"hi, firefox 75 introduced a change where a dropdown with lists of your top site will now appear when you just click somewhere into the address bar (so the need for a dedicated button for this is no longer present)."

Other changes also eliminate the need for a lengthy site address.

Clicking on the address bar does bring down a menu of sites, but while they are sites I may visit once a day, sites such as hotmail which I might visit 10 times a day don't appear.

You can initiate a history search by typing a caret '^' in the location bar.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplete-firefox

You can inspect and modify the Top Sites setting via "Options/Preferences -> Home".

typing a caret does solve the problem but compared to having the down arrow it's an extra step to reach the same goal. Thank you for the help

*** UPDATED FOR FIREFOX 78 ***

How to show the classic list of frequently visited URLs

• Type a space in the address bar
• Curate the Top Sites list on the Firefox Home / new tab page by removing unwanted items, and Firefox should fill it from your history -- you also can add/pin pages you want in specific positions in the top 8
• (Firefox 75-77) You can switch from the Top Sites list to the classic frequently visited URLs list as described in the original reply below.

Hi casale, you might not have noticed this last suggestion here:

cor-el said

You can inspect and modify the Top Sites setting via "Options/Preferences -> Home".

If you don't curate your Top Sites list on the Firefox Home / New Tab page in a way that makes it useful on a regular basis, you can turn off that list to prevent Firefox from using it in the address bar drop-down. If you do that, Firefox will switch to dropping down the "Show History" list.

To make this change, go to the Options page, click Home in the left column, then uncheck the Top Sites box:

Is that a workable option for you?

that's the answer/ thank you

I don't like this change, either. The list I used to get when I clicked the arrow is a different list than what shows when I click directly in the address bar. It seems like the current list is sites I've frequented more recently, while the previous list was sites which I visited regularly for months or years. I tried changing the options and unchecking "top sites," but that only brings up sites I've already visited today. Now, to get to the sites which were previously in the drop-down menu, I have to remember and type in the first letter or two of the url; then it will come up in the auto-complete. What happened to the old list? I want it back. Can I customize the "top sites"?

Thank you.

The list I used to get when I clicked the arrow is a different list than what shows when I click directly in the address bar. It seems like the current list is sites I've frequented more recently, while the previous list was sites which I visited regularly for months or years.

Hi ajpeavler, the "frequent sites" list should not be limited to recent sites unless a bunch of old history got cleared.

Can I customize the "top sites"?

You can customize the Top Sites section of the Firefox Home / new tab page by pinning your own pages, dismissing those you don't want, etc. More info in this article:

Customize your Firefox New Tab page

- - - -

I don't know whether you would consider an add-on but I posted one that shows a list that should be more similar to the old list of frequently visited sites. In case you run out of things to try: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/show-history-top-sites-button/

Thanks. That helped some; I was able to pin a specific site to the home page. I don't know why the sites are different that what I saw previously in the drop-down menu. I do know it is showing sites I've viewed recently instead of sites I visit around once or twice a week. On the old drop-down menu, it took a very long time for a site to drop off the list once I stopped visiting it very often. It also took several weeks for a new site to show up in the drop down menu even if I visited it daily. It seems to me that the "top sites" are looking at a different time frame of history that what was used for the old drop-down menu.

Weren't we also able to scroll down and see more sites when we had the drop-down? I don't remember for sure, but it seems like I could scroll if I didn't see the site I was looking for. I did now change the options for my "top sites" to be 2 rows instead of 1 row; that added more sites to my new tab page, but they still don't show up when I click the address bar.

I don't understand why they changed it. Seemingly minor changes like this are annoying. New features are nice, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it!  :)

I did now change the options for my "top sites" to be 2 rows instead of 1 row; that added more sites to my new tab page, but they still don't show up when I click the address bar.

For the drop-down, there's currently no way to increase beyond eight Top Sites.

jscher2000,

I think that you have missed the point/problem that others have asked and as of today (7th June) I have had the same problem and it is most annoying and should be fixed by Firefox immediately.

To try and explain in the words of a non IT person (simply a long time Firefox user).

Before today when you opened Firefox and your home page loaded, at the RH end of the URL bar was a small inverted triangle.

