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How do I turn off the default 1st search result in the Awesome bar?

  • 4 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by joaniesman

Danon72
Danon72
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Since the release of 43, it appears that the Awesome bar populates the first result as a generic "Visit" or "Search" for anything typed in the bar. This is very frustrating as I know where I want to go, and my search history used to populate the specific sites I have gone to. This new feature to the Awesome Bar either takes you a generic search from the Default search engine, or right to the Frontpage of any specific site.

For example, there might be a forum page that I routinely go to. and in the past Firefox would populate that page first in my results, allowing for quick navigation. However, the newest update makes it do that the first result is a request to run a generic search for what I typed in, or at best take me to the front page of the site in question, making me have to either type out the entire URL, favorite every page I ever have any interest in navigating back to and just use the bookmarks from now or, or cross my fingers and pray that they default 1st result in the Awesome Bar accurately reflects my navigational wishes (which it never does).

Is there any way of either:

1. Find the process that is causing this 1st default result on the Awesome Bar and disabling/deleting it, preferably with extreme prejudice.

2. Prevent all Firefox functionality that interacts with a default search browser?

As it stands now, I have to willfully ignore the 1st result of the Awesome Bar, as it never populates what I want. Specifically, it will only ever populate things I don't want.

Since the release of 43, it appears that the Awesome bar populates the first result as a generic "Visit" or "Search" for anything typed in the bar. This is very frustrating as I know where I want to go, and my search history used to populate the specific sites I have gone to. This new feature to the Awesome Bar either takes you a generic search from the Default search engine, or right to the Frontpage of any specific site. For example, there might be a forum page that I routinely go to. and in the past Firefox would populate that page first in my results, allowing for quick navigation. However, the newest update makes it do that the first result is a request to run a generic search for what I typed in, or at best take me to the front page of the site in question, making me have to either type out the entire URL, favorite every page I ever have any interest in navigating back to and just use the bookmarks from now or, or cross my fingers and pray that they default 1st result in the Awesome Bar accurately reflects my navigational wishes (which it never does). Is there any way of either: 1. Find the process that is causing this 1st default result on the Awesome Bar and disabling/deleting it, preferably with extreme prejudice. 2. Prevent all Firefox functionality that interacts with a default search browser? As it stands now, I have to willfully ignore the 1st result of the Awesome Bar, as it never populates what I want. Specifically, it will only ever populate things I don't want.

Chosen solution

Hi Danon72.

To disable the "Visit" item in the list, please change the browser.urlbar.unifiedcomplete preference in Configuration Editor for Firefox to false.

Read this answer in context 👍 7

All Replies (4)

Michal Stanke
Michal Stanke
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Chosen Solution

Hi Danon72.

To disable the "Visit" item in the list, please change the browser.urlbar.unifiedcomplete preference in Configuration Editor for Firefox to false.

Danon72
Danon72 Question owner
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That did it, thank you very much!

MrBienk
MrBienk
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Thanks very much! Even when I started typing in about:config I made a typo and the awesomest Awesome Bar offered to take me to about.com!

Even turning it off, you get a list of "about" pages from various web sites you've visited, but that's to be expected. :-)

I wish there was a way to access the various "about:[whatever]" pages in Firefox without having to type in the Awesome Bar. I think I'll bookmark them.

joaniesman
joaniesman
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Excellent, thank you - though I was a bit nervous at the dire warnings about mucking about with these 'advanced' settings, and astonished about how many entries there were that I could have mucked about with.

Still, it worked a treat.

PS When I came back today the setting had reset itself so I had to do it again. Any way to stop that happening ?

Modified by joaniesman