If you’ve been brave enough to venture into the realm of Firefox 3 Beta 2 there is no denying that you’ve seen the newly designed Location/Address Bar (pictured above). It’s big, prominent, and is likely to irritate some people who prefer the more streamlined Address Bar that we’ve come to know and love. Give me just 30 seconds of your time and we can bring back the classic look…
- Start Firefox.
- In the Address Bar type “about:config” and press Enter.
- Right-Click and select New->Boolean.
- A box requesting the Preference Name will popup and you should enter “browser.urlbar.richResults ” (without the quotes). Press OK to continue.
- Select “False” from the box and press OK again.
- Restart Firefox
Now you should be able to enjoy your single-line condensed view of addresses that are shown when you begin to type in the Location Bar. Obviously this setting will have no effect on older versions of Firefox, but a lot of people I know have already jumped on the Firefox 3 bandwagon so I thought it would be a good time to share this tip.
Oh, and don’t forget about the last Address Bar tip we posted. That works in all versions of Firefox.
This may be removed in the Trunk nightlies now so the preference may not work.
There is a Extension in the Sandbox that may work in this case.
oldbar – [addons.mozilla.org]
Is it just me because I like the new address bar…..
If there was to be a Firefox MVP program, you would certainly be one of them.
I do also like the new address bar.
Thanks for the heads up James. I’m hoping that they leave this in because it’s an easy way to fix a problem that may annoy a lot of old fashioned users.
It’s definitely grown on me. At first I wasn’t sure about it, but now I do like it a little better than the old style. It’s just much easier to read the titles now, which I really like.
Thanks! That’s an absolutely awesome compliment.
The address bar is for addresses, it is most frustrating when trying to enter an address you get presented with results that match page titles and not the URL (the address) that you are trying to enter. Fair enough the people at firefox want to make developments and present new ideas but give an option to revert to normal operation rather than forcing people change the way they interact with their software, this slightly arrogant attitude only encourages people to investigate other products. This can be said for various new “developments” in firefox for example the removal of the “go” button, another feature forced upon us (and beofre you say it it’s not just the same as using reload, reload resubmits form values)