If you clicked on this triangle it brought up a drop down list of your most visited sites which in my case are/were (hotmail, Google, ebay, my business URL, local weather bureau, MSN news, etc), then all that you had to do was to mouse click the site you wanted to visit and it appeared in the URL bar and you were straight to it, then once in that site if you wanted to visit another frequently visited site you repeated the process again by clicking on the triangle and then from the drop down list mouse click the new site.

Since the upgrade today this triangle is missing and the only way to get to the drop down menu is to highlight what ever URL is in the URL bar and use the "Backspace" key to clear the URL bar, then place the mouse in the now empty URL bar and the menu box appears and then you have to mouse click the one you want.

You now have to repeat this process for every frequently used site that is in the menu box list.

If the selected URL is very long so that it extends past the end of the URL line, you might have to highlight the showing part of the URL and "Backspace" it and once that part is cleared highlight the next part and clear it and so on until the URL bar is completely clear.

For example if (say) hotmail.com was showing it would take one highlight and Backspace operation but if (say) .9news.com.au/national/four-children-killed-in-townsville-road-crash-one-injured-queensland-news/59bb839f-e0e9-437b-8c2b-6bdcf03dbe04 was in the URL bar it would take a number of highlight/Backspace operations to get to an empty URL bar.

Removing the triangle button surely could not be considered by any sane IT person as a good and/or progressive move and I am sure that if it is not rectified very soon (preferably within the next 48hrs), me along with many other long time Firefox users will start looking for a more logical browser.

If you can think of any way to bring back the triangle feature or remove the latest upgrade so that all of the features that were in the previous versions can be restored (and simply so that users like me can easily understand the process !!!) it would be greatly appreciated.

Also for some reason my most visited site and the one that was at the top of the drop down list -- Google -- is now completely missing from the list and the only way to get to it is to completely type in its URL address every time --- this more than annoying, but I can't use the words I would like to be able to use.

When I click in the address bar, it normally automatically highlights the entire url and I get a drop-down menu where I can click on an item to go to the page. It's just not the same list of sites that I previously got when I clicked the arrow. If the url isn't highlighted when you click in the address bar, try double-clicking or triple-clicking. You should be able to click and get the entire thing highlighted and with no need to backspace. Even if I don't have the url highlighted, when I click on one of the items in the drop-down menu, it still goes to the new site.

In order for you to get Google back in your drop-down menu, you will need to follow the suggestion someone else posted to my question. You need to open a new tab page first and it should show "Top Sites." (If you have changed the new tab setting to a specific site, you'll need to temporarily change it back to the "Firefox Home Default" in your Options under the "Home" section.) Find the three dots at the top right corner of the "Top Sites" section. When you hover over it, it says "Menu." Click that to get the Menu. There you can see an option to add a Top Site. You'll need to type the url or copy and paste. Once you add the new Top Site, it is pinned to the page. It will also be at the top of your drop-down menu when you click in the address bar. You can pin multiple sites. (If a site you want to pin is already listed on the page, just drag it to the top row and it will be automatically pinned.)

This isn't as good what we had before they took away the arrow, but at least it gives us some of the sites we want to quickly reach. For the others, save them as Bookmarks, or even use the Bookmarks Toolbar. Then you won't have to be typing so much in the address bar. Years ago, I used the Yahoo Toolbar until it was no longer supported. I added the sites to the Bookmarks Toolbar as a substitute. So I have my Yahoo Mail page, Facebook, Google Maps, and a couple of other pages listed at the top of my browser in the toolbar; all I have to do to go to the page is click a button. (The only downside is that the old Yahoo toolbar used to notify me when I had new mail. Now I have to visit the page to check.)

ajpeavler,

I thank you for that information and I will give it a try, but it is definitely not as convenient as the way it used to be up until today.

I really do not understand why they would have removed a facility that was so effective and so easy to use, actually I do not understand why program developers have to continually change excellently working programs unless it is simply to keep themselves in a job at the expense of the end users -- as I stated previously "if it aint broke don't fix it", or should that be --- "if it aint broke don't break it" !!!!!

