577235 - Autocomplete URL only works with sites that don't contain www. domain names

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 566489

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[imradyurrad]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:2.0b2pre) Gecko/20100705 Minefield/4.0b2pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:2.0b2pre) Gecko/20100705 Minefield/4.0b2pre

This is really annoying and somehow diminishes the whole purpose of the autocomplete feature.

typing in mas will get you http://mashable.com
but typing in face doesn't get you http://www.facebook.com
Websites that contain the www. prefix are ignored

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[[not reading bugmail]]

Not sure but switch to tab should have kept this in check even when not including switch to tab searching.  If I've been to www.facebook.com before, typing in face will find it, but i also haven't changed the defaults for history or search for bookmarks and history.   

What is the history and search settings for the location bar set at?

Comment 2

[imradyurrad]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Not sure but switch to tab should have kept this in check even when not
> including switch to tab searching.  If I've been to www.facebook.com before,
> typing in face will find it, but i also haven't changed the defaults for
> history or search for bookmarks and history.   
> 
> What is the history and search settings for the location bar set at?

It's not autocompleted though. In about:config, search for browser.urlbar.autoFill and set it to true. 
Now if you've visited a site that doesn't have a www. in it's name, it'll autocomplete the url. ex. twitter.com

Comment 3

[imradyurrad]

Attachment: image

Comment 4

[[not reading bugmail]]

hmm, not sure, maybe blair knows.

Comment 5

[imradyurrad]

(In reply to comment #4)
> hmm, not sure, maybe blair knows.

What aren't you sure about?
Look, use Chrome as an example. It autocompletes all of the sites you've visited. If you've visited mozilla.com for example, type in the first 3 letters or so (i.e m-o-z) and it'll complete the full url. I don't know how I can simplify that even more.

Comment 6

[Luke Iliffe (Harlequin99)]

There may be a connection with bug 461483 which was checked in recently.

Comment 7

[[not reading bugmail]]

I got to www.facebook.com, I didn't see autocomplete fill in, but just by typing in face, but something took me to facebook after I hit enter.  If I tried twitter.com, typing in twi shows the rest of the URL before I hit enter.

What I didn't remember was comment 6 occurred, and I was not sure if the changes to matching in the awesomebar occurred during the switch to tab project and afterward might been a factor in this.

Comment 8

[imradyurrad]

(In reply to comment #7)
> I got to www.facebook.com, I didn't see autocomplete fill in, but just by
> typing in face, but something took me to facebook after I hit enter.  If I
> tried twitter.com, typing in twi shows the rest of the URL before I hit enter.
> 
> What I didn't remember was comment 6 occurred, and I was not sure if the
> changes to matching in the awesomebar occurred during the switch to tab project
> and afterward might been a factor in this.

That's because of the google search integrated into the awesome bar. Firefox has it linked to "I'm Feeling Lucky" somehow

Comment 9

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

so, where are steps to reproduce on a new profile?

Comment 10

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

notice also bug 559878

Comment 11

[imradyurrad]

(In reply to comment #9)
> so, where are steps to reproduce on a new profile?

1. about:config
2. "browser.urlbar.autoFill" 
3. set to true
4. Close about:config tab.
5. type the first letters of "about:config" into urlbar.
6. The url will autocomplete.

This doesn't work for sites that have www.

Comment 12

[imradyurrad]

(In reply to comment #10)
> notice also bug 559878

Not related.

Comment 13

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

ok, please test if this regressed with bug 461483 or was already there.

Comment 14

[imradyurrad]

(In reply to comment #13)
> ok, please test if this regressed with bug 461483 or was already there.

I don't think that relates to this bug.

Comment 15

[Bruce Tomlin]

The problem in my experience (this has been annoying me ever since switching to Seamonkey 2.0) is that if the site rewrites the URL to start with "www.", the autocomplete only works when you start by typing "www".

When you type "facebook.com", the web site rewrites it as "www.facebook.com", and that's what goes into the autocomplete database. I have to type "www.fa" for autocomplete to work with it (since I don't go there and have another www.f* site that I regularly go to). Sites that go both ways (such as slashdot) get two separate sets of entries for their URLs, based on whether or not the "www" was included on the address bar when the page was viewed.

Basically, the solution is for autocomplete to also search for names that begin with "www." or to ignore the leading "www." when searching. However be aware that some sites don't work without the www. www.nhc.noaa.gov works, but nhc.noaa.gov is a different IP address with no web server, so the autocomplete needs to know to add the www after hitting enter, if the match started with it. This should be a special case because of the large number of sites that begin with "www."

Comment 16

[Bruce Tomlin]

This is related to Bug 566489.

Comment 17

[bogas04]

Can we ignore www. while checking history or bookmarks in awesomebar? This is what Opera and Chrome does. Please , Fix this by beta 4

Comment 18

[bogas04]

Also , enable autocomplete by default , this will help users migrating from Chrome/Opera/Safari to Firefox 4 , its indeed a handy feature