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.
Enjoyed the article?: Then sign-up for our free newsletter or RSS feed to kick off your day with the latest technology news and tips, or share the article with your friends and contacts on Facebook or Twitter.Related Articles:
Show Location Bar Results when correcting typos in Firefox 3Change the number of results in the Firefox 3 location bar
Disable Location-Aware Browsing (Geolocation) In Firefox
Make Firefox Search For Terms With Periods In The Location Bar
Change Single- and Middle-Click behavior in the Firefox location bar
I like it, basically if the others don’t like it tell them to get back to IE, apparently opera has that too now
Wow, I actually thought that the new bar was a great idea, even when it was still in early beta and looked quite horrible. It was actualy really useful.
I have mixed feelings. When I start typing an url it disturbs me, old way was better and faster. But when I don’t remember url it helps.
The Opera Quick Find is a much better solution. Being able to search for any word that has appeared on a page is just very useful.
Yes, I like it and don’t have any complaints about it.
Well I don’t know, but when i’m typing “ne” in my bar (firefox 3 RC3 on mac), first result is “news.google.com” and slashdot is not mentioned (even being in my bookmarks).
Cheers,
Ran 2 computers on FF3 RC2 for a week and switched back. Then I tried RC3 and I switched back last night.
I understand there may be a majority who like þhe new bar, but don’t be hard on the people who liked its old functionality.
I can’t stand the fact that my bookmarks show up with my history. And in a random order too! At least give the die-hard long-time users the option of disabling the new “algorithm” and then we won’t mind having to “suffer” with a third party extention to return the location bar to its original look as the only change we have to deal with.
And for anyone who thinks myself and all the others who don’t like the new bar are crazy, don’t forget “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”! (Example: all the people who don’t mind Windows Vista – AKA the “majority” who get it pre-installed on their new PCs – and all the people who don’t like it and are perfectly content with XP – AKA the “minority”, but still a significant group)
Think I’m one of the few users who _does_ appreciate this new behaviour :P I always use it to open bookmarks (way faster than clicking and searching in subfolders) and it’s very easy to make combinations of keywords, parts of the url, tags etc… within your history and bookmarks.
I guess most of the complaining users do have some obscure p0rn links in their bookmarks which they don’t want others that are using their pc to see ;) But nevertheless it should be a useful improvement to let users choose which items to show in the url bar (only history, only bookmarks, or mark bookmarks individually to not let show).
Stupid complaints from ignorant people, It’s FIREFOX, you don’t like something? write an extension, change it and shut the hell up!
I mean, if it was a browser like IE or opera that are so strict in things, I WOULD complain, but is FireFox, you can change virtually everythhing about it, thats what makes it si wondefull.
Some people act like the have to use the browser as they download it.
For what it’s worth, lots and lots of people are switching back from Vista to XP. Microsoft wouldn’t need to count XP sales as Vista sales if that weren’t the case.
As a Safari user (and will be for quite some time), I’m drooling over the awesome bar. My parents? Maybe not so much, but I don’t think they’d be bothered by it.
If you’re browsing sites you don’t want your family to see, don’t keep them as bookmarks. Don’t keep them in your history (use something like a ‘private browsing’ feature that doesn’t save history, cookies, etc. within a session).
In fact, don’t use a single user account on a shared PC. Make several accounts, one for each family member. They’re restricted to their own profiles, problem solved.
If you’ve got someone looking over your shoulder as you type, and you haven’t cleared your history of embarrassing sites, be prepared to type quickly. :)
Not sure if you guys are aware, but the Location bar uses a frequency-based weightage algorithm to “know” whether what keywords you type is the URL you want. I give an example.
Supposing you have two URLS:
http://www.download.com/ ; and
http://www.abc.com/download
If you happen to access the latter URL quite often, typing “dow” initially may show you the first URL on top of the list, followed by the second URL. However, as you consistently choose the second URL, it actually has an internal counter that keep tracked of what keywords you entered in is mapped to which preferred URL.
In technical terms, if you use SQLite Manager extension, you will notice that in places.sqlite file, there is a table called “moz_inputhistory”, and in there there are 2 columns “input” and “use_count” that is used together to let Firefox “guess” which URL you intend to visit based on the “use_count” number to the URL mapped to the value at “place_id”.
In summary, it is expected that the location bar may not work as expected, but you got to “train” it over a period of time. To me, the location bar has immense productivity benefits over the initial hiccup of trying to search the correct URL for a newly-inputted keyword.
Put me in the ‘I like it’ category. Its intention is to make it easier to recall a site you have been to and perhaps forgotten and it serves that purpose fully.
The ‘embarrassing moment’ thing can perhaps perhaps be awkward but to be honest the sole act of bookmarking porn or incriminating sites is dangerous in itself, whether they show up in the bar is only an additional ‘worry’.
As for the poor results returned thing I haven’t seen that, for me it looks like its being sorted by start of the url.
i agree. i DO NOT like it and i will not upgrade to it. c’mon developers, give us a break. arrogantly defending and rationalizing it just makes some of us very hostile.
from a creative perspective it is a beautiful thing and i say rock-on. but from a choice perspective i say please don’t make us go where we don’t want to.
that is my opinion what is wrong. being forced to use and accept something. the kde4 thing comes to mind in this regard also.
