The change between Firefox 3.6.* and Firefox 4 is how location bar search works. In Firefox 3.6 it uses Google "Browse by name" search. With the browse by name search, it performs a Google search and if there is a clear match it will take you to the site, otherwise it shows the Google search result. With Firefox 4 it just performs a Google search if you type something which is not recognised as a URL.

To get the Firefox 3.6 behaviour on Firefox 4 you need to change a hidden preference.

1. Type about:config into the location bar and press enter
2. Accept the warning message that appears, you will be taken to a list of preferences
3. Locate the preference keyword.URL, double-click on it and change its value to the link shown below

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=

Hey !! thank you very very much for that help !!! :) BTW, you believe it or not, I knew that trick, but just did not want to mess with about:config ...... i am just 13 now !

I'm having this problem too, and that's not really an acceptable solution. Mozilla publicizes the Awesome Bar as one of their features. I shouldn't have to go and mess with config files just to get a feature that should already be functioning.

You can also use the LuckyBar extension. The change was made to be more consistent... if you typed more than a few words, then you'd get google search results but if you typed few words, you'd get the first result. This could get really confusing ... especially if Google changes its ranking and switches the first result on you.

I actually don't like it when my browser acts like a trap-and-trace for google. I don't think the browser should automatically do this. Don't be internet lazy. It's not all that hard to type www and com with your URL.