With Firefox 3's Download Day upon us, a lot of folks are getting their first peek at the newest version of the popular browser. One of the first things you'll notice is the "Awesome Bar," a new feature that drops down a list of sites from your history and bookmarks as you type. For example, you could type "d," and your bookmark for Download Squad would pop up, along with downforeveryoneorjustme.com, if you've recently visited it.
For some people, this is going to be handy, but others are going to hate it. We have mixed opinions about the Awesome Bar here at Download Squad, so we're going to show you how to turn it off. First, go to your Firefox settings by putting "about:config" into the location bar. Click past the warning message, and scroll down to browser.urlbar.maxRichResults. This sets how many recommendations the Awesome Bar will display -- it's 12 by default, but you want to change it to 0.
Now your location bar should act more the one you're used to from Firefox 2. It'll still autocomplete addresses of sites you've been to, but the behavior that's been annoying some people so much will be gone. Alternately, an extension called Oldbar will give you back Firefox 2's dropdown behavior.
[via Josh at Webware]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-17-2008 @ 2:52PM
Danny said...
In Opera (which has a similar AnnoyingBar), go to "opera:config" and find "Addressbar Content Search" and uncheck it, hit save, and relief.
Reply
6-17-2008 @ 2:55PM
Danny said...
In Opera (which has a similar AnnoyingBar), go to "opera:config" and find "Addressbar Content Search" and uncheck it, hit save, and relief.
Reply
6-17-2008 @ 3:50PM
Gerard Gadal said...
Setting RichResults to 0 won't disable it, it'll just make it fetch 0 results. Whenever you type into the URL box Firefox will still try to make a drop down list, fetch zero results, and make a thin box.
The difference is minor, but if you want the feature disabled (instead of gimped - there will be no slim box), set RichResults to -1.
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6-17-2008 @ 3:54PM
Jay Hathaway said...
I tried setting it to -1 and I was still getting several results. I'm not sure that works.
6-17-2008 @ 4:49PM
Gerard Gadal said...
That's not good. Did you restart Firefox?
6-17-2008 @ 4:29PM
z0iid said...
FF 3.0 rc3? No Thanks. I'll wait until the 2 million users finish bug reporting. That is all this push is for, get more test users. BAD idea. New users who try this, may have a bad experience, thus leaving a bad taste in their mouth. Oh well.
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6-17-2008 @ 4:50PM
Josh said...
Um... the final version was released today. And RC3 is, from what I have seen, exactly what Firefox 3 is just without the RC3 at the end. RC3 was the same as RC2 as well except for one bug fix on OS X only.
6-17-2008 @ 4:39PM
Eoghan said...
I find the Addons window opening when you install an addon and restart way more annoying, any about:config voodoo way to disable it showing when you restart?
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6-17-2008 @ 6:00PM
emmzee said...
Small correction, it's actually browser.urlbar.maxRichResults ... but thanks for posting this! :)
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6-17-2008 @ 8:50PM
Quikboy said...
IE7 already has the AwesomeBar, though it's not called anything special.
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6-19-2008 @ 3:31PM
Greyed said...
This actually does not help. All this does is remove the returns results. It does not get the old search behavior back. A behavior that was available until 3.0b3 through an about:config tweak but was removed with what amounted to, "deal with it" from the devs to the many people complaining about it on Bugzilla. Guess they figured they're big enough to give the middle finger to their users in the same manner that the closed-source people have been doing for years.
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6-20-2008 @ 4:20PM
Jim said...
The specific behaviour I want back is the matching to what I type, which, unfortunately, isn't available either by the urlbar settings or by adding Oldbar. This is a killer for me: when I type "th" I expect to see www.theregister.co.uk, not a zillion sites with "The" in their name.
Opera still looks good, though.
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6-20-2008 @ 5:35PM
sawo said...
Quikboy IE7 have nothing - try to test before post.
I don't know why people are complaining so much about the 'awesome' bar - its really great and if you give it a chance it will make your life A LOT easier.
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6-27-2008 @ 4:33PM
Jimmers said...
Screw it. I'm reinstalling 2.0.
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8-27-2008 @ 11:27AM
Yinna said...
If you try setting browser.urlbar.maxRichResults to 0, then decide you still don't like what you see and install Oldbar, remember to set browser.urlbar.maxRichResults back to 12 to get any results from Oldbar.
This was my major issue with Firefox 3 so far. Well, and that my favorite plugins don't work anymore, but I'll give that some time. We shall see.
Thanks!
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