How to prevent ads from appearing in the Firefox address bar

This is the message that Mozilla displays when you try to download Firefox for the first time. If you want to protect your personal information when browsing the Internet, you should choose Firefox, which is the selling point of the developer Mozilla.

However, as far as the latest updates are concerned, Mozilla seems to be at least somewhat retreating on this issue.

One thing is clear: no one "likes" advertising. Advertising is intrusive, and if you think it's too clunky, it can be too relevant and creepy, "How much do you know what you're doing?"

On the other hand, there is also the aspect that most of the Internet can be used for free because of the advertisement. In the first place, you shouldn't have had to pay to read this article. You can read the article just by clicking the link because there is an advertisement displayed in the article.

You can play countless games on your smartphone because the pop-up ads that appear along the way support game developers. The Internet works like that.

Most users accept this situation, but it also has its limits. When an ad is displayed in a sneaky or terribly offensive way, it's still annoying.

Until recently, Samsung smartphone users in some areas were forced to see ads using the genuine pre-installed weather forecast app.

In addition, the navigation app "Waze" will display advertisements for nearby spots each time you stop at a red light. But in my case, I don't really want to stop at a Wendy's store until I take a detour for 10 minutes every time I stop at a red light.

"Firefox" that started displaying advertisements in the address bar

The story goes back to Mozilla.

Firefox has so far had a policy of "not selling itself and trying to maximize advertising exposure."

The developer, Mozilla, is proud that Firefox blocks cookies, prevents social trackers from tracking behavior, and blocks more elements than other browsers.

However. With a recent update, the previously unobtrusive address bar input has been changed to show ads as you type a string.

Apparently, this new "feature" was introduced with "Firefox 92".

If you don't want to add this feature to your browser, you can simply not update it (I myself didn't see this feature when I first launched Firefox today).

However, this is not a long-term sustainable solution.

Browser updates are essential to take advantage of new features and bug fixes without the hassle of advertising.

How to prevent ads from appearing in the Firefox address bar

Fortunately, these ads can easily be turned off if you know where to change the settings.

Open Firefox Preferences, then click the Privacy & Security panel.

Scroll down this panel to open "Address Bar --Firefox Suggest".

The English version of Firefox has a new item at the end of this page called "Contextual suggestions" with the option "Include occasional sponsored suggestions" as a sub-item. Is displayed.

This sub-item is the main cause of the advertisement being displayed when you enter it in the address bar.

To stop displaying ads, just uncheck this "Include occasional sponsored suggestions". If you turn this option off, your ads will not appear in the address bar.

However, if you don't want Firefox to suggest websites or search results on its own, you might consider unchecking the "Contextual suggestions" option, which sits at the top of this option. ..

Source: Twitter, Firefox Help