Fixing Firefox 3
December 5, 2009 4:18 PM Subscribe
I hate Firefox 3. What can I do to make it more like Firefox 2?
I've tried using Firefox 3 on several different occasions, but never could get used to it, so I've always just reverted back to Firefox 2.0.0.20. Unfortunately, Firefox 2 is showing its age, so I should probably upgrade at some point. Is there any way I can make Firefox 3 work more like 2? Specifically, I find the "AwesomeBar" insufferable, and the lack of a loading cursor (you know, the hourglass next to the arrow) disorienting.
I know there's an extension that's supposed to make the AwesomeBar work like Firefox 2's location bar, but I've read it's sort of broken in 3.5.5 (and it hasn't been updated in five months, so I don't know if the author has any intention of fixing it). I've not been able to find anything on how to make the loading cursor work again.
tl;dr: I want the loading cursor back and the location bar to function like Firefox 2's location bar. Can these things be done?
I've tried using Firefox 3 on several different occasions, but never could get used to it, so I've always just reverted back to Firefox 2.0.0.20. Unfortunately, Firefox 2 is showing its age, so I should probably upgrade at some point. Is there any way I can make Firefox 3 work more like 2? Specifically, I find the "AwesomeBar" insufferable, and the lack of a loading cursor (you know, the hourglass next to the arrow) disorienting.
I know there's an extension that's supposed to make the AwesomeBar work like Firefox 2's location bar, but I've read it's sort of broken in 3.5.5 (and it hasn't been updated in five months, so I don't know if the author has any intention of fixing it). I've not been able to find anything on how to make the loading cursor work again.
tl;dr: I want the loading cursor back and the location bar to function like Firefox 2's location bar. Can these things be done?
If the AwesomeBar is even what I think you're talking about, it still has the same functionality, but knows what you're likely to want.
And you just want the animated thing in at the top rather than the loading bar in the bottom right?
On second thought, I'm really not sure that I know what you don't like about FF3 at all.
posted by cmoj at 5:03 PM on December 5, 2009 [1 favorite]
And you just want the animated thing in at the top rather than the loading bar in the bottom right?
On second thought, I'm really not sure that I know what you don't like about FF3 at all.
posted by cmoj at 5:03 PM on December 5, 2009 [1 favorite]
There's a discussion in this forum about the possible return of the loading cursor. Sounds like there is hope.
posted by girlpublisher at 5:03 PM on December 5, 2009
posted by girlpublisher at 5:03 PM on December 5, 2009
Response by poster: I'm using Windows XP. This sums up why I dislike the AwesomeBar. The image girlpublisher posted is what I was referring to when I said "loading cursor".
posted by Dreamcast at 5:22 PM on December 5, 2009
posted by Dreamcast at 5:22 PM on December 5, 2009
There are a couple of extensions meant to restore the pre-awesome bar.
Your question has prompted me to try one; I haven't been a fan of the awesomebar myself.
posted by Zed at 5:30 PM on December 5, 2009
Your question has prompted me to try one; I haven't been a fan of the awesomebar myself.
posted by Zed at 5:30 PM on December 5, 2009
Yeah, the Old Location Bar add-on (the first of Zed's links) is about the closest you'll get. Works just as it says for me on FF 3.5.5 OS X. I don't see the ordering problems some have reported - most used, either overall or starting with the letters I've already typed, is at the top; if for some reason I start visiting another site more often, it gradually floats to the top of the list as expected.
There's also a few changes that can be made in about:config to tweak behaviour back to a more 2.0 style - Old Location Bar catches most of them, but there's a couple of others that also help. I can't easily untangle the manual changes in my config from the ones the plugin has made, so Google around to see what they may be.
The stupid inconsistency of the alleged AwesomeBar was the final straw that drove me away from it, after trying and re-trying it through the 3.0 betas. When I type 'sl', I'm expecting slashdot.org to be somewhere near the top of the list - not a bunch of random pages I've visited, or from my bookmarks, that have something like 'Queensland' 2/3rds of the way through the title…
(Yes, the old behaviour was 'inconsistent' in that there was no guarantee that e.g. slashdot.org would always be at the top of the list - but at least it was understandably inconsistent.)
posted by Pinback at 6:01 PM on December 5, 2009
There's also a few changes that can be made in about:config to tweak behaviour back to a more 2.0 style - Old Location Bar catches most of them, but there's a couple of others that also help. I can't easily untangle the manual changes in my config from the ones the plugin has made, so Google around to see what they may be.
