Customize Firefox Suggest settings

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Please update your version of Firefox for the latest features and security updates.
Firefox Suggest is a feature that provides website suggestions as you type into the address bar. This article describes what types of suggestions can be displayed and how to customize your Firefox Suggest settings.

Note: Firefox Suggest is currently available in the United States. For users outside of the U.S., only local results (browsing history, bookmarks and open tab suggestions) are provided.

What's on by default?

Firefox already provides suggestions from your default search engine as you type into the address bar. Firefox also shows you address bar autocomplete suggestions based on local data stored on your own computer, such as websites from your browsing history, bookmarks and open tabs. Beginning in Firefox version 92, U.S. users will see this local data under a "Firefox Suggest" label in the address bar drop-down list.

Firefox Suggest results can include suggestions such as browsing history, bookmarks and open tabs, as well as new, contextual suggestions from Firefox and Mozilla's partners, which may include occasional sponsored suggestions. Contextual suggestionsSuggestions from the web and Suggestions from sponsors are also on by default. These are helpful suggestions from Firefox related to your search and do not require new types of data. To learn more about Firefox Suggest and your data, see this Mozilla blog post.

Smarter suggestions (opt-in)

Mozilla will be rolling out a new offering for the Firefox Suggest experience — “Firefox Suggest with smarter contextual suggestions.” If you enable this optional feature, Firefox will retrieve additional suggestions from a Mozilla service in real time and will send Mozilla your search queries (what you are typing into the address bar), and city-level location (what's nearby and relevant, determined from your IP address). Firefox also informs the service if you click on a provided suggestion. This feature requires access to new data, so it will require you to affirmatively opt in before it is enabled. to enable these enhanced suggestions, you would need to click on Allow suggestions when you receive a notification prompt that will be initially offered to a small number of U.S. users (see this Mozilla blog post to learn more).

How to manage Firefox Suggest settings

You can change the types of suggestions that are displayed at any time. To do so, follow these steps:

  1. In the Menu bar at the top of the screen, click Firefox and select Settings (select Preferences on older macOS versions).Click the menu button Fx89menuButton and select Settings.
  2. Select Privacy & Security on the left and go down to the Address Bar — Firefox Suggest section.
    Fx9201settingsAddressBar-FirefoxSuggest
    Note: If you see the text, Firefox will have access to your location, search queries, and visited sites under Contextual suggestions, then Firefox Suggest with smarter suggestions is now available to you. This option is only enabled for users who have opted into it. If you don’t see this text, then ‘smarter contextual suggestions’ are not offered or enabled.
    • To enable or disable contextual suggestions from Firefox and Mozilla's partners, select or deselect the checkbox next to Contextual suggestions.
      • If you wish to enable contextual suggestions but don't want sponsored results, deselect the Include occasional sponsored suggestions checkbox.
    • To enable or disable traditional address bar suggestions, such as Firefox Suggest results from browsing history and bookmarks, select or deselect the associated checkboxes.

What’s Opt-In

We are also rolling out an option to improve the Firefox Suggest experience. This option allows Mozilla to process search queries and will only be turned on if you explicitly select “Allow” via an opt-in modal notification prompt, by opening Firefox Settings and selecting Improve the Firefox Suggest Experience. To learn more about the new data being processed, click here.

How to determine your Firefox Suggest experience and how to customize your settings

To view what Firefox Suggest experience is enabled or to customize your settings for the types of suggestions displayed in address bar results, follow these steps:

  1. In the Menu bar at the top of the screen, click Firefox and select Settings (select Preferences on older macOS versions).Click the menu button Fx89menuButton and select Settings.
  2. Select Privacy & Security in the left panel.
  3. Scroll down to the section labeled Address bar—Firefox Suggest.
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    • The checkboxes are for traditional address bar suggestions based on local data, such as results from your browsing history or bookmarks. You can disable each type of result by clearing the checkbox.
    • The toggle switches turn Firefox Suggest features on or off. For additional clarity, the grey information box will summarize your Firefox Suggest preference choices.

Suggestions from the web and Suggestions from sponsors are turned on by default, which means that address bar results will include suggestions from Firefox and occasional suggestions from Mozilla's partners. To disable either or both of these features, click the toggle switches to off.

Improve the Firefox Suggest Experience is turned off by default, which means that Mozilla does not process your search queries. If you enable this setting, query processing is turned on and you are actively helping Mozilla improve the search experience. FxSuggestsettings1

When Improve the Firefox Suggest experience is also turned on, the grey information box will show the text, “Based on your selection, you'll receive suggestions from the web, including sponsored suggestions. We will process your search query data to develop the Firefox Suggest feature”. This means you have enabled our newest search experience.

Who Are Mozilla’s partners?

We partner with organizations to serve up some of these suggestion types. Privacy is fundamental to Mozilla's mission and we only work with partners that meet our privacy standards for Firefox. For sponsored results, our preferred partner is adMarketplace. We also provide results from Wikipedia. Results from Wikipedia are not sponsored.

Frequently asked questions

If you have more questions about Firefox Suggest, visit the Firefox Suggest FAQ.