Quote “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????? ”
It adapts to your selections with time. If you, just a few times, scroll to news.google.com it will start showing it up as the top result. Believe me i did not like the new bar initially either but once you use it you’d realize how much better it is from the earlier one.
With these huge amount of complaints, is this features mandatory of just optional?
The feature cannot be changed. As you can see in the comments on my site we have users who do not want to use the new location bar and users who like it.
A fair solution would be in my opinion to provide a config parameter to exclude bookmarks from being included in the local search which should be disabled by default.
Users who do not like the behavior could then change the value of the parameter.
It’s on record that when there is an introduction of a new feature in a software, it would be worshiped by the major part of the users, but it would be hated as well by a minority group. I think that Firefox will never die because of its strong community and its users are fond of it. I even think that due to this awesome bar, there will be a remarkable rise of the number of users, that at least would equalize the current one. ;)
How to Disable “Smarter” Address Bar in Firefox 3
Disable URL Search in Location Bar of Firefox 3
The “smarter” address bar might be help for some people.if you want to disable follow this.
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
Next, change the browser.urlbar.maxRichResults integer to 0.
(Double click and enter in 0 instead of current number)
browser.urlbar.autofill to false!
What is so difficult about adding a checkbox in options to disable the autofill features of the new location bar so it works as it does in FF 2?
Any big changes to UI in an established product should be programmed with the option to disable them so that users who prefer the existing UI aren’t penalized (IMO).
well, in response to your first quote, the awesome bar supposedly sorts it via frequency of use and alphabetically, so, it might be just that the guy used slashdot and groklaw more often than google news to be put above google news.
I personally like it, i like how it shows both the title of the page and the website url and that it searches both, but i really dont _need_ it, i rarerly type a url of a website manually, for blogs, i usually use google reader, and most other websites i frequent are on my speed dial extention in firefox, so i open them via alt + [number].
In reply to the comments by:
darkkosmos says, June 14th, 2008
… basically if the others don’t like it tell them to get back to IE…
And:
Alex says, June 15th, 2008
Stupid complaints from ignorant people, It’s FIREFOX, you don’t like something? write an extension, change it and shut the hell up!
———————————————————–
A polite suggestion:
Could you chill out a little and play nice?
Remarks like these don’t add anything of value to the discussion.
“It adapts to your selections with time. If you, just a few times, scroll to news.google.com it will start showing it up as the top result. Believe me i did not like the new bar initially either but once you use it you’d realize how much better it is from the earlier one.”
There’s another situation that this behaviour does not cover: what if I want to revisit an article I read at Slashdot, but I don’t remember the article title?
With FF2, I could type “sl” and see a list of Slashdot articles I’ve been to recently, quickly picking the one I want out of the list. With FF3, I’m reduced to typing in words that were probably in the article title and hoping that it will show up. To be fair, I’m almost certain to find it eventually this way, and it gives a better shot at finding pages that I found with some obscure Google search terms I don’t remember.
But for sites I visit frequently, or where I know the url, this new algorithm requires me to be more verbose AND returns less predictable (therefore useful) results.
I’m using FF2 and hoping it’s possible for a FF3 extension that restores the address bar functionality.
I like the Awesomebar – initially I did think I had to do more work to reach a URL I wanted, but over a period of time, it seems to learn your preferences and puts frequently used stuff right up top.
My Vote: I dislike it; just give users more control.
There is a way to disable the action, but at a cost if; once disabled you can not see anything you have typed in you address bar nor any history from the address bar
Type 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
actually, there is a better one than setting maxrishresults to zero.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.urlbar.matchOnWordBoundary
try setting the browser.urlbar.matchOnWordBoundary to true, then, most of the time you should get news.google.com when you type ne, instead of getting slashdot.
I HATE it!
It’s not the looks, but the behavior!
I use to open many sites, by just typing the first 2 or 3 letters of the url, and the right url would be right there.
Now you get any url that just includes those letters ANYWHERE and they seem to be ordered by when you visited them, which is USELESS, since I ofcourse want to go to the front page for most sites.
USELESS CRAP and most unbeleivable is that they didn’t provide a freaking choice or what behaviour you want.
USELESS!
Setting browser.urlbar.matchBehavior to 2 should improve the behavior. This uses only word boundaries.
It actually forces you to type the complete url now. It is impossible to make it bring up the front page of a website, unless the front page is the only page you have even visited.
The normal visit to a website is to go to the front page and then click on the news, updates, games, videos, … all the new stuff they are featuring on the front page.
Now the FF3 url bar will ALWAYS give the the sub-pages as results instead of the front page, because they will always be the last ones that you visited.
The only thing it is good for now, is url history SEARCH, which really should belong in the url history window. For just typing your regular url’s and getting them quickly, it is now completely useless.
I know. I wanted to go to Lifehacker, started to type that in (I usually lust have to type the ‘l’ and down arrow), and got pages that I haven’t even thought of looking at for at least a few weeks.
What’s up with that?
Whenever I type in a url in the “awesome bar” and I press enter, nothing happens. I have to google the website and click the link to the website. Am I doing something wrong?