF3, it pops up loads of completely different sites, simply for having 'am' anywhere within the URL. Even if the URL begins with another letter entirely. I have looked carefully through all the options and can't see anything related to it. Perhaps it can be changed via about:config though?

I can't imagine who would prefer this new behaviour so I have no idea why they saw fit to change it.

tolien · 11 Mar 2008 at 14:14

There's an oldbar extension, but it's something you get used to - using Firefox 2 is a lot more clunky now I'm used to the Awesomebar.
For starters, Fx2 worked with the start of the URL so you couldn't, for example, type in "ov" and wind up here - you'd have to start with "forums".

Beta 4 (which is out now) should have the fixes to learn from which option you pick for a particular search as well, so over time the results you see improve
There are also a load of other patches that are either Work in Progress or pending review that have some improvement.

dirtydog · 11 Mar 2008 at 15:13

Aha, thanks tolien. So the good news is others are annoyed enough by the new behaviour to write an extension, the bad news is Firefox itself no longer lets you choose the old behaviour.

I tried the extension but it doesn't work with Beta 4 unfortunately, but hopefully the developer will keep it updated when FF3 final is released. Quite honestly otherwise I will stick with FF2 - the new bar is that annoying to me. I've been typing in the address bar for years and I don't want to learn a new way of doing things.

tolien · 11 Mar 2008 at 15:23

You'll always find someone else that dislikes whatever change is made, improvement or no.
If it was included with Fx you'd get someone moaning about bloat (regardless of how small the code involved was), and it's one of the big new things in Fx3 (as part of Places) so it would be stupid to have the option there.

If it's that annoying, and the change is too much, I'd suggest sticking with Fx2. You won't be forced to upgrade.

dirtydog · 11 Mar 2008 at 15:43

Will the FF devs continue to keep FF2 up to date with security patches etc. once FF3 comes out though, I wonder?

(I see you call it by its technically correct name Fx btw

)

tolien · 11 Mar 2008 at 15:54

In the same vein as 1.5 after 2.0's release, if not longer: Fx2 was released in late October 2006, and the final 1.5 update was May 31st 2007 - so you've probably got till early 2009.

Fx3 loses support for Windows pre-2000, so I'd expect there'll be a slight clamour to keep Fx2 going.

Mattus · 11 Mar 2008 at 16:15

I like the new bar in Fx3... I can't count the number of times I've forgotten the URL of a page I'd visited whilst remembering what it was about. In Fx2 I have to go through my history to dig it up.

Fx3 is also so much faster for me, especially on JavaScript-heavy sites like Digg.

tolien · 11 Mar 2008 at 16:33

Yeah, the devs are really going to town on JS performance - in one of the standard benchmarks that were tried (in this thread), it's faster than Safari 3 (even the Webkit nightlies), Opera 9.5 and IE (by a huge margin).