How to revert to the Firefox 2 autocomplete location bar settings in Firefox 3

by Ross McKillop on June 18, 2008

Firefox

As a part of Firefox 3, the Location Bar got a few upgrades. One of them is that it now uses a XUL richlistbox widget for the auto-complete dropdown. This means that typing in the Location Bar will now search not only URLs, but page titles, bookmark names, and tags. A drawback to this new feature is that if you start typing something like ebay in your Location Bar, the things like thepiratebay will show up (assuming you’ve visited that site, have it bookmarked or its title is in the URL you’ve previously visited. While many folks (myself included) like this feature, some do not. This brief tutorial will show you how to disable that feature.


  1. To get started, enter about:config in the Firefox Location Bar

  2. Click the I’ll be careful, I promise! button (cute).


    3. click to enlarge

  3. In the Filter: bar, enter browser.urlbar.matchBehavior

  4. Under Preference Name, a browser.urlbar.matchBehavior line should appear. Double-click it.


    5. click to enlarge

  5. Change the entry from 1, to 2. Click OK. You can close the about:config window/tab (or just visit another page).

  6. Now when you enter something like ebay in the location bar, only ebay domains will show up.


    7. click to enlarge
  • RotJ

    Is there a way to get rid of the title line and display only the url like in Firefox 2?

  • http://www.simplehelp.net Ross McKillop

    @ RotJ:

    I suspect someone will come up w/ a style to do just that, but I don’t think it’s available yet. If it can be done w/o using a userstyle/greasemonkey script, I’m not sure how to do it :(

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  • Firefoxuser20

    The Oldbar extension changes how the bar looks but it does not revert the functionality in Firefox 3 back to that of Firefox 2. I am infuriated that Mozilla screwed with the autocomplete feature, I hate it now. It’s intrusive now and very annoying.

  • Holwinkle

    The new location bar behavior WOULD have been good (and better received) if it had the domain matches at the top of the results and the rest of the matches below.
    Wish it was more configurable to allow that.

  • Bananaman

    Absolutely infuriating, frequently-visited sites are now often listed below unrelated sites visited only once.

    Most of us well-versed with the old autocomplete relied on it for speedy browsing; I’m going back to 2.0.x till this is fixed.

  • http://jronmorgan.com John

    I also DESPISE the new autocomplete feature!!! I don’t understand why a simple config option isn’t available to make it work the old way. The new layout is hard to read and returns tons of crap I don’t want and have to filter through manually.
    It SUX !!!! Give me back the old location bar layout and autocomplete please!

    I agree with the last poster. I may have to go back to v.2 until this is changed. I really can’t stand this critical feature being screwed up..

  • Hanabi

    I realize I’m just repeating more of the same, but I don’t even care. I HATE this autocomplete. When I type in my url box, I want to hit what I’m typing. I don’t want to SEARCH my bookmarks and history, I’m not an idiot. I used to type “m” to get to my mail. Why bookmark it or bother typing the whole url when I go there every day? Type a letter or two, hit down (if needed), enter your page. Now I type “m” and I hit results that don’t even START with m. It’s infuriorating, and I only have a few bookmarks at the moment, so they all show up before any real searches can occur, as if they’re somehow related to every single url I could possibly try typing. I can’t stand this, it’s a waste of my life.

  • normal

    I’m angry too. Autocomplete has been ruined in Firefox 3. And I’m sure the people who ruined it are proud of themselves. There’s something seriously wrong with the culture of internet technology development.

  • http://yintan.bandcamp.com Rien

    Thanks for the tweak, that was exactly what I needed! I hate that new autocomplete nonsense and finding a way to turn it off was a nightmare. Until I came here, obviously. Thanks again.

  • http://www.instinctive.de Alexander Ewering

    Seems like the Firefox guys are confused. A location bar is not a search engine, and it’s totally out of scope to search bookmarks and page titles if you start typing an URL.

    Fortunately I left Firefox 2 on the box and can just continue using a sane browser.