Hi cspsound, just for background, I'm a support volunteer and didn't make these user interface decisions.

The address bar changed to dropping down the first 8 Top Sites from the new tab page, and removed the frequently visited sites list button. Was it really necessary to remove the button? Probably not, but I don't know of a way to restore it. Currently you can:

(A) Work with the shorter Top Sites list

• Keep the browser.urlbar.openViewOnFocus preference set to true (if set to false, nothing drops down automatically from the address bar when you click it; Configuration Editor for Firefox)
• Remove unwanted Top Sites, and reposition frequent icons, in the first 8 positions on the new tab page so the drop-down will more closely match what you want to see (see: Customize your Firefox New Tab page)

If you don't care about having the Top Sites section on the new tab page, you can turn it off and that will switch the automatic drop-down list to the classic frequently visited URLs list: Customize your New Tab page to hide or display content.

(B) Use the spacebar trick discussed earlier

(C) Consider an add-on as a workaround

I created an extension that adds a button to the main toolbar (it can't integrate into the old location) as an alternative. You could take a look at its features and limitations and see whether it could work for you:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/show-history-top-sites-button/

Cspsound, I agree. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Plus most people don't like change once they get used to something and like it. I used to spend a lot of time changing settings whenever I got a new PC (either my personal one or they gave us new ones at work) trying to get it to look and work as close as possible to Windows 95. I even tweaked what little I could on Windows 10 to give it a more classic feel. LOL

I have found a way to keep my favorites in the address bar, clicking the address bar brings the list up, but when I open a new tab all my pinned sites are gone. The only way I can get the pinned sites back is the enable "Top Sites" in the Option menu, but then my dropdown menu show the wrong sites. How can I go back to the way it was before the Firefox update screwed everything up? Please somebody have an answer; this is almost making me want to go back to IE!

I have found a way to keep my favorites in the address bar, clicking the address bar brings the list up, but when I open a new tab all my pinned sites are gone. The only way I can get the pinned sites back is the enable "Top Sites" in the Option menu, but then my dropdown menu show the wrong sites.

If you keep the Top Sites on the new tab page, you can drop the classic "Show History" list of frequently visited URLs by typing a space in the address bar. I am not aware of a purely mouse-able way to have both of those things.

As an alternative, I created an extension that adds a button to the main toolbar (it can't integrate into the old location). You could take a look at its features and limitations and see whether it could work for you:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/show-history-top-sites-button/

If you keep the Top Sites on the new tab page, you can drop the classic "Show History" list of frequently visited URLs by typing a space in the address bar. I am not aware of a purely mouse-able way to have both of those things. As an alternative, I created an extension that adds a button to the main toolbar (it can't integrate into the old location). You could take a look at its features and limitations and see whether it could work for you: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/show-history-top-sites-button/

I tried your addon but it wasn't what I was looking for either. Thanks for the response though.

I don't know why this trend of getting rid of that arrow in browsers started, but I'm not a fan of it. It was easy, convenient, made sense, and only needed the mouse. Now I have to do a bunch of workarounds to get an experience that only approximates it. That arrow was probably the main reason why I was still using Firefox over other browsers. Now it's gone. Did people actually ask for this change? What are the benefits of it?

Put me down for hating this change to the way the address bar functions now. Like someone above posted, why on earth are they taking away convenient functions that people are used to and love? Reminds me of Dr. McCoy in one of the Star Trek movies commenting on how the new Enterprise sick bay will be hard to get used to. He says "I know engineers, they just love to change things." Was there some performance or functional reason for taking away the little arrow in the address bar for most visited sites??? So now what used to be a simple single click is now a minimum of a click and a keystroke. And that's better? It's a different sequence and takes an extra action, so it's double the effort to get the same behavior. If you use this function a lot, which I do, those extra keystrokes add up very quickly and it's just very annoying because it used to function perfectly before. So this is an improvement how??? Was it change just for the sake of change? That was one of the features that brought me back to firefox from chrome. Chrome didn't have (and still doesn't have) anything like it. Had to use an extension to get that functionality. So now I have to get an extension for firefox to make it do something that it used to do perfectly well before it was summarily removed???!!! Seriously, WTF?