Hello Xirix,

This is a temporary fix, but I am hoping that they will give us the opportunity to permanently disable this feature.

Would you do this please :

Type in the address bar about:config and press Enter. (ignore the warning)

Type in the search bar and look for the preference :

browser.urlbar.openViewOnFocus

and set its value to false

Do the same with these preferences :

browser.urlbar.update1

browser.urlbar.update1.interventions

browser.urlbar.update1.searchTips

Then close and restart Firefox.

Another possibility is to code in userChrome.css to revert the change in width and height of the location bar.

#urlbar[breakout],
#urlbar[breakout][breakout-extend] {
  --urlbar-height: 28px !important;
  --urlbar-toolbar-height: 30px !important;

  width: 100% !important;
  top: calc((var(--urlbar-toolbar-height) - var(--urlbar-height)) / 2) !important;
  left: 0 !important;
}

#urlbar[breakout][breakout-extend] > #urlbar-input-container,
#urlbar-input-container {
  height: var(--urlbar-height) !important;
  width: 100% !important;
  padding-block: unset !important;
  padding-inline: unset !important;
  transition: none !important;
}

#urlbar[breakout][breakout-extend] > #urlbar-background {
  box-shadow: 0 1px 4px rgba(0,0,0,.05) !important;
  animation: none !important;
}

It is not that difficult to create userChrome.css if you have never used it.

The first step is to open the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" page and find the button to access the profile folder.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-troubleshooting-information-page-fix-firefox

You can find this button under the "Application Basics" section as "Profile Folder -> Open Folder". If you click this button then you open the profile folder in the Windows File Explorer. You need to create a folder with the name chrome in this folder (name is all lowercase). In the chrome folder you need to create a plain text file with the name userChrome.css (name is case sensitive). In this userChrome.css text file you paste the text posted. On Mac you can use the TextEdit utility to create the userChrome.css file as a plain text file.

In Windows saving the file is usually the only time things get more complicated because Windows can silently add a .txt file extension and you end up with a file named userChrome.css.txt. To avoid this you need to make sure to select "All files" in the dialog to save the file in the text editor using "Save File as".

You need to close (Quit/Exit) and restart Firefox when you create or modify the userChrome.css file.

See also:

• https://www.userchrome.org/what-is-userchrome-css.html
• https://www.userchrome.org/how-create-userchrome-css.html

In Firefox 69 and later you need to set this pref to true on the about:config page to enable userChrome.css and userContent.css in the chrome folder.

• toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets = true

See:

• https://www.userchrome.org/firefox-changes-userchrome-css.html

Okay so with the latest update, the about:config alterations, nor the chrome code work anymore :/ The URL bar is back to doing the odd pop-out thing and generally looking worse than it was.

Don't suppose there's anything else that can be done? Maybe a plugin got made to change it back or something?

Chosen Solution

Have you tried about:config > browser.urlbar.update. Not sure what exactly either one of them does, but i've turned all 4 to false.

Yes I've tried those, those were what I ment when I said I did the about:config alterations (they're listed just below my initial post way at the top), the new firefox made those not work.

The original solution was for Firefox 75. Due to changes in Firefox 77, the original solution is obsolete and there are new options. Firefox supports an optional style sheet file named userChrome.css that we can use to modify the toolbar area, including taming the expanding address bar. Setting up your first userChrome.css file is about a 10 minute project, so when you have time to dive in, here are some threads to check out: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1283911#answer-1303777 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1284030#answer-1304125 https://www.userchrome.org/megabar-styling-firefox-address-bar.html#mbarstyler More background on userChrome.css files: https://www.userchrome.org/

In Nightly, there is a specific preference for this in about:config called browser.urlbar.update1 (previously known as browser.urlbar.megabar). Setting that to false will revert the bar to its more typical behavior in new windows (the windows that are already open seem to keep the megabar behavior until the next session). For anyone unfamiliar: (1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk. (2) In the search box above the list, type or paste URLB and pause while the list is filtered (3) Double-click the browser.urlbar.update1 preference to switch the value from true to false Note: This preference does not exist in Firefox 71-72.

Hi Xirix, to tame the enlargement behavior, you will need to use a userChrome.css file. You can compare the steps in the following reply: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1289351#answer-1318441