FF83. Issue with search suggestions in URL bar

[Sabin]

Hello,

I think this is a different issue from the one discussed in this topic of a few days ago, but in case I am mistaken, here is its link: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=3056598

There's this new feature shipped with Firefox 83, if we type in the URL bar the first letter of a site
- (a) for whom we have a bookmark, and
- (b) that possesses its own search engine, and is added to Firefox's available search engines (you know, google, bing, duckduckgo, etc),
... then Firefox will suggest, in its second line below the URL bar, to run a search using the search engine of that site.

Here it is, in a screenshot, showing what happens after I typed the "g" letter in my URL bar

(if the image embed doesn't work, the screenshot's URL is: https://imgur.com/a/ir9QnN9 )

I traced it back to a precise option in Firefox. My apologies, my Firefox is in French so I cannot know *exactly* how it will be called in English, but I'm confident you'll find what it's supposed to be in the English version.
That option is: FF Options > Privacy and security > URL bar > "when using the URL bar, display suggestions from" > "The bookmarks".

I must mention, I have that other option ticked, to "add the search bar to the tools bar" (instead of the default "use the URL bar to search"), which makes the new Firefox 83 feature redundant and unhelpful.

But unfortunately, that suggestion to use a search engine is a problem for me. For reasons that would be useless to mention here (among which: a third of the letters of the alphabet trigger Firefox's suggestion to use a website or another's search engine, argh, my professional bookmarks work against me), but yeah, the gist is, I would dearly want to get rid of it... without disabling search suggestions entirely.

That's why I come here, to ask if somebody, miraculously, would know how to disable that specific new feature, Firefox's suggestion to run a search using a website's search engine, in the URL bar, but not at the complete cost of disabling suggestions.
I'm after a rollback to how things were before Firefox 83, I suppose I could say.

Honestly, I doubt that's doable (I tried every about:config option mentioned in http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=3056598 , for instance), but I have little to lose in asking, save a few minutes.

Thank you very much if you can help me, and if you can't, well, have a nice day, no worries, you internet strangers

[jscher2000]

Actually, this doesn't require that you have a bookmark, just that the search engine has a defined "Search shortcut" (formerly known as a keyword) on the Options page, Search panel. That is enough to generate the "Tab to complete" option if your typing could still match the shortcut.

Since you cannot delete the search shortcuts for built-in search engines, your choices are:

(A) Delete Google!

Okay, no one is going to Remove the built-in Google search. Probably.

(B) Use a temporary preference

This is going to get removed eventually after the updates are completed, but it works for now:

(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 on the page, type or paste update2 and pause while the list is filtered

Firefox will list all the temporary preferences associated with the current round of address bar innovations.

(3) Double-click the browser.urlbar.update2.tabToComplete preference to switch the value from true to false

(C) Find a userChrome.css workaround to hide that row on the drop-down

This isn't perfect if you are used to arrowing down because as far as I know, style rules cannot help with skipping over hidden items.

[Sabin]

My apologies, Jscher, I forgot to reply at that time.

Thank you for the answer! As the current workaround doesn't fully remove the annoyance, I'll choose to keep things as they are, even if I'm no huge fan.

Oddly enough perhaps, sites that are suggested for a search in my URL bar do not have a search shortcut, but are still suggested. Maybe, then, that is no intentional, go figure, haha.

Anyway, take care, have a nice day!

[Sabin]

Oh, an update, to my reply to Jscher's answer.

I didn't not realize not every step of his explanation needed be followed.

Simply setting "browser.urlbar.update2" to False, in about:config, does the job already, and there's no need for further changes in Firefox, that alone does it, no glitch or hole remains in the stead of the disabled function, it's a relief

(in case it's version-dependant, I'm with Firefox 84.0, desktop, Win10)