Most users who have tried one of the beta versions or release candidates of Firefox 3 like the new location bar also called the awesome bar. A group of users however who openly express their opinion about the new location bar in the announcement “Firefox 3 location bar just became almighty” on Mozilla Links does not like the behavior of that new bar at all and prefer the old ways.
Now there is always a group that prefers the old ways simply because they are used to it. Talk to your parents or other elderly people and you will notice that they believe that many things have been better in the past and turned to the worse in later years.
I was able to identify two main points of criticism. The first is the mix of bookmarks and history items that are displayed when typing in words in the location bar. Some users do not want their bookmarks to appear in that list. The second complaint is the results window that opens when results are found in the location bar. Many users think it’s to big and ugly.
Here are some comments from users about the new location bar:
I just downloaded the beta and started using version 3, and this new bar is the worst implementation imaginable of what might actually be a reasonable idea. (I would have to see a good implementation before I can decide on that last part.)
I type in “ne”, and it sorts “slashdot-NEws for NErds”, and “groklaw.NEt”, and a few other things, BEFORE “NEws.google.com”.
If I WANTED slashdot, I would have typed “sl”. If I WANTED groklaw, I would have typed “gr”.
Do the people who design these things even type at all when they use the browser, or do just they think they are helping out old people who don’t know how to use a mouse with fancy icons?????
That AWFULBAR is so unbelievably bad – this add on at least makes it look better; but the algorithm and arrogance of the developers made me revert back to FF2. I may dump Firefox altogether. I know that some people will like the new bar, but totally outrageous to stick it on everyone. There will be MANY MANY people who would otherwise use FF that will swear off it now – there will be many embarassing moments as this algorithm BOLDLY displays unexpected results/history in public/group presentations, family situations, etc. Mark my words – this new feature will be the single most important event in the downfall of Firefox/Mozilla.
It is possible to make the Firefox 3 location bar look more like the old location bar of Firefox 2 which would at least remove the second complaint. The oldbar add-on changes the style of it to resemble the old location bar. It still uses the Firefox 3 algorithm to search through bookmarks and history.
There does not seem to be a preference for now that makes it possible to disable the bookmarks from being included in the search when entering characters in the location bar.
Do you like the new location bar or do you prefer the old one ? Let me know.
Related posts:
Show Location Bar Results when correcting typos in Firefox 3All you need to know about the Firefox 3 Location Bar
Disable Bookmarks in the Firefox 3 Awesome Bar
Remove the Location Bar Star in Firefox
Change the Firefox Location Bar Search Engine
132 Responses to “Firefox 3 Location Bar Controversy”
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[...] then there’s the location bar that has drawn heavy criticism because it auto-populates Web sites as you type in URLs. It is strange that Firefox 3 offers no way [...]
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[...] Some other comments from human beings who have been subjected to this torture: I just downloaded the beta and started using version 3, and this new bar is the worst implementation imaginable of what might actually be a reasonable idea. (I would have to see a good implementation before I can decide on that last part.) [...]
“Stupid complaints from ignorant people”
Alex
Thats rich coming from you…
“but is FireFox, you can change virtually everythhing about it, thats what makes it si wondefull.”
Alex
First off don’t be so ignorant, secondly learn to type, thirdly not everyone knows how to write an extension and lastly being able to change virtually everything is what makes it “si wonderfull”… so why are they taking the options away from you, making it less wonderful?
I simply hate that new location bar, it is awful and more importantly useless, confuses, and , and, and… In v2 the location bar was good, when I started to type in a link, it started with the shortest link starting with that, the new one seems to be unordered or displaying the most recent one or I don’t know, but it is very bad, as I am a developer and I am jumping between urls on the same server.
I hope it will be fixed or something…
The bar is a great freakin’ idea, but it’s been done completely wrong. It prioritizes the most recently visited pages that match in any way what has been typed, whereas it should first prioritize by the frequency at which one visits the matching pages.
