Disable Rich Search Suggestions with Thumbnails in Firefox Address bar

Newer versions of Mozilla Firefox web browser come with rich search suggestions feature which displays search entities with image thumbnails and description in the address bar’s drop-down list. If you don’t like the new rich suggestions feature and want to get rid of it, this article will help you.

Following screenshot shows the rich search suggestions with image thumbnails and description appearing in Firefox web browser:

As soon as the user starts typing characters in the address bar, Firefox automatically shows rich search suggestions matching with the search term. There are some important points to keep in mind regarding the new search suggestions feature in Firefox:

• Rich search suggestions are displayed only when provided by the search provider. Currently only Google search supports rich suggestions. If you have selected any other search engine in Firefox browser, the rich suggestions might not work.
• Rich suggestions are only shown for popular or trending searches.
• If you have disabled address bar suggestions using Firefox Settings or about:config, the rich suggestions will not work.
• Rich suggestions feature is available in Firefox 122.0 and later versions only.

Some Firefox users might not like the new rich suggestions feature due to privacy reasons. Also the browser might take extra time in fetching and showing the rich suggestions in the URL bar which can slow down the overall browsing experience.

If you want to disable or remove the rich search suggestions feature in Firefox and want to restore the classic text-only search suggestions in the URL bar, here is a good news for you. Mozilla team has provided a hidden secret preference/flag to turn on or off the new rich search suggestions feature in Firefox address bar. You can simply modify the secret preference mentioned in below steps to enable or disable rich search suggestions feature in Firefox.

Following steps will help you in enabling or disabling rich search suggestions feature in your Firefox web browser:

1. Open Mozilla Firefox and type about:config in the address bar and press Enter. It’ll show you a warning message, click on “Accept the Risk and Continue” button. It’ll open Firefox’s hidden secret advanced configuration page i.e. about:config page.

2. Now type rich in Search filter box and look for following preference in the window:

3. To completely deactivate and disable the new rich suggestions feature in Firefox, set the above mentioned preference to False.

If you want to activate and enable the new rich search suggestions feature, set the preference to True.

To change the preference value, double-click on the preference and it’ll toggle the preference value.

That’s it. It’ll immediately enable or disable rich search suggestions feature in your Firefox browser.

Also Check:

[Tip] Enable or Disable Search Terms Display in Firefox Address bar

[Tip] Remove Tabs Search (Arrow Button) from Firefox Title Bar

[Tip] Disable or Remove “Firefox View” Tab Icon from Toolbar