Improve Firefox’s Urlbar With Locationbar2

The website address is an essential element of any web browser, or at least of the browser’s of this generation as some browser developers experiment with designs that remove the addresses fully or partially from the browser (see Mozilla Also Experimenting With Url Bar-less Designs and Will Google Kill the URL Bar in Chrome?).

Why is the url bar that important? Because it lets users know where they currently are. Users use the information displayed in the address bar to determine if they are on the right website, which is essential to avoid phishing attacks and other forms of malware on today’s Internet.

Locationbar 2 is an add-on for the Firefox web browser that adds several interesting urlbar manipulation options to the browser.

Among them the option to highlight the core web address so that it becomes easier to identify the domain. The color of the domain is selectable in the options of the extension, and it is furthermore possible to bold it to make it stick out even more.

But that’s only one of the options available. Another interesting feature is the ability to split the web address into breadcrumbs, either for the host or all segments. The breadcrumbs become clickable which can then be used to naviagate between directories of the domain directly without having to find those navigational options on the page.

The individual segments become selectable with hotkeys, or if the mouse is moved to the website’s favicon first.

Locationbar2 has another interesting option. It can hide protocols from the address bar. Protocols are http, https or ftp amongh others. Hiding protocols saves a few pixels and removes distraction from the website address. It is however recommend to keep security relevant protocols visible at all times.

Locationbar2 is a offers three interesting features that improve the Firefox location bar. The extension can be downloaded from the official Firefox add-on repository.

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Tuesday March 1, 2011 -
Tags:Firefox, firefox add-ons, location bar, locationbar2, urlbar