See if this does anything. Go to that web site page, and then try; '''''Save As Bookmark'''''. Then check and see what is saved by checking the new bookmark. By the way, Is it just one site?

No, it's not just one site, it's EVERY site. The problem is with the address bar, not the web sites.

I should be able to glance at the address bar to see the address, not go through those steps on EVERY page I visit.

I looked for a setting for this yesterday and didn't see one.

How do I fix the address bar to show the real address of the page?

If the spaces are in a file name, the URL bar is showing the actual file name on the server, which has spaces in it.

Why do you want to make the URL harder to read by having encoded spaces?

If you copy the entire URL to paste somewhere, the spaces are replaced with %20. In other words, Firefox places the URL on the clipboard. If you copy only part of the URL, then they are not replaced. In that case, Firefox is placing the selected text on the clipboard.

There's an open bug from way back about the behavior when copying part of the URL: 475896 – When accessing urls in firefox with %20, it is replaced with a whitespace. Breaks other software if you try to copy-paste part of the url out of firefox.

Regarding Bugzilla: If forum members can contribute to the development, please feel free to pitch in. Otherwise, it's generally not helpful to add comments to bugs (unless there is a call for test cases), but you can register on the Bugzilla site and "vote" for them to be fixed. See:

• Bugzilla Etiquette
• Voting

So there is no way to turn off this antifeature and make it display the real address in the address bar? THat's too bad. I guess it's back to searching for a browser then.

The file name on the server is not always the same as the URI. I want to see the real URI, not some fake URI that the developers think is "prettier". I'm the type that preffers to see things as they really are. I don't like looking through rose-colored glasses. Transparency is a good thing.

Thank both of you for your answers!

Have you tried my bookmark suggestion?

The bookmark idea shows the address of a bookmark (or soon-to-be bookmark), and must be done on every page visited. It doesn't make the address bar show the address of the current page. It doesn't fix the issue.

No it does not. But, this should give you the true web page address until you can fix the problem.

Doing that on every page I ever visit is a lot of work, and for what? It's a good idea if I was trying to get the address of one page or a few pages. But I'm trying to correctly see the address of whatever page I'm on, all the time.

Hi 0gb.us, you wrote:

The file name on the server is not always the same as the URI. I want to see the real URI, not some fake URI that the developers think is "prettier". I'm the type that preffers to see things as they really are. I don't like looking through rose-colored glasses. Transparency is a good thing.

I have to disagree that showing encoded spaces gives you a better view of the file name on the server. The file name has spaces in it, otherwise you wouldn't need to substitute encoded spaces and unless your mind automatically decodes %20 to a space, I don't see how that's clearer.

Anyway, if you don't need this often -- do you work with a lot of pages with spaces in the name? -- here's a workaround:

right-click URL > Copy
Ctrl+v

This will replace the URL with spaces with the URL with encoded spaces.

Or you could look for an add-on.

It may give a better idea of the file name on the server, yes. But it ISN'T the name requested by the browser. These kind of obfuscations only lead to issues, for example, ignorance. When people don't know the real URI, they type the wrong address.

People try to link to "example.com" a lot, and leave off the http:// because browsers hide it from them so they don't know that it is there. And what does that cause? It causes it to be a RELATIVE link. So the link points to "http://current-site.com/directory/example.com". Hiding stuff from users just because you think it is prettier that way is BAD. The same applies to spaces.

If you want to do that by default, I won't argue, though honestly, it should be an opt-in feature, not an opt-out one. However, when someone sets browser.urlbar.trimURLs to false, it's because they don't want the URI to be trimmed. Trimming %20 into the space character anyway is either a bug or a refusal to let the user have what they want.

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/decodeURI
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/encodeURI

JavaScript? WHat does JavaScript have to do with the address bar trimming URIs?

That are the JavaScript functions that Firefox is using to encode and decode URI strings and components (encodeURIComponent, decodeURIComponent).

You can use a bookmarklet if you want to (re)encode such a URI.

• javascript:alert(encodeURI('%S'));
• javascript:alert(encodeURIComponent('%S'));

• javascript:alert(encodeURI('http://example.com/filename with spaces.ext'));

That causes an alert, it doesn't fix the address bar ....

I gotta say, 0gb.us I feel your pain. It would be helpful if there was a setting in Firefox to enable/disable showing the URI verbatim in the address bar.

It feels like in order to make the address bar "prittier", browser vendors have decided to make it less functional ...

Hi 0gb.us, I haven't researched the motivation for showing a space instead of %20, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn it was part of a package of changes designed to make it harder to hide obfuscated redirects or other security issues.

If it prevented the use of similar-looking characters, that would make sence, but it doesn't. Normally, the URI can only include ASCII characters. Any other character must be encoded. Due to this change, encoded characters are shown in their decoded form, CAUSEING URIs to be able to look like other URIs. Now that you mention it, this actually has the opposite effect as what you mentioned, and is actually a security problem. That's just one more reason why this issue should be fixed.

The main problem as I see it is somewhere along the way, Firefox did something which caused the visibility of URL's in the Address Bar to go away. If you use your cursor to highlight what you assume is in the Address Bar, you can see the URL. But what the heck happened to do this? My Firefox Browser didn't used to have this problem. If I start typing in the Address Bar, I can see what URL I'm typing in, but as soon as I stop typing and the webpage is loading, the URL becomes invisible again. This isn't fun and is a real headache. To me this is a bug in the latest version of the browser that needs fixing.

For me, it doesn't even show the correct URI when the address is selected. The only time the real URI is present is when I copy the full false URI to the clipboard. In that case, the full real URI is put in the clipboard instead. However, when copying a partial URI, the false URI is stored in the clipboard.

I agree. Not showing the real URI is not a feature, even if it is the intended behaviour. It is a bothersome bug and should be fixed.