I vote for the category of giving the user the options of the old and new behavior. I don’t want to “train” the darn thing. I trained my dog with biscuits for not peeing on the carpet. I can find my bookmarks and my history all by my little self. What I want is to sit down and go to the location bar and QUICKLY, with out the clutter, read my local newspaper, view the weather radar when a storm is coming, search for items at my local library, along with a couple of other things that total no more than 5. That is all. Wam Bam thank you ma’am. I don’t want the links on my desktop. I keep it clean. I appreciate the suggestion of listing issues with hendrix.mozilla.org. We should all do that. I love Firefox. I appreciate what they do for all of us. I just want my uncluttered convenience back.
I fucking hate the FF3 address bar. I hate how they cluttered up the damn bookmarks too. (I open the bookmarks menu and there are 10 fucking entries before my bookmarks goddamn being. Who is the asshole who thought this up.)
I like the new location bar. Earlier I had a problem if I knew a part of the URL but not the starting part.
Like “ssl” or “pine” or “crypto” will bring up all urls with that part.
Maybe they should put URLs that start with the given characters first (higher priority).
btw, FF3 is slower, I think, not recommending it to family for that reason.
I have a problem with it, because webbrowsing, for me, is a thing of habit. Ttherefore I want FireFox (my main browser) to stay the same. It’s ok for Opera to be inventive and clever, but that’s because I don’t use that daily.
In addition Opera’s location bar, at first glance, seems to be even cleverer, since it also searches the content of the sites in ones history.
However that’s not the point. It would have been nice if FireFox had had an option for those who want things to stay the same.
The new location bar may be more user-friendly to some, in that they don’t have to remember what sites had what content; but for the old users, a change of what they’re used isn’t very user-friendly (in the beginning at least).
The great sorrow, though, is that I (and others) will probably get used to this new feature and learn to either like or just not loathe it. And I hate that.
Oh yeah, it also helps along the degeneration of people’s mnemonic abilities, as they won’t have to remember website urls anymore.
And another ‘anti’ voice here!
I say, with regret, that I “upgraded” to FF3 today, after constantly being bugged to do so via pop ups and notifications of some of my add-ons.
I then spent an entire 6hrs trying to find ways to get rid of the -I find- most annoying new features.
1st of all: the AwfulBar
Here’s how I fixed it: go to mozilla and download Old Location Bar 1.3 (NOT oldbar)
It doesn’t revert things to FF2 version completely, but it appears to be the next best thing out there so far.
2nd gripe: the stupid combined back/forward buttons, which also took away the drop down menu for page history
Fix: go to mozilla and download NoUn Buttons
Read the reviews if you can’t find the icons etc after install…there are some posts with instructions.
This too will make it the closest to FF2 I could find so far.
Now if someone came up with a way to fix my 3rd gripe, I’d be more than happy:
Click on ‘bookmark this page’ and you get an unmovable pop-up window in the top right corner of your screen.
In the old version, the pop-up would be to the left, underneath your menus. And you could move it if you needed to.
Oh, and first thing I did was to delete the ‘recent bookmarks’ and ‘tags’ folders.
Goodness, I doubt I can even use Firefox anymore with this mindboggling “feature.” It should have been an option, and I can’t figure out how to get rid of it yet. Back to IE for me until it’s fixed…
I still maintain that it is a great idea.. It’s just really bad to look at, and the algorithm they use to populate the list is obviously not what everyone wants.
Yeah, know, I DID just mention the only two differences between the new and old version, but that’s not the point.
” OC says, July 17th, 2008
I _don’t like_ the so called ‘awesome bar’ mainly because it is visually too crowded and thus less efficient for me. I would like to be able to go through the list quickly, as was the case in the former version.”
This guy (or girl?) has it, you know. All of you saying that you hate it, but you don’t know why you hate it – not clever, not cool. But OC is onto something. Personally I love the new algorithm, but the results that come up when I type something really ARE a bit big…
It had to be time for a change, though. I memorize urls and the convention a site uses to set said urls. However, none of my friends do it. I know because I get frustrated with them when they have to ask me for the urls to obvious things, and it makes me want to strangle them.
What should the bar look like then? Personally, my imagination isn’t good enough to pick something other than what we have now and what we had before – what about you guys?
I HATE the awesome (ly lame) bar..not because I care about searching from the address bar, but because whenever I start typing ‘www…’ in the address bar the FIRST thing that appears is my bookmarked PORN site. I buried the porn site in a bookmark subfolder, but it still comes up FIRST in the awesome bar (gag) and it comes up EVERY time. Yeah, that’s great firefox. Show everyone who might use FF my favorite pornsite everytime they type an url…THank YOU! Frickin idiots.
