Firefox 3: Disable The "Smart" Location Bar (Sort Of)

by on Jun 18, 2008 | 73 comments

I have already found that the “Smart” Location Bar, a new’n'improved feature in Firefox 3, really ticks me off. Why? Because there’s absolutely no way to shut it off via the options panel.

Note before continuing: Some people really like the “Smart” bar. I don’t.

Fortunately you can somewhat disable it via about:config.

Step 1. Type about:config in the location bar.

You’ll get this:

image
(click to enlarge)

Oh ha ha ha, very funny Mozilla. A warranty on a free product. Oh yes, I’ll be careful, not to worry!

Notices like this annoy the crap out of me. [click]

Step 2. Type urlbar next to filter.

Looks like this:

image
(click to enlarge)

Step 3. Change two of the values.

Change browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped to true and browser.urlbar.maxRichResults to 1 or 0. If you want the location bar to act like Firefox 2 did, set it to 1. Otherwise set to 0.

Looks like this:

image
(click to enlarge)

You’re done at this point.

Now when you start typing in something in the location bar it will skip popping up this crapola all over the place.

Final tip:

If you like the Smart Location Bar but would rather see it have less results, keep matchOnlyTyped to false and set maxRichResults to 5 instead of 12.

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  • ken

    yessssssssssss!!!!! thanks for this! I hate the Awesome Bar

  • Joe

    This is great! Finally somebody knows how to do it!

  • Jack

    THANK YOU! I tried 3 a couple times and ended up removing it each time because of that idiotic “smart bar” that isn’t. No idea if the new version has any other reason to upgrade to because that was enough to trash the whole release.

  • Bob

    Hope this works. I hate the smart location bar.

  • Bob

    I think it does work! This is great!! I’m bookmarking this site.

  • Jim

    Thanks so much! I hated that crap popping up all over the place. (Why doesn’t Firefox come with an ADVANCED and a NOOB setting…) ;)

    One last thing, and I cannot find this anywhere, how do I stop FF from adding WWW and .COM to a hostname?!?!?!? If it doesn’t find the hostname (let’s say I have a web device here named BOB and for whatever reason it doesn’t FIND “BOB”, it then tries to go to “www.bob.com” instead of just telling me it can’t find it…

  • James

    Yeah, this feature sucks giant nuts. It kept putting a website in there that I only ever visited once and that was by mistake. I never bookmarked the damn page and even when I went and actually deleted the thing, whenever I would close firefox and then open it back up, it would be there. Frankly, I don’t want someone looking there and seeing a link that one of my jackass friends sent me and I was stupid enough to open and then think I am some kind of pervert. I have cleared my private data, deleted all my bookmarks, and done everything else short of completely removing firefox and reinstalling it; and even then I’m not sure it will still do what I want it to do. Firefox has been great and popular because Mozilla let its users customize the crap out of the software. It makes very little sense to not give us choices here. Locked down software is why stuff like Norton and Windows Vista really suck balls (many others as well, too many to name, you know who I mean).

  • John

    Wow, thanks a bunch. I just d/led and installed firefox 3 and have been playing with htis crap for some time. I decided to do what everyone else does-google it. Thanks again.

  • http://n/a Chris

    I think firefox is forcing me to use this POS urlbar crap. I’m using version: 3.0.5 and I made the changes you suggest above and I’m still getting all this stupid crap on my screen.

    Whoever decided to put this into Firefox should be fired.

  • Neil

    Thanks so much – found this through a link on UK MacFormat forum. And thanks to Jon for the ‘-1′ suggestion to get shot of the last little annoying….. (censored)

  • Shilby

    Thanks, it worked like a charm on Firefox 3.0.5

  • Beth

    Thank you thank you thank. Wow, not to be totally redundant, but this was driving me nuts. I knew there had to be a way. Works great on 3.0.5. Thanks again.