The stupid inconsistency of the alleged AwesomeBar was the final straw that drove me away from it, after trying and re-trying it through the 3.0 betas. When I type 'sl', I'm expecting slashdot.org to be somewhere near the top of the list - not a bunch of random pages I've visited, or from my bookmarks, that have something like 'Queensland' 2/3rds of the way through the title…
(Yes, the old behaviour was 'inconsistent' in that there was no guarantee that e.g. slashdot.org would always be at the top of the list - but at least it was understandably inconsistent.)
posted by Pinback at 6:01 PM on December 5, 2009
I hated it at first too, but within a day it learned what I want (e.g "sl" means slashdot) and it started doing exactly what it should, and now I rely heavily on it.
posted by intermod at 8:24 PM on December 5, 2009
posted by intermod at 8:24 PM on December 5, 2009
Without derailing too much: I suspect a lot is down to how one uses FF.
I can see how it's supposed to work - and yes, I've given it several days worth of tryout in each incarnation since it turned up (~β3?), with clean profiles & history - but for me, with a ton of rarely-visted reference bookmarks, a habit of looking to / typing in the URL bar for commonly-visited (not most recently-visted) addresses, and who doesn't care about site/subsite/page titles, it just doesn't work properly. It's too inconsistent, and learns / suggests the wrong things (where "wrong" = "stuff I didn't type in, or that doesn't appear in the URL, so I've never seen it before so why the hell is it finding it?")
I will grant that it got somewhat better with each version but, even in 3.5.5, for me it still more often gets it wrong than right e.g. my "choosing 'sl' in the middle of a word near the end of the title over 'sl' near the beginning of the URL" example above. With a restricted set of bookmarks, a habit of using them more often than I do, frequent visits to a small set of regular sites, or if you pay more attention to site/subsite/page titles than URLs, it may work well.
The situation hasn't been helped by the FF dev's stubborn insistence that the feature is so Awesome! it must be right.
posted by Pinback at 9:54 PM on December 5, 2009 [1 favorite]
I can see how it's supposed to work - and yes, I've given it several days worth of tryout in each incarnation since it turned up (~β3?), with clean profiles & history - but for me, with a ton of rarely-visted reference bookmarks, a habit of looking to / typing in the URL bar for commonly-visited (not most recently-visted) addresses, and who doesn't care about site/subsite/page titles, it just doesn't work properly. It's too inconsistent, and learns / suggests the wrong things (where "wrong" = "stuff I didn't type in, or that doesn't appear in the URL, so I've never seen it before so why the hell is it finding it?")
I will grant that it got somewhat better with each version but, even in 3.5.5, for me it still more often gets it wrong than right e.g. my "choosing 'sl' in the middle of a word near the end of the title over 'sl' near the beginning of the URL" example above. With a restricted set of bookmarks, a habit of using them more often than I do, frequent visits to a small set of regular sites, or if you pay more attention to site/subsite/page titles than URLs, it may work well.
The situation hasn't been helped by the FF dev's stubborn insistence that the feature is so Awesome! it must be right.
posted by Pinback at 9:54 PM on December 5, 2009 [1 favorite]
If your major problem is that it shows both bookmarks and history, as pointed out in your link, you could always use the standard menu option to get rid of that behaviour.
Personally, I'll agree with the other posters about how good it gets at "learning". You use it for a bit and it's almost magical how effective it is at pinpointing the exact location you were thinking about.
posted by Mons Veneris at 10:37 PM on December 5, 2009
Personally, I'll agree with the other posters about how good it gets at "learning". You use it for a bit and it's almost magical how effective it is at pinpointing the exact location you were thinking about.
posted by Mons Veneris at 10:37 PM on December 5, 2009
The Fission add-on combines address bar and progress bar (Safari style). This makes the progress bar more visible and allows for a nice visual effect.
posted by Lanark at 1:51 AM on December 6, 2009
posted by Lanark at 1:51 AM on December 6, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
Also, when you were trying to use Firefox 3 before was it with the AwesomeBar on or with an extension to turn it off? The things that you are complaining about seem pretty minor, and the AwesomeBar is supposed to get better as you use it. I would recommend trying Firefox 3 with everything normal. And getting used to it. It seems that most users are happy with the new Firefox, so it's here to stay. Get used to it.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 4:32 PM on December 5, 2009