How to disable Firefox suggestion

Firefox Suggest, a new feature in the Firefox web browser that introduces personalized searches and sponsored suggestions to the browser’s address bar, is included in Firefox 92 stable, at least for some users. The new version of Firefox was released earlier this week, but Mozilla did not mention Firefox Suggest in the official post. Release Notes.

The official support page on the Mozilla website suggests that users who see Firefox Suggest in the address bar, but do not have the option to disable it in Settings, are part of a Shield Study; However, this was not the case in our test system.

Mozilla ran a Firefox Suggest test in the United States last month to collect some data and resolve issues or bugs before the feature’s planned launch.

According to a Phabricator page, Firefox Suggest’s address bar labels were enabled for all local en- *.

Firefox suggestion

Firefox users should see a group of Firefox suggestion results in the drop-down menu when they type in the Firefox address bar. The function is independent of the default search engine; a quick test confirmed that it appeared on Google Search, Bing, and DuckDuckGo.

With Firefox Suggest enabled, Firefox separates search engine suggestions from the Firefox suggestion pool. The first group, search engine suggestions, works as before. Search engines are queried and return a series of suggestions based on the input.

Firefox Suggests fuses classic browser-based suggestions, taken from open tabs, bookmarks, browsing history, and shortcuts, with displayed sponsored content.

Disable Firefox suggestion

Firefox users should have a Search option to disable Firefox suggestion. Our Firefox test install, Firefox 92.0 stable, didn’t have that option, but you might want to check there first:

1. Load over: preferences in the Firefox address bar.
2. Switch to the Search tab.
3. Scroll down to the Search Tips section.
4. Uncheck «Show Firefox Suggestions in Address Bar (Suggested and Sponsored results).

Note– Some sites claim that disabling search suggestions will remove Firefox Suggest; This is not the case.

The following is required to hide the Firefox suggestion in the browser’s address bar:

1. Load about: config into Firefox’s address bar.
2. Continue when the warning page is displayed.
3. Look for browser.urlbar.groupLabels.enabled.
4. Set the preference to FALSE.

Setting it to FALSE disables the Firefox Suggestion tag in the address bar. Please note that it may not affect the browser’s ability to display sponsored content in the suggestions it displays. There may be another preference for that.

Mozilla used a different preference previously, browser.urlbar.experimental.firefoxSuggestLabels.enabled, but it is no longer supported.

Closing words

Firefox’s suggestion sounds like a new feature that most Firefox users might not want. Users can have two main problems with Firefox Suggest:

• That label can remove space in the drop-down menu for suggestions.
• That sponsored results can be added to the group.

Most are probably indifferent to bundling local suggestions and better separation of local suggestions and search engines.

It is certainly problematic if a feature is enabled without options to disable it.

Now you: What do you think about this? (via Techdows)

advertising