Oh and BTW, the “oldbar” add on, just changes the way that the ‘awesome’ bar magnificently displays my bookmarked porn site. It still displays the pornsite FIRST, and EVERY time that you stary typing in ANYTHING in the address bar.
If this doesn’t change, I will definitely stop using firefox
@Jim who is ashamed of his own actions :P
(OK OK I’m sure you’ve thought about that, but just in case, there it is)
When it brings up your history, you can press the down arrow key to highlight an entry, and then press “delete” to remove it from the list. Can you do this to said porn site without it also deleting the bookmark?
Anyway, I don’t know why you would do something as drastic as downgrading your browser just for the sake of one preference.
http://kev.deadsquid.com/?p=684
http://lifehacker.com/396603/tweak-the-awesomebars-suggestion-algorithm
If I didn’t want images to show up, I wouldn’t switch to Lynx, I’d just disable images like a normal person. That’s not hard, in fact it’s probably easier than getting a different browser.
What idiot tells these people that downgrading is easier than just changing a simple preference? Why do they believe it?!
Furthermore, if that porn site shows up first every time then it means that you visit it more than any other site (well, at least, any site which you access with a normally unnecessary “www.”)
..
If that is the case (the implication here is that you spend most of your online time looking at porn) then maybe it would be more convenient for you to just not hide what you’re doing online – regardless of how the address bar behaves.
@Jim,
Just do a search on about:Config or type this in the address bar
about:config
click that you will be careful and then find
browser.urlbar.maxRichResults set this to zero and it will disable the address bar suggestions. Then restart firefox
The suggestions are still there what browser.urlbar.maxRichResults dose is to show zero results thus in effect disabling it.
PEACE!
Jim
P.S. I just downloaded 3.1 beta and it still a no-go for options
My advise is if you do not like you HAVE to tell Mozilla, and tell them WHY just don’t tell them you hate it
This is their user feedback we link:
http://hendrix.mozilla.org/
Again tell them what you don like about it, and what you want it to do, ask for the OPIOID to turn it off in the Menu part of the program.
PEACE
JIm
@ SneakyWho_am_i
Why not just give the guy some slack, who cares what he’s doing, Mozilla should give options to turn the damn thing off, It won’t hurt them to do so, reason being is: options are there, just well hid in the about:config file. There should be no reason for people to complain about this. Mozilla is just following the industry standard, of, “We know better than you do, because we are software engineers.”
To Mozilla, why not make the options easily assessable? I know you put a lot of work into the address bar, but you should know not everyone is going to like it. Just give the Options in the Menu bar would that really hurt that much???????
I hate it. For the same reasons as mentioned above. Way too intrusive and keeps on displaying things I would rather keep private.
Thank god for oldbar!
Well, I’ve upgraded to FireFox 3, and I’m *not* happy with it – this morning I sat down with my wife and kids to browse for something – I typed in “h” to start typing the URL and this unsolicited dropdown appeared which surprised me enough that I paused to read it. Well, so did they.
In one fell swoop, it has informed my wife and kids of what they’re getting for Christmas. Well, thanks for that.
I’ve subsequently been told I can disable this, but the damage has been done.
I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS FEATURE, AND WOULD HAVE DISABLED IT HAD I BEEN WARNED ABOUT IT.
Back to Firefox 2 until something better is released, because heaven knows what other unsolicited “features” will be introduced – where I can install a “plugin” to put things right after the damage has been done in real life.
The complains are ridiculous. Some people say that Firefox showed that they use porn. They switch back to FF2 because FF3 showed “pornHub” when they typed H in the URL bar. Isn’t that ridicoulous??
The automated completion is a good feature. I often search my cronology only by typing random bits of the URL I want, and I always find it.
Good work, Mozilla developers!
Well, I had to format my box yesterday and thought to myself “right, may as well upgrade to FF3 while I’m rebuilding”, big mistake.
I really don’t like the new bar at all, the old system wasn’t broken. At least let us have a little checkbox to turn it back to old style.
@Ciro:
“I often search my cronology only by typing random bits of the URL I want”
It’s the randomness that is my main complaint – the matching not only on the URL but also on page titles. Plus additional cost in terms of disk access (to get the images).
