How to display "most visited pages" in Firefox's address bar

[Karlston]

How to display "most visited pages" in Firefox's address bar

Mozilla released Firefox 77 last week and with it came another change of functionality affecting the web browser's address bar.

 

When you activate the address bar, e.g. by clicking on it, you used to get the list of most visited pages displayed to you; this changed with the release of Firefox 77 as Firefox displays the top sites now.  Top sites are identical to the sites on the browser's New Tab page.

 

 

While you may change top sites, e.g. by adding your favorite sites to the listing on the New Tab page, it is at its core a static list that does not change automatically.

 

What arguments do users make that dislike the change?

 

Most changes made to a browser's user interface or functionality are controversial in nature. Firefox's recent address bar change is a prime example for that, and this one may be as well.

1. The list is a duplicate of the browser's top sites.
2. The list of most visited sites was more useful as it was dynamic and listed the most popular sites all the time automatically.
3. The most visited sites listing could display multiple entries from a single resource.

Is there an option to restore Most Visited Sites in Firefox's Address Bar?

 

 

Firefox 77 comes without options to undo the change. There is no option or advanced configuration preference to restore the old functionality in the address bar.

 

While that is the case, there is still an option to bring back the listing but it requires manual action.

1. Hit the Space-key on the keyboard after activating the address bar. You will notice that Firefox changes the list of suggestions from "top sites" to "most visited".
2. Hit the ^-key instead and you get a similar listing; this one uses a slightly different algorithm to compute the list of sites.

Firefox users may also access the "most visited" bookmarks link in the bookmarks bar to access the list of most visited sites directly in the browser.

Closing Words

As a user, I would like to see an option implemented in the browser that gives users a choice when it comes to what is displayed when the address bar is activated. It should not be too difficult to implement that option and Mozilla would ensure that users who dislike the change have an option to restore the classic behavior.

 

 

How to display "most visited pages" in Firefox's address bar