UI Enhancer improves the Firefox address bar in several ways. It first turns each web address into a breadcrumb navigation. A click on one of the crumbs opens that part of the page right in the active tab. That’s not new, and multiple Firefox add-ons like like Location Bar 2 have offered a similar feature for some time now.

What makes this special is the ability to display the last 15 pages for each subfolder. This is done by moving the mouse cursor over the folder to highlight it and clicking the right mouse button afterwards.

You can alternatively left-click when one of the breadcrumbs is only partially highlighted. The menu that is opening up displays additional options.

• Edit: Allows you to edit the highlighted part of the address.
• Add: Allows you to add something to the highlighted part of the address.
• Copy: Copies the url, but cuts everything off that begins after the selected part.
• Copy all: Copies the web address to the clipboad
• Delete: Cuts everything after the highlighted part of the address and loads the result.

You can furthermore use the scroll wheel to instantly display related urls in the address bar which you can then access with a click.

The extension supports middle mouse button clicks and Ctrl-clicking wherever possible so that pages are loaded in new tabs instead of the active tab.

The add-on comes with its own stylesheet, and options to load a custom stylesheet instead which may be interesting for users who know their CSS and prefer a different design and layout.

The Bookmarks Enhancer that the add-on ships with is disabled by default. This basically auto-hides the bookmarks toolbar and displays it only when you move the mouse over into the header area of the browser.

Firefox users who like the feature set of UI Enhancer can download the extension from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

The most useful feature without doubt is the ability to display a history for each subfolder of a domain you are currently on. This can speed up site navigation and access of information considerable.

Mozilla back in July released a Firefox add-on as part of the Mozilla Prospector series which acts as a prototyping test ground. OneLiner basically merges both the address bar and tabs bar in the Firefox web browser.

The following screenshot shows the standard Firefox layout and below that the browser interface after OneLiner has been installed.

In order to combine the navigation and tabs toolbars, the location bar is given a small fixed size while the search bar is collapsed to a single button.

The address bar functions exactly as before. The search form on the other hand has turned into a search button which loads a search engine on click in a tab. The actual tabs that are open in the web browser are displayed on the right of the search button.

The developers have added additional features to OneLiner. The back and forward buttons are automatically hidden when not in use to make more room for the location bar. The search form will be automatically filled with selected text or clipboard data to speed up the process of searching using the new interface. Firefox users who have OneLiner installed can also use the new keyboard shortcut Cltr-K to focus or open the search form in a new tab.

There is a downside to merging the location bar and tab bar. The space that is available for tabs is reduced which means that you won’t see as much of their titles as before. Firefox users interested in OneLiner can download and install it directly from the Mozilla Add-On repository.

Every other web browser in existence including Internet Explorer 7 and earlier have been displaying the main command buttons on the left side of the address bar. While usability tests might have shown that this is the best display for the buttons it will confuse many users who are used to the standard display of address bar buttons.

Microsoft has thankfully included an option to move the Stop and Refresh buttons from the right side of the address bar to Internet Explorer’s left. This is done by right-clicking free space on the Internet Explorer 8 toolbar,e.g. on the right side of Help, and selecting Customize from the menu.

This will immediately display a menu with the option to show the stop and refresh buttons before the address bar. The two buttons will be moved immediately to the left side of the Internet Explorer 8 address bar.

Internet Explorer 8 Address Bar Before:

Internet Explorer 8 Address Bar After:

There is however no obvious way to move other buttons in the Internet Explorer 8 address bar at this point.

The first one is the easiest to accomplish but its results are unfortunately only temporary. Start by moving a folder from the Windows Start Menu to the top of the desktop. If you do it right a new bar should appear on the top of the computer screen.

Right-click that bar and select Toolbars > Address which should add the entry Address at the right side of the bar. You can now access the address functionality there permanently or move the Address Bar back to the Windows Taskbar.

The problem here is that a reboot or log off will remove the address bar again. The advantage of this method is that it does not require the manipulation of system files.

The second option is to replace the browseui.dll file which handles the interface with a previous version that still included the Address Bar. This requires access to the Service Pack 2 version of browseui.dll.

The file is a system protected file which means that you need to replace it the following way:

• Reboot the computer
• Press F8 during boot process to load the advanced boot menu
• Select Safe Mode with Command Prompt
• type xcopy C:\browseui.dll C:\Windows\System32\ with c:\browseui.dll being the location of the SP2 version of browseui.dll

The Address entry should be visible again after rebooting the computer. The change is permanent with this method. There is however no guarantee that other features or functions that have been implemented in SP3 in the file continue to work after applying the change.

The third and probably best option is to install a third party address bar which does not tamper with system files. MuvEnum Address Bar provides access to a new address bar that makes use of an increased functionality such as multiple Internet search engines or access to history and bookmarks of multiple web browsers while retaining all the original features of the Windows XP Service Pack 2 Address Bar.

It can be selected as a Toolbar by right-clicking on the Windows Task Bar, moving to Toolbars and selecting MuvEnum Address Bar from the menu.