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Comment by lordlarm | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one that does not understand why Firefox still has a 'Google search' field at the left? Why not use Chrome's approach and merge the two of them - at least give me the possibility to hide it. (And I am aware of the possibility so search in other sites than google, but I 'never' want to do that.)

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Everything you type in Chrome's location bar is sent to Google, most likely unencrypted. Every single character.

If you want to turn this behavior on in Firefox, you can do so with a simple add-on:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/omnibar/

but it's off by default because of the MASSIVE privacy implications.

Just because Chrome does that doesn't mean Firefox must do exactly the same.

Merging location bar and search bar doesn't mean you can't give URL higher priority or that you must query search suggestion every key stroke.

If you just want to search from the address bar without suggestions, you can already do that in Firefox 4. Just type a word and press return.

Well, Firefox basically does that already, then. You can enter search terms in the URL bar and hit Enter to search. If you then hide the search box, you've got what you suggest.

Uh, you do know you can turn that off in chrome? I realize it's the default, but those of us who can switch browsers at the drop of a hat can handle it... I think. :-)

Mozilla made the decision that it was better to make it absolutely clear to the user when they were making an ordinary web request, and when they were sending trackable information to a third party.

Regurgitating my previous response to this [1]:

a) I can drop-down the list of available search engines and see what's available, without having to remember any key-words to do the searches.

b) (and this is the killer feature for me) If a particular search engine is selected (say, IMDB), I can right-click on any word on a page, and one of the context menu options is "Search IMDB for <selection>..."

Also, horizontal real-estate is not much of a concern on a wide-screen monitor - how much of the URL would I really want to see..?

[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2309115

> Why not use Chrome's approach and merge the two of them

I've been asking myself this question many, many times. You can hide the search field: right-click on the toolbar > customize > drag/drop the search inside the window > done.

You're not the only one. I use Seamonkey instead because this and other similar annoyances.

Why not just remove it through "Customize"? You can just right click on any empty spot in the tool bar, click Customize, and then remove the search box. Wouldn't that be easier?

The annoyance is the lack of search functionality in the address bar, not the presence of the search bar.

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