Comments on: Firefox 3 Location Bar Controversy

By: GL

GL — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:50:50 +0000

Pro-FF3 people and FF developers tell me what is wrong with:

(1) – coding an application’s UI to be backward-compatible with existing, known, familiar versions.

(2) – coding a menu-driven easy-to-find obvious option called “Set the Location Bar the Way It Was in FF2″

(3) – coding a menu-driven easy-to-find option called “Display Only One LIne (url) in the Location Bar”

Enough of all the add-on this and add-on that to turn OFF these force-feed UI “inventions” that should have an easy-to-find option for turning them off ANYWAY. Wake up people.

By: GL

GL — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:40:45 +0000

Firefox developers: It’s simple really. WHENEVER you “invent” some kind of fancy “new” “interface” – implement an easy, obvious, granular, menu-driven checkbox style, persistent way to TURN IT OFF. This includes ALL of your “fancy” “inventions”. Very simple.

By: David

David — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:12:08 +0000

To revert to old style and working format of Firefox 2 Location Bar where only typed URLs or location addresses is shown and displayed in Firefox 3 Location Bar, configure and set the matchOnlyTyped to True. To do so, type about:config in the Location Bar, confirm you know what you’re doing by clicking on I’ll be careful, I promise! button. Then locate browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped preference name. By default, it will has the value of “false”. Double click on the link to change the value to true. Now, only typed URL will be taken into consideration in Location Bar.

By: Evitar que se guarden páginas en la AwesomeBar de Firefox

Evitar que se guarden páginas en la AwesomeBar de Firefox — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:43:46 +0000

[...] parece una buena idea; de hecho muchos usuarios prefieren no actualizar a la versión 3 de Firefox [fuente], porque esta barra se hace traicionera, mostrando cosas que no debería, como por ejemplo el pr0n [...]

By: nord

nord — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:50:33 +0000

The simple way to go is to find the “old location bar” (currently v1.8) and use that. More complicated is to look at the hard drive churning, trying to handle the various components of the new SQLite dBase. (A topic for another time.)

By: Bob39

Bob39 — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 05:48:55 +0000

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.”

By: fieldlab

fieldlab — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:38:41 +0000

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.

By: negen

negen — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:26:40 +0000

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.

By: star*

star* — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:14:52 +0000

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

By: Markus Jevring

Markus Jevring — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:13:20 +0000

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”.

By: SWW

SWW — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 07:05:08 +0000

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.

By: Katt

Katt — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:51:46 +0000

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.

By: mrbene

mrbene — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:25:10 +0000

@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).

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:59:32 +0000

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.

By: Ciro Continisio

Ciro Continisio — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:05:34 +0000

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!

By: Marcus

Marcus — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:53:17 +0000

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.

By: Jess

Jess — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:48:32 +0000

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!

By: JIm

JIm — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:59:42 +0000

@ 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???????

By: JIm

JIm — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:51:27 +0000

@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

By: SneakyWho_am_i

SneakyWho_am_i — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:35:28 +0000

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.