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

[TechHorse]

I use the independent search bar for internet searches because of its search term persistence.

However, I won't be enabling search term persistence in the address bar because, like others, I often want to edit or change part of the URL. I wouldn't want to have to remove the previous search text in order to tweak or copy the URL, as I may need these terms again later.

Plus, as mentioned, there are security issues with hiding the URL.

Basically, I like the current system of having two separate edit boxes for the URL and search terms. I do not want to have to sacrifice one type of information in order to access the other.

Sorry, but that is my honest feedback. I can't see myself moving to use the address bar for internet searches, and will continue to use the independent search bar for this.

On another note, I do like the notion of friendly special search activators such as @history, I am sure that they will be useful to people who haven't learned the use of *, ^, % etc.

(although as I said in a previous post, please do not remove the old single character methods in favour of the easier to remember but longer new terms)

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

• 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.

---

Example my personal website http://fromspacestation.free.fr

Keyboard shortcuts https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-perform-firefox-tasks-quickly#w_tools

---

Page Source

---

Note: the https version doesn't exist, so HTTPS-Only Mode in Firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/https-only-prefs is useless.

For information purposes, of course https isn't always "clean" safe, https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/google-blocked-direct-access-to-our-site-in-firefox/m-p/3...

[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.

[Nicholas_Steel]

So let me get this straight,

1) My inputted Search Term is no longer persistently visible while navigating the web.
2) I have to cycle between Search box and Address Box mode and can't see both things simultaneously.
3) Search Term Persistence was already a thing (The last thing you typed in to the Search Box stayed visible/typed in to the Search Box, even when navigating to other websites/browser tabs).
4) Search Term History could've been added by showing prior terms when clicking in to the Search Box and erasing its contents and could've been filtered by currently chosen Search Engine. just like what happens when clicking in to an empty Address Bar/Box.
5) Buttons for extended configurability of searching could've been added to the Search Box, where it would've made **bleep** loads more sense.
6) Intuitive Search Keywords and the hiding of HTTPS I'm fine with, that's good stuff.

Am I mistaken on any of this?

[Nicholas_Steel]

Okay, after actually trying it out my belief of the Search Box being removed/merged in to the Address Bar was not what is happening. Additionaly I really, really don't don't like how the hiding of HTTPS is handled. It should stay hidden at all times if you're going to do this as otherwise the URL moves to the right when wanting to interact with it and now my mouse courser and my gaze are in the wrong place.

[IvoryAqua]

Personally I'm not a fan of having a unified drop-down menu for the search shortcuts. Having all search shortcuts available at the bottom of the search suggestions box takes up only slightly more space but is easier and quicker to navigate. Please at least leave the options for users to stay with the previous format.

[elitegmr]

I prefer the old method of searching things with the address bar, since before it took two mouse clicks to use a specific search engine. With the new chiclet it now takes three mouse clicks, and when you're searching dozens of things every day that adds up. Luckily I found out that I can set "browser.urlbar.scotchBonnet.enableOverride" to false in the about:config to use the old address bar, so as long as you keep this in as an option it's fine I suppose.

One feature that would be useful with the old address bar would be if you could click the little dropdown icons twice in order to search that way, since currently you have to mouse to a specific search icon and click on it, then click the bar above it that says "Search with (option)". It would only save a tiny bit of moving the mouse up between two clicks, but again that adds up.

[Windows_Vista]

This is such a useless feature why not redo the entire UI https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/firefox-really-needs-a-ui-revamp-in-2025-26/td-p/91762 or work on something way more important like impriving the servo browser engine https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/when-is-mozilla-gonna-ditch-the-gecko-browser-engine-for-... not some stupid URLbar revamp **bleep**!

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

About browser.urlbar.scotchBonnet.enableOverride
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/how-to-enable-the-unified-search-button-amp-other-search/...

Unless i have misunderstood, take a look at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1949207#c4

[majestdigest]

I don't like the new drop-down menu feature because I use the former one a lot. Then I change it by making browser.urlbar.scotchBonnet.enableOverride value false. Drop down creates one more click and it's annoying.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

About the subject, This time search with.

Of course, it's not the answer expected, nevertheless, maybe, you can try this option, the Search bar to your toolbar https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-search-bar-firefox-toolbar

[greenwlan]

I’ve been using Firefox for about 12 years, and it has always been my default browser since I first got online.

Unified Search Button: This actually requires more clicks (at least two). While it works well on mobile, the desktop experience is poor. Additionally, the search engine icons don’t match the style of other UI elements, making them stand out awkwardly. It would be best if this could be enabled/disabled in about:preferences, allowing changes to sync via Firefox Sync.

Intuitive Search Keywords: For users of non-alphabetic languages (like Chinese), "@tabs" is no easier to remember than symbols like ^*+#$—and the latter already has years of established usage habits.

HTTP As the Exception: HTTP already has an "insecure" indicator, so this might be redundant. I personally prefer always seeing the protocol being used.

The other features are fine. 

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

An subject https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/remove-the-search-panel-that-appeared-in-firefox-136-beta... for information purposes.

[jimmyD]

First of all, I am OK with this feature, little nice redesign. Thanks team!

BUT quick switching with option/alt key and arrows no longer works. I was able to quickly select an engine for each query with keyboard. Now mouse clicks are needed.

