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A comment on Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users. Parent comment

Re:Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users by klyrs on Thursday October 14, 2021 @11:58AM (#28866060)
Firefox did away with the search bar a long time ago. For a while, it was possible to bring it back through about:config, but I don't think it's possible to make the url bar a clean url bar anymore (this is an invitation for corrections). It's annoying because I navigate to pages via URLs, and all I don't want to send those to a search engine for "suggestions" (though, a locally-indexed history is nice). All too often, I'll type in a url and it will send that to a search engine, and then the page I wanted to go to is buried under ads. Useless. Especially now that Firefox is moving to paid ads in the "url" bar... blech.
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Re:Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users by MauranKilom on Thursday October 14, 2021 @11:59AM (#28866088)
> Firefox did away with the search bar a long time ago. For a while, it was possible to bring it back through about:config

The search bar still exists in Firefox if you want it to btw. I use it daily.

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Re:Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users by hk1337 on Thursday October 14, 2021 @12:10PM (#28866217)
Interesting.

I didn't know you could add the search bar but when you do, the address bar still says "Search with <your default search> or enter address".

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Re:Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users by tharkun__ on Thursday October 14, 2021 @12:36PM (#28866541)
Also see sibling. I use Firefox daily and I have both a search bar that I use when I really want to search and I also don't see any "Search" stuff in my address bar. When I type "n" I can hit enter because it finds news.ycombinator.com in my history. All the next results are other things from my history which have an n in it.

I have browser.urlbar.showSearchSuggestionsFirst=false

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Re:Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users by klyrs on Thursday October 14, 2021 @12:02PM (#28866127)
My mistake, I meant to say url bar. Last time I tried this, the url bar had all the functionality of the search bar, which misses the point. Am I remembering wrong?
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Re:Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users by wartijn_ on Thursday October 14, 2021 @12:12PM (#28866241)
The settings screen has the option "show search in address bar results". You can turn that off.
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Re:Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users by gnabgib on Thursday October 14, 2021 @12:39PM (#28866576)
It's the perfect setup really, you can turn it off, but if you want it you can type "? <search term>" into the address bar and it'll go to default search - or use one of your engine short codes as the first word "@google hackernews"

about:config -> keyword.enabled -> false (to stop sending possible search terms automatically to your default search engine, this includes when you type a URL firefox mistakes for a search term)

about:config -> browser.fixup.alternate.enabled -> false (to stop firefox trying a DNS lookup/connection with the term you typed with www. before, .com after)

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Re:Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users by klyrs on Thursday October 14, 2021 @02:18PM (#28867926)
This is something... but it isn't perfect. The address bar is still not purely an address bar. It still defaults to sending a query to a search engine (I like to use this to search for partial URL matches, for example, navigating git repos that I use frequently). That's what the search bar is for. Bah humbug. Even with all these options set, FF still encourages confusion between URLs and searching.
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Re:Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users by gnabgib on Thursday October 14, 2021 @04:11PM (#28869369)
I'm not sure I understand.. there's an internal search (tabs, history, bookmarks) which sounds like what you're doing - there's no search engine used for this. Or do you mean the Search suggestions (Settings -> Search -> uncheck "Provide search suggestions" to disable, some of these suggestions are FF generated)
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