  • roddor

    Try this it worked for me
    When using Firefox – Type about about:config into the address bar. When the list of options appears scroll down to ‘browser.urlbar.maxRichResults’. Click on the figure in the Values Column and set it to-0. Restart Firefox for the change to take effect. Hope this helps.

  • Arty

    Thanks so much for the post. As with all of the others I was really annoyed. Perhaps Mozilla needed some money and decided to build in this feature and they are getting paid from our clicks and why it is not in the Options Area…Hrrrmmmm

    Thanks again!!!

  • Frank

    Hi,
    This is great stuff. I hate the crap developers dump on us so they can run their adds.

    Thanks for the research. How did you find out about this?

  • Sunny

    Hi,

    Thanks for this stuff. Was able to get over the bookmark thing.

    Just wanted to know is there a way we can get back the address bar of FF2 series.

    I also don’t like the history it tells me each time:
    like I type “google” and it also tells me what I searched on Google last and the Header of sites. Just hate this.

    FF2 was much better. It just showed the sites in the bar and that was all.

    Response appreciated.

  • Kay Dub

    This is GREAT, GREAT, GREAT! I went back to FF2 on my home computer, because I hated all that crap. More clutter! An assault on the eye and brain. But I got desperate when we all got “up”graded at work. I’d poked around in about:config before, but wasn’t sure what to try. This is a FABULOUS solution to a should-not-be-such-a-deal problem. And you are so right about that stupid warranty warning!

  • Nicki

    THANK YOU! Lord that’s a useless and annoying function. Shame on Firefox for forcing a hack rather than letting users disable it.

  • Di

    AMEN…THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!! I recently switched to Firefox and the very first thing I tried to do was get rid of the smartbar keeping track of everywhere I searched! As said by others, when I want to remember a web page, I “bookmark” it, and I don’t like seeing my history pop up before me when I’m simply trying to search something new!

    I realize that some people like it (I guess), but if it is going to be available for use, then why not have it disabled upon installation – and then the ones who want it can enable it? It just seems to me that more people dislike it than like it!?!?

    Anyway, I found your website by googling “disable smartbar”, and, again, I say THANK YOU!

    Hmmm…now can you also do some magic in making Firefox less of a memory hog!

  • Not a Fan of the Smart bar

    THANKS A MILLION!!! I’M GLAD TO KNOW THERE ARE OTHERS OUT THERE MORE TECH SUPERIOR THAN MYSELF WHO FEEL THE SAME WAY ABOUT THIS OBTRUSIVE SMART BAR! I HAD AN I.T. MATE TELL ME I’D JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH IT, TO WHICH I REPLIED… IF THERE’S A WAY, I’LL FIND IT OR SOMEBODY WHO HAS… THANKS A MILLION AGAIN

  • http://www.bbc.co.uk JC

    Super fix.

  • Can’t stand the Smart Bar

    Thank you, thank you, thank you, this fix works great! I was getting very frustrated with trying to find out how to disable this feature and all I could find was other sites which said to “clear location bar” but that did nothing. Before I found your fix, a lot of sites would pop up that I didn’t want and it was very distracting. I agree with the other comments on here, shame on Firefox for not having a simple way to disable this feature.

  • Jurgen

    Thanks!!!!!!
    If you also want to delete the Google search when you type a wrong url (without .ext) as it was in FF2, then delete the value at keyword.URL

  • Logan

    “Notices like this annoy the crap out of me.” :)

    THANK YOU! I love it when someone finally tells it like it is. The most detestable trend I see in open source is a tendency for organizations and even single developers to adopt the attitude, “Do it MY way or you don’t get to use my software.” What a bunch of crap. The whole spirit of open source is to give more power to the individual to decide what is right for him/herself. To get away from governance and lock-in from a monolithic organization.

    Thank you for pointing out the tools to keep up the good fight!

  • Luma

    THANK YOU. The “Smart” bar was driving me mad.
    Thank you again!!

    Do you know how to avoid the bookmarked sites on the Location bar? That yellow star really annoy me

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