Looks like this possibility was forgotten to be implemented

[Josh_B]

Hey, thanks for the note! We filed a bug and you can track it here

[Diddydooit]

Why don't you make it so we can turn off updates until we decide we want them, everyday for about 2 weeks I was getting a pop up telling me there was an update, I got so sick of seeing it that I updated only to find a few days later the popup was back with more updates, let the user control update times.

[Nicholas_Steel]

They did, it's a Enterprise Policy you can enable to turn off Automatic Updates.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

To complete this information.

DisableAppUpdate https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/upgrade-notification-spam/m-p/64080/highlight/true#M22529

[mgw]

Was there a change made to how Search Shortcuts work? I used to be able to type in my shortcut keyword and then hit tab to activate that search engine. For instance, I could type e+tab to be able to search Wikipedia directly from the address bar. That seems to have stopped working recently (possibly changed from tab to space?).

I saw a tip to change browser.urlbar.scotchBonnet.enableOverride to false and this did bring back my expected Search Shortcut behavior.

[Josh_B]

I can't speak for whether beforehand you could type "e" + tab to search, but if you made the shortcut "@e" with the new updates you can type "@e" + tab and that will activate the search mode. Otherwise, e+space would work too.

[mgw]

Good to know! For now, I have browser.urlbar.scotchBonnet.enableOverride set to false. With that set, I'm able to type my shortcut and then activate it using the tab key. Eventually, I'll make the switch and try to get used to using the space key instead of tab. 🙂

Thank you!

[Astral]

I'm quite satisfied with this new address bar because I like to quickly select the search engine I need through the keyboard. More semantic keywords can make it more convenient for me to use the corresponding search engine. However, there is one aspect that I think is very imperfect. Have you ever considered that when I first input the content I want to search for, and then think about changing the search engine (that is to say, I haven't decided to use the search engine when I input the content)? In the old address bar, we can change it at any time. Just click the mouse once or press Alt+↓ to reselect the search engine! This is very free, isn't it? But with the new address bar, it seems that I can only click the button to change the search engine with the mouse to expand the list of search engines. This is not efficient at all. I hate this. Could we provide a quick operation so that the search engine list can be expanded immediately without the need for mouse clicks?

Text.

[Astral]

We can retain all the other updates of the address bar this time. However, since so many users have raised objections to this decision in the discussion, can we move the search engine list back to the bottom? Rather than folding it into a button? I think it really affects the efficiency of switching search engines in certain scenarios and for some users. The interaction between pc and mobile touchscreen devices is different. I noticed that in the new version of edge browser, Microsoft also referred to the design of putting the search engine below the search suggestions. So I don't think this is a bad design. Now I also tend to revert to the address bar of the old version

Text.

[Astral]

I'm quite satisfied with this new address bar because I like to quickly select the search engine I need through the keyboard. More semantic keywords can make it more convenient for me to use the corresponding search engine. However, there is one aspect that I think is very imperfect. Have you ever considered that when I first input the content I want to search for, and then think about changing the search engine (that is to say, I haven't decided to use the search engine when I input the content)? In the old address bar, we can change it at any time. Just click the mouse once or press Alt+↓ to reselect the search engine! This is very free, isn't it? But with the new address bar, it seems that I can only click the button to change the search engine with the mouse to expand the list of search engines. This is not efficient at all. I hate this. Could we provide a quick operation so that the search engine list can be expanded immediately without the need for mouse clicks?

[Astral]

We can retain all the other updates of the address bar this time. However, since so many users have raised objections to this decision in the discussion, can we move the search engine list back to the bottom? Rather than folding it into a button? I think it really affects the efficiency of switching search engines in certain scenarios and for some users. The interaction between pc and mobile touchscreen devices is different. I noticed that in the new version of edge browser, Microsoft also referred to the design of putting the search engine below the search suggestions. So I don't think this is a bad design. Now I also tend to revert to the address bar of the old version.

[Astral]

For other updates, I think it does improve efficiency, such as more semantic keywords. There is only one point that puzzles me. Why fold the search engine from the bottom into a unified icon? The interaction of a PC is different from that of a mobile phone or tablet. Our screens are not as wide as those of mobile devices; instead, they are large enough to accommodate all search engines in a single line of space. I noticed that in the new version of edge, Microsoft also introduced a similar design concept. They brought bookmarks and history search below the search suggestions, which indicates that this design is not bad. I hope to restore the search engine to the style of the old version. The other updates of the address bar this time are all very good. A large number of users' objections are all aimed at the issue of search engine folding.

Text.

[Astral]

Also, regarding improving search efficiency, I have some ideas. We can use the alt+num key combination to quickly switch between different search engines. For instance, if I choose Google as my first search engine and bing as my second, I can use alt+2 to switch to bing and then use alt+1 to switch to Google. What do you think?

Text.

[Josh_B]

Hi there, this is interesting and we can certainly investigate. We would have to make sure the shortcut doesn't conflict with other browser or OS shortcuts. In the meantime, we filed a bug to enable Alt + Up/Down for keyboard navigation and you can track it here

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

Pick a search engine with Alt + Up/Down keys https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/search-box-alt-up-down-shortcut-doesn-t-work/m-p/93627

[Josh_B]

Hey, thanks for the note! We filed a bug and you can track it here

[Jyls]

Moderate annoyance to have to click one extra time to set my search option, much prefer the previous way where the options were lined up along the bottom

[IvoryAqua]

Firefox is now resetting the scotchBonnet option in about:config at the start of each session so I have to go back and change it each time I re-open Firefox. Please stop trying to force this "unified button" onto those of us who don't want it!