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Address bar changes?

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So with this most recent update for Firefox, the nature of my address bar has changed significantly and I am NOT a fan. I'm a creature of habit and like to have the sites I visit frequently on my address bar drop down for me to click on the fly. These mainly are comics I read and a couple other things. These, however, are now gone and replaced with my "top sites", none of which are the pages I frequently visit.

The new help pages are useless. I understand the update also includes security so I'm not looking to revert to an older version, I just want to revert the address bar back to how it was. Help, please.


I guess I shouldve dug a little deeper. In case any one has this same issue, the way to fix it (albeit temporarily?) is:

Type in the address bar about:config and press Enter. (ignore the warning)

Type in the search bar and look for the preference :

browser.urlbar.openViewOnFocus

and set its value to false

So with this most recent update for Firefox, the nature of my address bar has changed significantly and I am NOT a fan. I'm a creature of habit and like to have the sites I visit frequently on my address bar drop down for me to click on the fly. These mainly are comics I read and a couple other things. These, however, are now gone and replaced with my "top sites", none of which are the pages I frequently visit. The new help pages are useless. I understand the update also includes security so I'm not looking to revert to an older version, I just want to revert the address bar back to how it was. Help, please. I guess I shouldve dug a little deeper. In case any one has this same issue, the way to fix it (albeit temporarily?) is: Type in the address bar about:config and press Enter. (ignore the warning) Type in the search bar and look for the preference : browser.urlbar.openViewOnFocus and set its value to false

Modified by were_cat3

Chosen solution

@cor-el @philipp

Setting "browser.urlbar.openViewOnFocus " to false fixed the problem. I was getting top sites as my address bar, which I did not want at all. Setting it to false reverted it back to a proper address bar and not an extension of my "top sites" - if I want that, I'll just open up a fresh tab and view my top sites there. I need/want a specific set of URLs in my address bar.

I appreciate you both popping in to reply but cor-el's reply just confuses the heck out of me (I dont code, I dont understand what any of that means or what its suppose to do for me) and philipp's reply isnt entirely relevant to what I needed to have changed. I know I can tweak my top sites but that was a very tedious task.

Any way, thanks again. :)

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (7)

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There are also browser.urlbar.update1 prefs to disable some megabar features. Note the it isn't guaranteed that these update# pref are supported in future Firefox versions (browser.urlbar.update1 is gone in Nightly 76.0a1).


You can use code in userChrome.css to undo the changes to width and height if you set focus to the location bar. The code may need to be above the @namespace line or you can create a new userChrome.css file without the @namespace line.

In Firefox 69 and later you need to set this pref to true on the about:config page to enable userChrome.css and userContent.css in the chrome folder.

  • toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets = true

See:


#urlbar[breakout],
#urlbar[breakout][breakout-extend] {
  --urlbar-height: 28px !important;
  --urlbar-toolbar-height: 30px !important;

  width: 100% !important;
  top: calc((var(--urlbar-toolbar-height) - var(--urlbar-height)) / 2) !important;
  left: 0 !important;
}

#urlbar[breakout][breakout-extend] > #urlbar-input-container,
#urlbar-input-container {
  height: var(--urlbar-height) !important;
  width: 100% !important;
  padding-block: unset !important;
  padding-inline: unset !important;
  transition: none !important;
}

#urlbar[breakout][breakout-extend] > #urlbar-background {
  box-shadow: 0 1px 4px rgba(0,0,0,.05) !important;
  animation: none !important;
}

Modified by cor-el

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you can adjust the pages that should show up in your top sites btw: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-new-tab-page#w_customize-your-top-sites

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Chosen Solution

@cor-el @philipp

Setting "browser.urlbar.openViewOnFocus " to false fixed the problem. I was getting top sites as my address bar, which I did not want at all. Setting it to false reverted it back to a proper address bar and not an extension of my "top sites" - if I want that, I'll just open up a fresh tab and view my top sites there. I need/want a specific set of URLs in my address bar.

I appreciate you both popping in to reply but cor-el's reply just confuses the heck out of me (I dont code, I dont understand what any of that means or what its suppose to do for me) and philipp's reply isnt entirely relevant to what I needed to have changed. I know I can tweak my top sites but that was a very tedious task.

Any way, thanks again. :)

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I'm trying to fix this as well, and this almost worked for me, but not really. I changed browser.urlbar.openViewOnFocus to False, but when I click on my address bar, it brings up nothing, but if I tap up or down, it brings up my most visited, which is what I want, but normally, I could just click on the bar, and it would drop down. I did find that I could turn off Top Sites in the options, and the address bar would bring up the most visited with just a click. However, I kinda like the top sites on a blank page, but not in my address bar. Any ideas why I have to hit up or down to get my drop down, not just click it. Also, the arrow that used to appear on the right side of the address bar is gone. Is that just something in the new version, or is there another adjustment to make to get that arrow back.

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You can type '^' in the location bar to initiate a history search.

You can find the about:newtab setting for Top Sites in "Options/Preferences -> Home". This affect the location bar drop-down list as well.

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I used this fix, and it works like a charm. I now have a real address bar, and my browsing experience got even better.

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tubaman98 said

I changed browser.urlbar.openViewOnFocus to False, but when I click on my address bar, it brings up nothing, but if I tap up or down, it brings up my most visited, which is what I want, but normally, I could just click on the bar, and it would drop down. ... Any ideas why I have to hit up or down to get my drop down, not just click it.

openViewOnFocus controls whether the drop-down opens automatically when the cursor enters the address bar. So that's the catch.