Can't delete some items from Firefox One-click search

May 5, 2020 11:10 AM

So, Firefox (76) has this drop-down menu that appears when I click in the URL field. It includes some addresses I've recently visited, and Wikipedia and YouTube, etc. Fine. It also includes Facebook, which is not fine.

I have tried going to Options/Search, but FB doesn't even show up on that list of One-click search engines. I tried turning the One-click off completely, but it won't go away. I tried restoring the default list, but it not only kept FB, it added Reddit, which I also don't want. That doesn't appear on the Options/Search list, either. I went to About:config and set browser.urlbar.oneOffSearches and browser.urlbar.suggest.searches to false, with no effect. Restarted Firefox, cleared the cache, etc.

How do I get Facebook and Redditt (and now, Twitter) off that list, or make the list go away?

posted by Kirth Gerson to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Response by poster: Forgot to mention, I also down-arrow navigated to FB in the list, which does highlight it, and Shift-Deleted. That was somebody's answer on the web. It did nothing. Didn't work with Twitter or Reddit, either.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:18 AM on May 5, 2020

The URL is in your history, not search.

I don't know if this will work, but you can try:

1. Open History > Show All History

2. Type facebook.com into the search field for the history

3. Select any facebook-related page.

4. Right click and select "Forget about this site"

I tested with ask.metafilter.com on v 73, and it worked.
posted by JawnBigboote at 11:25 AM on May 5, 2020

Best answer: Looks like about:config's browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.default.sites preference contains (for me, in Canada):

https://www.youtube.com/,https://www.facebook.com/,https://www.reddit.com/,https://www.wikipedia.org/,https://www.amazon.ca/,https://twitter.com/

That's most likely where it's coming from
posted by scruss at 11:41 AM on May 5, 2020 [1 favorite]

If you just want to revert the urlbar changes, this about.config setting will work until v77 comes out:
browser.urlbar.update1 to false

More info about this 'feature' here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/fwhlva/address_barawesomebar_design_update_in_firefox_75/
posted by stobor at 11:59 AM on May 5, 2020

When I click in the address bar, the sites it shows are the same as my 'top sites' that show up on my New Window ("Firefox Home").

If you see these when you open a new blank tab, click the 3 dots in the top right of each icon to save/pin/edit.

If you don't see these when you open a new tab, you'll need to first 'show' Top Sites using your firefox preferences. Then open a new blank window. Within the Top Sites area, you can click the 3 dots in the top right of each site's icon. You may have to 'pin' the sites you choose so they don't rearrange themselves based on your web activity.

Here's Firefox's instructions.
posted by hydra77 at 12:22 PM on May 5, 2020

Response by poster: scruss, that was it. I edited that entry, deleting the ones I don't want, and after restarting Firefox, they're gone.

They definitely weren't in my history, because I never go to any of the three sites, and the browser history is not saved when I close it.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 1:56 PM on May 5, 2020