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how to avoid the graying of most of the url in the location bar?

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  • 2 have this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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In the location bar (aka url bar aka address bar), the base domain name ("example.com") is displayed as normal text, whereas everything else in the url is displayed in gray. For example, if the displayed url is https://foo.example.com/bar, the "https://foo." and "/bar" are in gray.

Is it possible to get the whole url displayed as normal text, i.e., black, and avoid this "graying out" of some of it?

In my searches so far, I've found various other customizations for the location bar via userChrome.css, but not this one. Any help appreciated.

I'm using firefox 91.8.0esr (64-bit) as currently packaged for centos7 (x86_64), though presumably this is not system-dependent.

In the location bar (aka url bar aka address bar), the base domain name ("example.com") is displayed as normal text, whereas everything else in the url is displayed in gray. For example, if the displayed url is https://foo.example.com/bar, the "https://foo." and "/bar" are in gray. Is it possible to get the whole url displayed as normal text, i.e., black, and avoid this "graying out" of some of it? In my searches so far, I've found various other customizations for the location bar via userChrome.css, but not this one. Any help appreciated. I'm using firefox 91.8.0esr (64-bit) as currently packaged for centos7 (x86_64), though presumably this is not system-dependent.

Chosen solution

Yeah, put browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled in the search field of about:config, make sure boolean is selected below and click the + button on the right side to add it. Then make sure it's set to false.

Looks like they might have removed that preference but you can still add it and it will work. I just now tried toggling it.

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All Replies (7)

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Start Firefox using Troubleshoot(Safe) Mode {web link}

A small dialog should appear. Click Start In Troubleshoot(Safe) Mode (not Refresh). Is the problem still there?


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Thank you!

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1) Certainly it still happens in safe mode. The graying-out of the url except for the base domain name is intended behavior of firefox (from what I can gather from the bugzilla and forums), not a "problem" per se.

2) Screenshot attached of my safe mode startup. (I chopped off some of the page content due to this forum's size limit.) The "centos.org" appears at the regular text weight, while "https://www." is in light gray.

Thanks, Karl

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Trying going to about:config and set browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled to false. It should be solid black text. Still working in FF 100.

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Thanks for replying, but browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled does not show up in my about:config. No match (for any browser.urlbar.f*). Thus I assumed it had been disappeared. Do I need to somehow set the preference manually? Thanks again.

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Chosen Solution

Yeah, put browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled in the search field of about:config, make sure boolean is selected below and click the + button on the right side to add it. Then make sure it's set to false.

Looks like they might have removed that preference but you can still add it and it will work. I just now tried toggling it.

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It works! Thank you so much!

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The browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled.formatting.enabled preference is still supported if I check the source code (got removed from about:config as part of bug 1643639). Some docs that describe various browser.urlbar prefs.


You can paste browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled in the search bar and select the Boolean radio button and click the '+' icon to this pref as a new Boolean pref and set its value to false.