Address Bar Updates - Now Live in Firefox Nightly

[cbellini]

Exciting Updates to the Firefox Address Bar: Get Nightly and Test Them Now!Hello Firefox community! We're excited to share the latest updates to the Firefox Address Bar! These new features aim to improve your search browsing experience by making it faster, more intuitive, and easier to discover tools you already love. Whether you're a long-time Firefox user or exploring its capabilities for the first time, we’ve got something that’ll enhance your web experience. What’s New:

• Unified Search Button: A new, easy-to-access button in the address bar helps you switch between search engines and search modes with ease. This feature brings the simplicity of mobile Firefox to your desktop experience
• Search Term Persistence: Now when you refine a search in the address bar, the original term sticks around, making it easier to adjust your queries and find exactly what you're looking for
• Secondary Action Buttons: Ever needed to access more options for a specific result? These buttons allow for a streamlined experience, whether you're switching tabs or performing quick browser actions—all without disrupting your workflow
• Intuitive Search Keywords: You can access various address bar search modes with convenient and descriptive keywords (e.g. @bookmarks,@tabs,@history, @actions).
• HTTP As the Exception: For a more secure web experience, we'll now display the HTTP protocol prominently, so you know when you're on a non-secure site, while HTTPS will be hidden to reduce clutter.

How Does This Benefit You?

For our long-term Firefox users who appreciate the balance between power and simplicity, these updates give you more control and smoother navigation without overwhelming your current browsing setup.

For newer users, especially those looking for intuitive, fast-paced productivity, these features ensure you can search, switch, and perform tasks quickly, all while keeping privacy and user choice at the forefront. Your Feedback Shapes Firefox!

We’re inviting you to test these features in Firefox Nightly and share your thoughts. Whether you love how easy it is to switch search engines or have ideas for what’s next, your feedback will help us refine and perfect these features before their full release.

Join the conversation and let us know how we can continue building a better Firefox—one that respects your preferences, enhances your productivity, and keeps you in control.We invite you to join the discussion and help us shape the future of Firefox Search.

When sharing feedback, we'd also love to know:

• How long have you used Firefox?
• Is Firefox your default browser?

Happy browsing!

— The Firefox Search Team

[sunny]

Please allow disabling the unified search button. Whenever I want to select / edit a specific part of the URL I try to double click into the address bar, but because suddenly this button as well as an additional `https://` appears the entire text shifts to the right by ~2-3cm or over a hundred pixels and now I'm suddenly editing an entirely different part of the URL that I didn't want to click on. What's worse is that if I click once into the URL bar it shifts to the right because the `https://` untrim appears and when I then double click *again* in the spot I want to edit the Unified Search Button appears and shifts everything to the right **again** so I always have to click into the URL bar 3-4 times to be able to edit the part that I need to edit.

I can disable the url/https trim with about:config, but there's absolutely nothing I can do about the Unified Search Button.

Please create a setting that allows disabling this, or alternatively implement it in such a way that it doesn't shift the entire URL to the right. Thank you!

Edit: Actually it's the other way around, first the Unified Search Button appears, then the https untrim appears.

Luckily `browser.urlbar.usb.dynamic = false` makes the Unified Search Button at least always be there, so the URL doesn't jump around and `browser.urlbar.trimURLs = false` makes the `https://` always appear, so that also stops the URL from jumping around.

I'd still appreciate it a lot if there were more permanent fixes to this issue, especially ones in the Settings UI, and if in the future it will be taken into consideration that when people click into the URL to edit it, they expect to be able to edit what they clicked on, not something entirely different because for some reason the URL needs to jump by multiple centimeters to make place for previously hidden UI elements.

[SouthFresh]

Obfuscating the URL should never have been considered in the first place. This is a security flaw and anti-user.

[Josh_B]

Hi sunny,

Thank you for the feedback. Are you on the newest version of Nightly? We uploaded a fix to the issue of the button interfering with double-click to highlight fairly recently. The Unified Search Button now only displays when the URL is modified or cleared from the addressbar.

[elegant-tree]

Thank you for pointing out `browser.urlbar.trimURLs`! I've been searching everywhere for a way to revert that change!

[Synchro]

Could you please explain what is the difference between "browser.urlbar.trimHttps" and "browser.urlbar.trimURLs"? It looks like previously "browser.urlbar.trimHttps" was responcible for hiding "https"

[gotaug]

To get rid of that goddamn button, toggle browser.urlbar.scotchBonnet.enableOverride to false in about:config

"we'll call this completely unnecessary change 'Unified Search Button' but we'll call the toggle to turn it off 'scotchBonnet', even though we call the toggle 'unifiedSearchButton' if you want to show the horrible thing all the time"

[probablywrong]

After using this new unified search bar for several months, I have to say... I miss being able to use other search engines with one click. Type my query, all my other search engines appear below, I just click the one I want and it goes. Easy.

Now to use another search engine, I have to type my query, click the current search engine, click the one I want, then press enter.

I know it's a small thing, not that much work, etc, but it just makes me use other search engines less because I'm not even seeing them so sometimes I forget they're even there. They're all hidden away in some menu. The address bar expands with suggestions when you type anyway so it's not like you're saving space by removing the search engine suggestions from view.

Anyway, it's just one of those changes that now that I've lived with it for months, I can say that while it's not a massive deal or anything, I do think it makes the browser a little worse and I wish I could revert back. I understand the reasoning behind the change but I think Mozilla should rethink whether the aesthetics of hiding them away is worth the tradeoff. I'd put money on the amount of people using multiple search engines regularly has dropped since the change.

[Erwan]

Bonjour

How do I disable the "search persistence"??

It's actually very annoying when you want to see your URL during a search.

Edit: I found the little button to display it! That's something.

[Josh_B]

If you want to disable search persistence, you can go to about:preferences#search and in that first section labeled "Default Search Engine" there is a checkbox with the label "Show search terms in the address bar on results page".

Uncheck that checkbox.