Comments on: Firefox 3 'awesome bar' not awesome for all

Turns out the Firefox 3 awesome bar may not be awesome for everyone.

[Penguinisto]

As someone who uses this thing almost daily, I have to say that it's pretty useful IMHO. It doesn;t do much more than an ordinary addy bar does, except explain the sites you've been to (by repeating the titles, which is damned useful) and to suggest similar pages. It's like a miniature search bar. If I already know where I'm headed, I ignore the drop-down - otherwise I make full use of it.

[loonoeytooones]

Gee, thanks "Penguinisto"! I didn't know what it was or how it worked... which is why I'm on a page that explains how to disable it!!! Perhaps you thought this page was created for people to talk about how much they love the freaking wonder-bar, but ITS NOT! ITS FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO DISABLE IT BECAUSE THEY DONT LIKE IT OR DONT WANT IT!! Its not an invitation to argue with the people WHO COME TO THIS PAGE FOR ITS SPECIFIC CONTENT!

[Editor's note: Personal attack deleted]

[death2DRM]

@ interweb user

your 'addy bar' is a LOCATION bar: URI

[death2DRM]

@ interweb user

your 'addy bar' is a LOCATION bar: URI

[dexter_birdbrain]

"Change is but inevitable..." - Don't know who said that, but well said. Some people really seem to have a problem with progress and they want to be stuck up in time. I guess if a survey is carried out, 95% of the people will vote in favour of the 'awesome bar'. The niggling 5% are the ones who think their knowledge base is good enough and there is nothing left in this world to learn or improve upon.

Just to give an example of how 'awesome' the bar actually is, if I want to logon to Orkut.com, I enter 'o' in the address bar and lo...behold....*www.orkut.com* is the first entry to appear in the drop down list. Similar is the case with many of my other favorite sites. The bar actually 'knows' which websites you like the most and 'learns'. (I understand it has something to do with an SQL database underneath).

Regards,
Dexter_Greycells.

[oggologgo]

some people seem to always bring up such lame arguments, despite them being completely wrong. Its not about not liking change. It's the fact that the new behaviour made the url bar completly useless to me. I go to most webpages by typing in the first few letters of the url, and in FF2 and any other browser, it give the right url on top of the list almost all the time. Now it gives you bunch of useless junk, where if you are so lucky that pages from the correct site turns up, it will be useless sub pages instead of the front page.

[DADSGETNDOWN]

Isn't this nothing but Auto Complete ? and if it is PLUS, adds other suggestions that's a slow down due to data and searching, AND A Privacy, security and infection issue, which is why for years we've know that we need to turn OFF and flat out don't search from the address bar.
The poll here "so far" says "Hate it" winning "Love it", by 13%.

This is defintely something I won't use.

[garesfield]

This is not about "having a problem with progress". Anyone in that category wouldn't be using Firefox at all, but would still be stuck with IE. It's about choice.
Personally, I welcome innovation. And I have stuck with the new bar for weeks hoping to get used to it and appreciate its awesomeness. But I don't. It simply isn't an improvement for me and the way I like to use the browser.
I don't want to deny the new bar to anyone who likes it. But I would like it to be readily configurable - to the extent that you can choose to use either the original (FF2) algorithm or the new one.

[dexter_birdbrain]

Well, it seems I am losing out badly in the polls (as it should be obvious, I am all 'for' the awesome bar)...!
Guess the world is not as round as it seems...!

[cyberDJ-2038765336053745013836]

The Awesome Bar is almost like the Google gods had blessed Firefox with useful coolness.

But, you should be able to shut it off if it grates on the nerves.
The best features are the ones that can be tailored to the user's tastes.

[Ray Rip]

I write software for end users. One of the reasons we can add features and not upset a lot of people is we ALWAYS give the user the capability of disabling or enabling the feature. For the programmer it is a matter of putting in an IF statement for a variable... no big deal. It's 5 minutes of work.

That way you can please all the people. Some people say to heck with the 5%. Well if a million people are using Firefox (and I'm sure there are a lot more than that), then 5% is 50 thousand people... that's a lot of people.

[Ray Rip]

I write software for end users. One of the reasons we can add features and not upset a lot of people is we ALWAYS give the user the capability of disabling or enabling the feature. For the programmer it is a matter of putting in an IF statement for a variable... no big deal. It's 5 minutes of work.

