Firefox 15 address bar shenanigans

[kaberett]

Okay, so. Searching the interwebz isn't giving me a quick-and-easy answer to this, so clearly AKICODW/LJ, right? ;)

So: for some phrases/key combinations, I'm getting a list of suggested URLs that have _nothing_ to do with my bookmarks or history. For example, I can flat-out guarantee that I have never visited the wikipedia page on LUP, the duckduckgo search results page for Lupus_(constellation), Lead Units of Pressure on wikipedia, or Singapore's lift upgrading programme - but those are all suggested completions for the entered phrase "lup".

This is new as of a couple of weeks ago and is really, really irritating me. Anyone know a fix?

Comments

[jjhunter]

If it isn't typing stuff into the google.com page searchbar (suggested searches are based on a combination of what data Google has for profiling you & your location and most popular searches- *rereads your post, notes the bit about the URL bar*

Sounds like a minor (and highly irritating for you) hack. What internet browser are you using and what operating system are you on? If it's one of the combinations I'm thinking of, it's very possible to get it removed; I just can't remember the how right off the top of my head.

[kaberett]

It is indeed the URL bar :-)

Firefox 15 under WinXP, plus a buncha extensions (that I don't _think_ should be contributing). I do have the search bar & the URL bar separated out, because I'm That Person.

[sidheag]

For what little it's worth, Firefox 15 under Windows 7 (both fully updated I think) with that starting set of letters or others behaves as you expect, and offers only sites I've actually visited in the past.

Nobody else uses your computer and could have visited those sites?

[kaberett]

Nope, plus scrolling down to highlight the entries and then hitting delete - in accordance with Recommended Procedure - doesn't remove them. It removes the places I _actually_ want to visit from the end of the list instead - it seems to ignore that they exist for the purposes of deleting entries!

[kaberett]

(Additionally, something's clearly gone wrong in the prioritisation algorithm - it's not shifting the sites I _actually_ use up that list. If it were I wouldn't be as narked!)

[sidheag]

and if you start in safe mode?

[kaberett]

Good call - in safe mode the issue doesn't arise. I will have a poke through my add-ons!

[kaberett]

Fixed, thank you :-)

[swaldman]

Hmm, haven't come across this myself (although I'm on FF 17 at present).

If you go to menu->history, and type one of those surprising pages into the search box, do they appear? (ie does FF think that they are in your history or not)

[noldo]

there's a firefox 15?!?!?!?!

[sorrillia]

==

[kaberett]

YES APPARENTLY IDEK

[sorrillia]

Apparently I am on Firefox 13. *Is very surprised.*

No wonder the Firefox 3 I have in lab works so poorly. But it seems I can't get a newer version that will run on a PowerPC Mac, and that's what my lab computer is...