670579 - Not so awesome bar; Firefox 5 url bar does not redirect to sites like older version (3.x)

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 593709

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[LW]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3

Steps to reproduce:

Type in site url without .com / .net / etc



Actual results:

went to google search


Expected results:

Redirect to site - which happened in Firefox versions 3.x

Comment 1

[Dave Garrett]

Firefox 3.x used Google's browse by name service, however apparently there were enough complaints of inconsistent/unexpected results and enough confused users to warrant changing it to a plain search instead.

Disabled in bug 565966. Request to re-enable in bug 593709 (WONTFIXed). Request to add a built in option in bug 594515 (also WONTFIXed).

This feature can be used again easily enough with a little addon:
https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/browse-by-name/

Comment 2

[LW]

Oh great - why have one search bar when you can have two search bars.
I am sorry, but security reasons do not justify having two search bars. You want security - convert the patch into a security plug-in. 
It does not make any common-sense to have 2 search bars. 

"however apparently there were enough complaints of inconsistent/unexpected results"
Really? I used to type firefox and it took me to mozilla firefox website - how unexpected is that?

If people are worried about security then they should use and change the patch provided to disable BBN as a plug-in called awesomeBar security plugin.
But no, instead a patch was created and then a plug-in to sit on top of it.
YuS ~ Why go the long way when you can go the longer way?
Just call Firefox 5 Mozzarella

And no - it was never slow.
ALl you had to do was type "bug mozilla", click enter, a wow
you are directly in this site.

Comment 3

[LW]

Why can't there be an option in about:config
so that people who know the "security risks" and are "confident" enough
to use the "smart" bar (as some like to call it) for BBN?

All it has to do is comment the patch provided!

Comment 4

[Dave Garrett]

This is a dupe of either bug 593709 or bug 594515 (doesn't really matter which). Please leave it as such. Also, don't cross-post the same rant in 3 bugs at once.

(In reply to comment #3)
> Why can't there be an option in about:config

It is. All the addon I referenced above does is change it for you. The addon is very simple, installs without a restart, and I use it myself. Yes, I too would like this option built in (I was the one to file the request for that in the first place) but I don't make these decisions.

Comment 5

[LW]

(In reply to comment #50)
> (In reply to comment #49)
> > Why can't there be an option in about:config
> There is, as the previous comment stated, and is referred to in the link
> given in the URL field of this bug. I'll quote it here in case it is edited
> out in future:
> 
> To use Google’s “Browse by Name” service, in about:config change the value of
> keyword.URL
> to
> http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=

No double posting.

See comment: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=565966#c51