Three useful Firefox 3 'awesome bar' hacks

The Firefox 3 honeymoon is over.

It is indeed awesome, but it could use a little tweaking to keep your surfing a high-speed affair, right? You're in luck, because there are some easy tweaks.

The other day, we pointed you toward how to get rid of the updated address bar's new features completely, but why not just tweak what you see, instead? Here are some tips to bail you out.

1. Control how many listings you're getting. The default number of sites that show up on the Smart Location Bar, or "awesome bar," of the nwe Mozilla browser is 12. Changing that number works the same way as getting rid of the sites altogether.

Just type about:config into your address bar, hit the "okay" button when the security warning pops up, then paste browser.urlbar.maxRichResults in the open box, and hit the Enter key.

Double-click the result, and it'll let you change that digit to whatever you want. One thing to note, though, is if you add more results, it won't make the list any longer than six at a time, so you'll still have to scroll.

2. Keep bookmarks off the address bar. You save a bunch of sites, but you don't want them showing up when you're typing, right? This extension will keep the church-and-state line of browsing history and bookmarks from being crossed ever again.

This probably isn't useful, if you only have a few bookmarks, but it can be very helpful if you've got a huge collection that requires you to scroll down the list to find the site you're looking for, effectively killing any time saving the bar was meant to do.

Add-on Distrust lets you get away with 'private' browsing in Firefox 3.

(Credit: Mozilla Add-ons)

3. Keep certain sites from showing up altogether. Got a site you'd rather not have others see when they're using your machine? Unless you've got browser history turned off, and the site isn't bookmarked, you're generally out of luck.

There's currently not a way to keep specific sites from showing up or right-clicking to remove them from the list, which is why we have to recommend using Apple's Safari for it's "private browsing" feature. When toggled, it won't save any of your information, clicks, or cached data for anyone else to find.

If you don't feel like switching browsers (even though Safari is pretty darn good), there's an extension called Distrust (download here) that emulates the same thing, deleting only the bits of data from that session. Just don't be surprised if your significant other or kids ask why there's an eyeball in the corner of your screen.

Got any of your own tips? Share them in the comments.

[naterandrews]

Why does everyone need yet MORE ways to help them cover their tracks? (Especially shady husbands). Thank you technology for inventing more helpful ways for people to keep secrets.

[BEETROOT]

Secrets are not necessarily bad things. I'm shopping for a birthday present for my girlfriend, and need to clear my history every time.

[naterandrews]

Why does everyone need yet MORE ways to help them cover their tracks? (Especially shady husbands). Thank you technology for inventing more helpful ways for people to keep secrets.

[Kakkoister]

Don't bother with "Hide Unvisited"

If you want the old Firefox 2 URL Bar functionality back, install this add-on:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7637

Does what Hide Unvisited does exactly, plus a whole lot more.

[RicktheBrick]

I click on the down arrow and see that 7 of the 12 are already duplicates of what is on the line below it and they are duplicated in the most visited area. The ones I want that I visit not so much are in my sidebar. At least keep the ones in my bookmark line out of it as I can go to them a lot easier by clicking on one of them.

[gbernhard]

Hey naterandrews, did you ever think that maybe the "shady" husband purchased something for his loving wife and he wants it to remain a secret? Think outside the box!

[AlmightyPod]

After reading #3, I couldn't help but wonder how Mozilla could forget to put in a method to remove sites from the address bar. So I looked at my keyboard and saw a "Del" button. On a hunch, I figured this might actually delete a site from the bar. I highlighted the offending site and pressed that "Del" key. To my surprise the site no longer showed itself until it was re-visited.

[crankycoyote]

Uhhh,not really.If you pay attention,you'll find the " offending" site will show it's ugly head again as soon as you restart the browser.And will continue to do so,unless you fix it in this fashion: got to about:config,ignore the silly warning,scroll down to: browser.urlbar.maxRichResults and set the stupid thing to 0. That will clear the foolish history "feature". Yes,That,s what Mozilla calls it.A "feature".While I am a longtime firefox user and fan,it seems that every new version has some really,and I mean REALLY stupid "features".I do appreciate the fact that it's absolutely much faster than the previous versions, though. Now if we could just get our favorite extensions and themes compatible.........yet again......

[crankycoyote]

Uhhh,not really.If you pay attention,you'll find the " offending" site will show it's ugly head again as soon as you restart the browser.And will continue to do so,unless you fix it in this fashion: got to about:config,ignore the silly warning,scroll down to: browser.urlbar.maxRichResults and set the stupid thing to 0. That will clear the foolish history "feature". Yes,That,s what Mozilla calls it.A "feature".While I am a longtime firefox user and fan,it seems that every new version has some really,and I mean REALLY stupid "features".I do appreciate the fact that it's absolutely much faster than the previous versions, though. Now if we could just get our favorite extensions and themes compatible.........yet again......

[AlmightyPod]

I tried restarting. The site still didn't show...

[AlmightyPod]

You can also go into your browser history and manually delete the sites you don't want to show. I just find it easier to delete them from the list.

[frakme]

I precede my tags with "\" as in "\PROGRAMMING" and "\NETWORKS" so I can control when I what displays. Typing "NET" shows all urls, titles and descriptions with "net" in the name. "\NET" shows only things tagged with "\NET" since the "\" is not in URLs and not likely to be in the title or description.

[marym_40]

Thanks for this. I found this to be very annoying

[PitahChez]

How can I clear URLs from appearing on the address bar for Mac?