That way you can please all the people. Some people say to heck with the 5%. Well if a million people are using Firefox (and I'm sure there are a lot more than that), then 5% is 50 thousand people... that's a lot of people.

[oggologgo]

right, and in this case it's more like 20%

[frakme]

If you really "write software for end users", you should know that not ALL features can be enabled/disabled with a "5 minute" IF statement. Don't be ridiculous.

[xelaw]

What's all the fuss about? I have FF 2 and the address bar works the same way - as soon as I start typing there, it produces a list of URL's. So what else is new?

[oggologgo]

What????? The difference is that in FF2 it would come up with a list of url's where the beginning matched what you typed and sorted alphabetically. In FF3 it will produce a list of url's where your text matches ANYWHERE and sorted by what you visited last, meaning usless subpages will be first, instead of the front pages of sites.

[pianoman]

What's new is, your bookmarks also are displayed. I don't need my bookmarks in my face every time I'm typing a url.

[Jim1921]

Most of the complaints just want a disable option. Here is two blurb's from Mozilla on this issue
1: (E-mail from Mozilla) We've got enough anecdotal evidence that the new location bar changes, while sometimes jarring, represent a major net win for all users, once they get used to the changes. It is not a zero-cost change, but the benefits appear to be substantial enough that we're willing to force the issue.

My take, that is they admit that some users don't like but that they are forcing the issue because they think it better.

2:(E-mail from Mozilla) Experienced software engineers and HCI experts are able to build a better product than users would choose to build themselves.

My take, Their the experts, they have Engineering Degrees so there for they will tell you what you like.

My question to Mozilla is, why is it too much to ask for to have the option to disable this feature.? As far as FF 2 you can disable searches from the address bar, by un-checking remember what i type in address bar found in privacy options. You can also disable searches in Microsoft's IE 6, 7 and in 8 beta. Again Mozilla what is so wrong with having the option to disable the address bar feature?
Thanks
Jim

[Taegugki]

I love it and hate it. I love when I do keyword searches, for example: w (for wikipedia) howard stern if I do it often then it will show up then I can just scroll down and press enter.

What I hate about it is sometimes it crashes or holds up or freezes or really slows down the browser.

If they fix that problem then I will no longer have a love/hate relationship with it, but a love/love relationship with it

[oggologgo]

Right, well that behavior belongs in the history and not the url bar. Url bar shouldn't be for searches.

[beelissa]

I'm waiting till tomorrow (Download Tuesday) to download 3.0.

[oggologgo]

Useful???? It?s is the worst thing I have ever seen. I cannot use the url history bar at all anymore.

I use to open most sites by typing the first 2 or 3 letters of the site, and the right sight would be first on the list.

Now, since it matches ANYWHERE in the url AND title, it is completely random what comes up.

The order also is not alphabetic, but instead sorted by what you used last. That means you always get some sub-page, rather than the front page, and almost all the time when you go to a site, you want the front page, and not the sub-pages that you already looked at.

Worst of all is that they didn?t even provide an option where you can chose if you want FF2 behavior.

For this reason alone, I will switch back to IE.

[oggologgo]

I think the problem with the thinking behind this, is that they confused search with url. Before the purpose of the url bar was to put in the url. Now the purpose is to search for urls. They should have kept that in the history.

[oggologgo]

The normal visit to a website is to go to the front page and then click on the news, updates, games, videos, ... all the new stuff they are featuring on the front page.

That means the front page will never be the last on you visited, although it is almost always the first one you want to visit next time.

Now the FF3 url bar will ALWAYS give the the sub-pages as results instead of the front page, because they will always be the last ones that you visited.

It actually forces you to type the complete url now. It is impossible to make it bring up the front page of a website, unless the front page is the only page you have even visited.

The only thing it is good for now, is url history SEARCH, which really should belong in the url history window. For just typing your regular url's and getting them quickly, it is now completely useless.

[Nevyn]

Hands down the most useful and unobtrusive location field I've used is Safari's. Check out my vid: http://overooped.com/post/30935987/location-bar-autocomplete-in-safari-rocks ; try replicating that with the Awesome Bar or any other bar in as few keys (and please *do* if you think it's possible, I'd love to link to a rebuttal).

