How to make link's URL show up in Status Bar like all other browsers?
A crucial piece of security awareness does not work the same in 4.0b7. When hovering over a link, Chrome, Opera, and Firefox-3 all show the URL at the bottom left of the screen. But we cannot guard ourselves against phishing attacks in the same way with 4.0b7 because it puts the link's URL up in the Location Bar instead, where it gets truncated.
This "feature" appears to be undocumented; it is not mentioned in the Release Notes.
What config setting do I need to change to get the link's URL to show up down in the Status Bar again? (Or should I say Add-On Bar, since "Status Bar" no longer shows up under Menu -> View -> Toolbars.)
Chosen solution
The nightly versions of Minefield a few months ago, experimented with a "floating" URL display for hovered links as they were getting ready to remove the Statusbar (similar to how Chrome displays them), but after a few weeks that display was moved to the Location bar. IMO, that is nonsensical placement - it belongs in the lower-left corner where is always has been displayed in Firefox and other browsers, where users expect it to be and where there is usually more room to display URL of the link the cursor is over. I suspect that change is going to be permanent, and users will need to look to the extension development community to fix that issue.
The Status4Evar extension restores 3 functions of the old Status Bar to the Add-on Bar.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/235283/
All Replies (9)
Chosen Solution
The nightly versions of Minefield a few months ago, experimented with a "floating" URL display for hovered links as they were getting ready to remove the Statusbar (similar to how Chrome displays them), but after a few weeks that display was moved to the Location bar. IMO, that is nonsensical placement - it belongs in the lower-left corner where is always has been displayed in Firefox and other browsers, where users expect it to be and where there is usually more room to display URL of the link the cursor is over. I suspect that change is going to be permanent, and users will need to look to the extension development community to fix that issue.
The Status4Evar extension restores 3 functions of the old Status Bar to the Add-on Bar.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/235283/
The pointer to Status4Evar was very useful.
After installing the add-on, the functionality is available, but not visible.
You have to go to the Menu -> View -> Toolbars -> Customize. From the Customize Toolbar sub-window, grab the "Done/Status Text" icon and drag it to the left end of the Add-on Bar (and optionally drag the Progress Meter to the right end). At that point the URLs of hovered links will be visible again.
Edit: Attached GIF shows drag-and-drop in progress.
Modified by joeinwap
Nevermind. Did a little searching and someone else explained that you have to add these items like they are toolbar buttons. Only then is there anything to drag. Someone please tell the developers at FF that they are idiots and to please fix the status bar before everyone jumps ship on them. This is ridiculous.
Modified by m0lissa
The Status Bar is gone and users will have to adapt. The new Add-on bar increases the flexibility for customization of the browser interface, and IMO this should have been done many versions ago. The Status-4-Evar extension restores the "missing" functions that used to be on the Status Bar, so users can configure Firefox 4.0 to be very close to what they were used to using in previous versions.
I have just installed the new version and I cannot get a statusbar. The Status-4-Evar extension does not work and I don't want to spend much time to make it work. I hope Mozilla developers will quickly see their mistake and make a statusbar showing url's (default available) again for "non technical" users. I will NEVER use a browser that does not show me where I am going. It gives me an idea of security. The only site I have visited so far was Mozilla. For the moment I will have to install another browser to be able to use webgl.
Make sure that you have the Add-ons Bar visible: View > Toolbars > Customize > Add-ons Bar
Open the "View > Toolbars > Customize" window after you have installed the Status-4-Evar extension and drag the items (Status Text, Progress Meter, Download Status) upon the Add-ons Bar (View > Toolbars > [X] Add-on Bar)
Any chance to get that hovered-link-url back to the address bar ? (in ver 4.0b12pre (2011-02-07))
I really liked it !
Modified by hassyphoto
Status Bar should be ON. Not only hovered URLs should show up, but several other Icons are missing as well and no way to add them as don't exist in Toolbars-Customize. Nevertheless the whole Status Bar appears as it should be, WHILE you have Toolbars-Customize OPEN. Once you close that window, Status Bar disappears!
It works everything OK now. With other FF application open, it was not updating current FF application. Status Bar