My main problem with the new bar is the size. I preferred how the old bar only took one line for each site, rather than the new 2 lines plus margins appearance. When I’m using my laptop, it almost fills the screen. I’m using the oldbar now, and it seems to fix it, but it’d be nice if there was an option somewhere in firefox to reduce it to 1 line.
I finally upgraded to FF3 after FF2 started giving dire threats about how its end-of-life would kill my security (or something). Found this page while searching for a way to make it stop displaying slashdot before newgrounds when I type in ‘new’. Who thought this was a good idea? Why isn’t this fixed yet? Already got Oldbar because hey, I identify sites better by URL than by name.
Having to tweak options in some obscure page and cross-reference them to random web searches telling me what the options DO is bad enough. I shouldn’t have to search the web to figure out how to even open my browser’s config settings.
I tried FF3, briefly, at two occasions. Once when it had just come out (when my computer was slow, even slower with FF3 than FF2), and once very recently, with a brand new i7 computer. Both times I found FF3 to be a horrible beast. Not only did I loath the “awful” bar, but I also hated the way they made it look. Give me back my FF2 widgets please! They should provide a way to let us use just the updated rendering engine, and not force us to adopt to a whole new interface. I used Netscape 7.2 until very recently, so I think I can stick with FF2 for a long time, if they don’t change FF3.
FF3 vs. FF2 is very much like Vista vs. XP for me. There’s no clear reason to upgrade, and while some might find the new version better, a good many prefer the older one one it’s merits, not just for being a “good ol’ browser”.
I totally hate the new feature when I type something, my bookmarks appear.
I don’t want my family and friend s who uses FF to know my bookmarks. Cos its only for me and yeah. During presentations and stuff, its annoying too.
Can we get rid of that? Is the oldbar add on thingy gonna get rid of the feature? So that I can find my own bookmarks when I want it and not it comes out for me when i type
in the newest update as of 3.5.2009 version 3.0.7 when you clear the private data as usual the address bar is also cleared.
Nice features. Poor user control, and not enough automated features to keep up with the security the new options require, so for some they only make trouble.
Developers can do anything. This is a ‘user’ issue. Firefox is supposed to be for users too. About:config shows the fine control is there, but some automation and gui control is needed.
How history and bookmarks show up (autofill, dropdown), which ones show up (history, individual bookmark folder exclude options), and where (address bar, search bar), and for how long (separate settings for history and weighted bookmarks) need to be controlled from one easy preference tab.
There also needs to be a real ‘Clear’ toolbar button with a drop down that offers to wipe absolutely ALL history traces (browsing, autofill, search, forms, cookies, downloads, etc., maybe even DNS cache) AND all temp files for any time frame from the last hour, 4 hours, day or forever, whatever.
People may also appreciate the option someday of encrypted bookmarks and cache files (secure browsing).
Right now, the history, autofill and bookmarks records seem growing all over the place and impossible to control similar to IE’s infinite history problem (history.dat?).
‘Clear Now’ does NOT erase all this stuff and I would be wary of using firefox for anything private at this point.
I hate the new location bar—-the way it operates (not user friendly at all), and the fact that I cannot choose to disable it, so that it defaults to the way it worked in previous versions.
After trying it out, I uninstalled FF version 3, from all of my computers and reinstalled version 2.
I will never use FF 3 again, so long as it requires me to accept the location bar as it works now.
Same attitude as I have about Windows Vista. I tried that too, and then returned the computer for a full refund. I have purchased new computers since, with XP pro on them, but I will never use Vista or Firefox 3.
While I greatly appreciate many of the wonderful features that the creators of FF have given us, that doesn’t mean that I will accept features that work in ways which are contrary to how I want my own computers to operate.
We who want to do things our own way, have good reasons and logic for our preferences. We are not ignorant or old fashioned, just because we don’t like all possible ideas, which the creators think up.
Suggesting that only those who like and accept all possible new designs and features, are the elite and intelligent ones, is the ultimate form of ignorance and arrogance combined.
There will always be intelligent and rational people who do not see great value in Edsel designs…………
Fixing what ain’t broke, has never been a wise guideline for making “improvements.”