Firefox 3 has a “feature” that auto-fills a website that you wish to go to as you’re typing in the Location bar.
I wanted to turn this off, but without turning off other auto complete functionality:
- I want to retain the autocomplete in forms (which can be managed from
Tools -> Options -> Privacy) - I also want to retain the autocomplete in the search box on the right (which can be turned off by right-clicking inside the box, and then checking off “
Show Suggestions“)
But the Location Bar is a somewhat more involved beast. After hunting in the innards of “about:config” I discovered that this was possible. Just follow these steps:
- In the location bar, type
about:config. The location bar is of course the place where you type URLs. Note that this is your internal Firefox configuration. Don’t mess with it. - In the text box that appears at the top of this page, enter
browser.urlbar.maxRichResultsas the preference name. (Tip: copy it from here and paste it into that box.) - Set the value to 0 if you wish to disable the auto-complete altogether. I have it set to 2 so I get some suggestions but it doesn’t crowd up the experience.
This post is tagged Browser, Firefox, Tips/Tricks
9 Comments
Any way to disable the suggestions while typing on Google.com?
It annoys the hell out of me!
-Jon
That’s the easiest. That’s inline form auto-filling. You’ll find it in Options (in Windows) or Preferences (on Mac). Look for “Saved Form History” or words to that effect.
Thanks for your reply.
Well, I still can’t find a way to disable it!
May be my Firefox that’s crappy. I read that it’s best to uninstall the current version running before installing 3.0.1…I did not do that.
I have set “signon.autofillForms” and “browser.urlbarFill” to false.
The only thing under options that I can find is “remember what I enter in forms and the search bar”. That box is empty.
I just want to not have suggestions while starting typing something on google.com.
I’ll survive. Just got to swallow the annoyance.
It’s a part of your “Private History”. You can clear that from the cache and it’ll be gone.
Tools -> Clear Private Data.
Then select the option for “Saved Form History”. In Tools -> Options -> Privacy, you can set up automatic deletion of form history when you close Firefox.
Thanks Shanx for trying to help me.
Either I’m stupid or I’m….stupid.
I’m clearing the private data en cache and have FF auto delete it every time I close the application, but the suggestions still appear.
Are you sure that the suggestions appear because of my search history or my cache though? The suggestions are just going by what I type in and not by something I searched for before..seems more like something inside FF that can be disabled through about:config
maybe the quick search bar suggestions is all that can be disabled…
Google’s auto suggestion is web-based javascript that has nothing to do with your browser’s settings. If you have the Adblock Plus add-on you can disable it by adding this filter:
http://www.google.com/extern_js/*
That will filter out the javascript auto suggestion box.
Thanks a million, it worked!
My life is now complete!
-Jon
I am plagued by the same problem. Where does on add the filter “http://www.google.com/extern_js/*”?
Thanks, Dave
Dave in NC, you can add that in the AdBlock filters. Do you use AdBlock? It makes life a lot simpler, and is almost the first addon I install. Once you have it on your system, right-click on the little “AB” icon that will appear in your Firefox status bar on the right hand side and then on “Open Blockable Items”. Rest is intuitive.
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