Version 3 of Firefox was released in June of 2008 and it wasn’t long after that I stopped bookmarking pages. It wasn’t Firefox 3 alone that that changed my behavior, but it was Firefox that enabled it. As I described in my article about RSS the other day, I once had a set of bookmarks for sites I visited constantly. Google Reader replaced those bookmarks, but I still kept a set of well organized bookmarks for sites that didn’t have RSS feeds or that I used for reference. What was it about Firefox 3 that made me stop using bookmarks?
A typical address bar in Firefox 3 on a Mac
The address bar in the current version of Firefox is much than just a place to enter the URL of a website or see which page you’re currently looking at. The Firefox address bar pictured contains this site’s favicon on the left (you can click on it for site information), the address of the current page, an RSS icon indicating firstbytes.com has an RSS feed (you’re subscribed, right?), a nice looking blue star, and an arrow pointing down that can be clicked on to show items recently entered into the address bar.
An blue star outline indicates the current page is not bookmarked.
The blue star in the address bar is the bookmark button. If the current site is not bookmarked the star will only be an outline, as pictured to the right. You can see in the earlier picture that I have First Bytes bookmarked, as indicated by the solid blue star. “But Nik, you said you didn’t use bookmarks!” You caught me. I’ll explain in a minute.
When you begin typing in the address bar a panel appears below it displaying items from your browsing history. Firefox is doing a bit more than that, however. As you type, it matches items in both your history and your bookmarks based on page URL and title.
For example, if your favorite basketball team is the Portland Trailblazers you’ve probably been to a web page about them, and those pages probably have “Trailblazers” in the title. If you type “Trailblazers” or “Portland” into the address bar, pages you’ve visited with those words in their titles or addresses will appear. When you see the one you want, press the down arrow key down until it is selected and press Enter.
Firefox remembers which item you selected and the next time you enter similar text in the address bar that entry will be closer to the top of the list. I use this mechanism every time I want to go somewhere I’ve been rather than using the Bookmarks menu or sidebar and scrolling through a list.
If I never use the Bookmarks menu why do I have sites bookmarked? If I know I’m going to want to be able to return to a site later, I’ll click the bookmark star for the simple reason that it won’t be cleared if I delete my browsing history. Bookmarks are my browsing autobiography; the things I want to remember about where I’ve been.
Firefox’s smart address bar has saved me the trouble of organizing a collection of bookmarks by neatly sidestepping them entirely. Next time you’re going someplace you’ve been, try typing something into the address bar and see what it finds for you.
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