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Deleting specific items from address bar

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Up until the release of 78.0.1, I have been deleting items from the address bar by highlighting the item and then holding the Shift key and tapping Delete. This doesn't work now, much like when it changed from just hitting the Delete key, so what is the process for deleting specific items from the address bar now? The Help pages are no help because they still say to do the Shift+Delete way.

Up until the release of 78.0.1, I have been deleting items from the address bar by highlighting the item and then holding the Shift key and tapping Delete. This doesn't work now, much like when it changed from just hitting the Delete key, so what is the process for deleting specific items from the address bar now? The Help pages are no help because they still say to do the Shift+Delete way.

All Replies (6)

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What you are trying to remove are likely the eight "Top sites" that Firefox shows by default if you haven't typed anything.
You can remove the "Top sites" from possible suggestions via Options/Preferences.

The location bar drop-down list can show history items, bookmarked pages, pages opened in tabs, and search suggestions. You can set what suggestions show when you enter an URL in the location/address bar bar.

  • Options/Preferences -> Privacy & Security
    Address Bar: When using the location bar, suggest:
    History
    Bookmarks
    Open tabs
    Top sites
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cor-el said

What you are trying to remove are likely the eight "Top sites" that Firefox shows by default if you haven't typed anything.
You can remove the "Top sites" from possible suggestions via Options/Preferences. The location bar drop-down list can show history items, bookmarked pages, pages opened in tabs, and search suggestions. You can set what suggestions show when you enter an URL in the location/address bar bar.
  • Options/Preferences -> Privacy & Security
    Address Bar: When using the location bar, suggest:
    History
    Bookmarks
    Open tabs
    Top sites

So now the choices are to have those irremovable sites there, or have nothing display in a drop down list from the address bar. Rather than having the most common pages that I can delete as needed, now they get stuck there or display none of them. Excellent.

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Only the top sites can't be removed via Shift+Delete, you can still have bookmarks and history visible, but you need to type in the location bar to be able to highlight an entry with the cursor key and remove this item via "Shift+Delete". The top sites that are pinned need to be removed from the Firefox Home and New tab page and you may have to enable this section temporarily via "Options/Preferences -> Home".

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cor-el said

Only the top sites can't be removed via Shift+Delete, you can still have bookmarks and history visible, but you need to type in the location bar to be able to highlight an entry with the cursor key and remove this item via "Shift+Delete". The top sites that are pinned need to be removed from the Firefox Home and New tab page and you may have to enable this section temporarily via "Options/Preferences -> Home".

All for the purpose of adding unnecessary complexity, typical. I preferred when I could just click in the address bar and see the most common sites that I wanted there, but Firefox continues to make it more and more difficult. I'm surprised they haven't added something where you have to click five things in order to type a single letter yet. Now that I've given the idea though...

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Firefox 78 forces a shitty new search bar. Downgrade to 77 and never upgrade if you want your search/address bar to perform correctly.

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Hi Dragos, if you take 30-60 seconds to remove the pre-pinned and other default Top Sites, Firefox should eventually rebuild the Top Sites list from your history. Or you can take a few more minutes and add/pin the sites you want to see on the automatic drop-down. This changes gives you more control of the list, even if that control comes with a little more work.