(My video doesn't explain *why* Safari's bar is better, it only shows an example)

[atgarvin]

I can see how it'd be useful in some circumstances, but after a day of using it, I found it greatly increased the amount of time I spend typing in urls. I have my history set to never expire, and after several years I've accumulated a lot of stuff it can choose from. A bunch of domains I used to be able to type 2 or 3 letters from, then press the down arrow, now I have to 10 or 15 letters or the entire domain, or go down and backspace over the directory and filenames because it won't pull up the front page. The old bar extension doesn't sort properly and doesn't mimic the old behavior.

Furthermore, I work for an interactive agency, and we have dozens of sites that have a development, staging, and production set of urls. I frequently need to switch between these. Instead of typing the first few letters and seeing all 3 pop up below me to choose from, and nothing else, I get a dozen irrelevant links until I type in a significant part of the url. The naming strategy we use produces lengthy domain names that are very annoying when I'm required to type the whole thing in.

An earlier beta of 3 allowed the choice between the old and new behavior, but the current version only supports the new behavior. Which, to me, means I will never be upgrading to 3. It's open-source software, so maybe someone will start a branch that doesn't do it, or has two url bars, one awesome and one useful, or anything that doesn't waste large amounts of my time.

For the way I use a browser, it is a total annoyance.

[death2DRM]

What was so challenging about using CTRL+H to search history, CTRL-K to search, and CTRL-L to change LOCATION?

[death2DRM]

What was so challenging about using CTRL+H to search history, CTRL-K to search, and CTRL-L to change LOCATION?

[Woodwater]

Love the bar. LOVE IT!

[grandeped]

Another big difference is when you press the down arrow in the address bar - you used t get a list of the last 50 or so websites that you typed in. Now I don't understand what I get. That was really useful for people like me that do a lot of research in several tabs. If you want to look back at something your looked at recently, it was usually there in the address bar, and that was faster than using History. But now that is gone. The Awesome Bar is just the Annoying Bar.

I also get tired of the argument that it is wrong to resist change, or that change is inevitable. Not all change is good. Three-wheeled cars anyone? I remember when they were praised as the next best thing, and that the pathetic 5% that complained about them were just "resistant to change." Until we finally figured out that it really was a stupid idea.

[SadMonkeys]

And all my triple X sites keep popping up now for my girlfriend to see! They can throw the Privacy settings in the garbage if everything shows up in the awesome bar...

[jbardi]

Oh my god, you all are a bunch of babies... "WHAAA, I CAN'T HAVE IT MY WAY... HOW COME THEY TOOK AWAY MY PINK RATTLE AND GAVE ME A BLUE ONE... WHAAA, I CAN't TAKE CHANGE."

You live life in a little bubble, and now you have to type a few more letters in the address bar than you use to. You must be so important and busy that you don't have those extra seconds to spare. Remember, "diversity makes the world go 'round" and "you can't please everybody all the time". What you think slows you down, speeds me up. My browser usage is better in FF3 than it ever was in FF2. It speeds up all of Internet usage.

Get over it... I always test before moving to the next version of software... I kept FF2 on my system and backed up my profile incase it was altered by FF3, but after using it for like 5 minutes, I deleted FF2. In fact, the new address bar was the PRIMARY reason I decide to upgrade to FF3.

Firefox is free... you didn't pay for it and Mozilla is not required to care what you think. It is their program and they can design it any way they like. I run an online subscription service, and it utilizes a flash/web interface to create their projects... I redesigned the whole thing the way I knew it would be easier to use than the old interface. Some of my customers don't like it and want me to go back to the old interface, but too bad. Change is not for everyone, but it is what is good for the masses that out weights what is good for the few... Most of my customers couldn't be happier with the changes I made, but all I can do is apologize to the few and basically say that they can either accept it or move on to another company, because this is the direction we are going. If all you Microcrap Windblows users can't hack it, then go back to Internet Exploder and quick crying!

[death2DRM]

Yup change for change sake it so awesome.... much akin to the shift from a constitutional democratic republic to a fascist czardom.

[death2DRM]

Yup change for change sake it so awesome.... much akin to the shift from a constitutional democratic republic to a fascist czardom.

[Kakkoister]

For people who want the old Location Bar back. Here is an add-on for it.

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


It's quite close to replicating the old Location Bar. Future updates to the add-on should make it almost identical.