In: ,
On: 2008 / 06 / 25
Shorter URL for this post: http://ozh.in/ij

According to this non-authoritative poll, nearly 50% of Firefox3 users think that the "Awesome Bar" is a huge piece of crap.

I must concur: this is a *huge* piece of crap. The sad thing is, there seem to be no way of reverting to a normal behavior. A few Firefox Addons or about:config hacks make things look like what it used to be, but unfortunately it does not act like it should.

I'm almost tempted to downgrade from FF3 back to FF2.

Shorter URL

Want to share or tweet this post? Please use this short URL: http://ozh.in/ij

Metastuff

This entry "This is Official: I Hate Firefox’s “Awesome” Bar" was posted on 25/06/2008 at 10:13 pm and is tagged with ,
Watch this discussion : Comments RSS 2.0.

20 Blablas

  1. A lot of my friends say exactly the same thing. I've been keeping tabs and I noticed that computer geeks (like us) hate the new bar, while the average user (like my Dad) loves it. I never make use of the auto-drop-down selection menu anyway because I type pretty fast. So I don't care for any sort of "Awesome Bar", but I do notice that the drop-down results do suck a whole lot more than before.

  2. Mr. Gunn says:

    It doesn't work like it used to. It autocompletes using more than just the url, including page titles and I don't know what else. I'll bet wordpress is in your title on those pages. I find myself using it more and more to retrieve URLs that I want to get back to but which I didn't think were important enough to bookmark.

  3. Louis says:

    Search is a different function than autocompleting, therefore it should be in another location. I agree that this is bullshit.

    Apple has solved it by implementing URL search in Spotlight, but Firefox has done it wrong.

  4. Ozh says:

    Mr. Gunn » I understand how it works and why these URL are returned. It's just that it sucks that you can't disable this. When I type "word", I want URL beginning with "word" to be returned. Nothing else.

  5. Dan says:

    LOL thankfully I keep forgetting to upgrade. I did this one other time. I think I liked version 1 and I accidently downloaded 2 and had a bitch fit because i kept getting errors GALORE! Stupid ff.

    Now I love and dont want to upgrade to 3. Why change when something is good as is? And now that I keep seeing all this negative st uff about FF3 I really dont wanna upgrade!

  6. Nate says:

    I couldn't agree more. I've temporarily switched to Opera, and not cause of just the awesome bar. There are other flaws too.

    By the way, Google 'Disable Firefox 3 Awesome Bar.' One of the first search results is a video by CNET on how to disable the not so awesome bar.

  7. Ozh says:

    Nate » I searched everything and this CNET trick as the others is just cosmetic.

  8. Nate says:

    I believe you you also have to unbookmark everything you've bookmarked using the 'star' icon within the awesome bar.

    I also have browser.urlbar.MaxRichResults set at 0.

  9. Paul says:

    I completely disagree. I use it constantly. When I'm building a site I have to look at tons of different pages that begin with the same URL. Now instead of typing the whole URL or typing the beginning and looking through a list, I can just type the unique part of the url or the page title. Very helpful.

  10. BB2k says:

    get IE =P

  11. ACW says:

    I agree with Paul.

    The people who don't like the AwesomeBar are the people who haven't tried to alter their workflow. They're the same people that bitch and moan how the new thing sucks instead of trying to see how it works, and how they can adapt to it. People did it with the new layout in MS Office, as well. (Including myself.)

    Rather, they'd prefer to continue typing a non-unique URL, rather than typing a unique identifier.

    When I want AdSense, I just type "ads" [enter]. That's much faster than typing "google.com/" and scrolling through a bunch of entries for my Google account services.

    When I want a particular subforum, I type "Lounge" instead of "episte" and then scrolling through the subforums that I frequent (Mac Achaia, Boardroom, Feedback and suggestions, etc.). All of those start with episteme.[blah]. Why do that when I can type "board" [enter] and get the boardroom? Or "Ach" and get the Achaia? Much faster, much more efficient.

    Change your workflow. You'll like it if you do. And it's pretty trivial to disable if you still don't. (I have yet to come across anyone who doesn't like it once they try to change the way they work instead of trying to shoehorn the old way into the new software.) I hated it the first few days I used it, and I didn't know it was possible to disable it.

    Now I'm glad I didn't know, because it improves my workflow. I wouldn't go back to the old way if you paid me.

  12. Stephen R says:

    Two things —

    1) It gets better the more you use it. It learns.

    2) I like it because you can type a unique part of a URL. I type in "wordpress plugin" and get a bunch of recent pages relating to WordPress plugins — including those that don't begin with "wordpress". Why should I have to remember that that page I visited yesterday began with "codex"?

    3) You're a geek. This I understand. Searching based on precise beginning of a URL is tighter control. I've been using Firefox since Beta 2, and I _love_ the new bar. It takes a small adjustment, but it just works.

  13. Stephen R says:

    Heh. "Our TWO chief weapons are Fear, Surprise, a Fanatical Devotion to… wait, start again…."

  14. Dave B says:

    Agree the awesome bar is complete rubbish and i am worried about the privacy issues it raises too.

  15. Kirk M says:

    For all those folks who think the new Location bar (that's official name by the way, the dev's gave it that horrible nickname) isn't so great, Firefox 3.1 which is due near the end of the year will have the database filters in place so that users should be able to easily configure what kind of results the Location Bar displays. By what I understand, Firefox's "History" data needs to be incorporated into the "Places" SQLite DB before this can happen and that is scheduled for 3.1. according to the Mozillazine forum threads I've read (one of the dev's posted the info).

    Now I'm not only a tech-head and incurable geek, I'm an old(er) tech-head and incurable geek and I actually like the the new Location Bar. But then again, I'm rather strange. :P

  16. music is great says:

    I have downgraded to ff2 because the ff3 awesome bar is ghey.

  17. As much as I love Firefox 3, I have to agree with you. Using the awesome bar on a slower computer is also quite sluggish (especially compared with Firefox 2.x).

    I'd also like to add that I'm not too sure the new bookmarking system has been changed for the best, either.

  18. uri says:

    When my mother used my computer to get to her hotmail account yesterday, as soon as she'd typed "HOT", the first link in the dropdown was this:

    Previews/A/April_Flowers/April_Flowers-X-Hottub_Lesbo-
    01.jpg

    WTF??? I mean, this address bar "improvement" is going to do a lot of damage to relationships etc. Hell, if I was a closeted gay, I could be outed in seconds by this new address bar!

  19. branko says:

    For those that want the bar to lool like v2.

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6227

  20. HE says:

    I am a firefox fun from earlier versions 1 and 2. They were simply, small with few basics commands and with a lot of add-ons to personalize. And it all! Is great!
    Make more add-ons, add-ins,skins, whatever, only!
    Do not try to think for all!
    Awesome bar is a restriction of personalization, is like IE.
    Who love firefox hate this kind of restrictions.

    For people who want control i recomend:
    Type in the adress bar about:config
    Accept the firefox recommendations, go in.
    double click "browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped;true"
    select true

    For people who want remove (cancel) i recomend
    sames procedures
    select "browser.urlbar.maxRichResults" and select "0" null as a number

    close firefox.

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>
Gravatars: Curious about the little images next to each commenter's name ? Go to Gravatar and sign for a free account
Spam: Various spam plugins may be activated. I'll put pins in a Voodoo doll if you spam me.

Read more ?