How to Disable Firefox Suggest Sponsored Ads in the Address bar?

If you want to know what is Firefox Suggest feature which displays sponsored ads and website suggestions in Mozilla Firefox address bar, what information does this feature collect and send and how to completely turn off or disable this feature in Mozilla Firefox web browser, this article will help you.

What is Firefox Suggest Feature in Mozilla Firefox Web Browser?

Firefox Suggest is a new feature introduced in Firefox 92 version (some Firefox users received the feature in version 93). As the name suggests, Firefox Suggest feature displays website suggestions as soon as the user starts typing in the address bar or search bar.

So you might see unwanted 3rd party websites promotions and advertisements in Firefox address bar even if you never visited those websites or bookmarked them.

Does Firefox Suggest Display Sponsored Ads in Firefox?

The answer is yes. According to Firefox official documentation, some of these suggestions are served from Mozilla’s partner organizations. Most of these sponsored content are shown by their preferred partner adMarketplace.

Mozilla also mentions that Firefox also provides results from Wikipedia and the results from Wikipedia are not sponsored.

Is Firefox Suggest Feature Available or Enabled for All Users?

No. Currently Firefox Suggest is only available in the United States. If you are living outside of the U.S., Firefox will provide or suggest only local results taken from browsing history, bookmarks and open tab suggestions.

Does Firefox Suggest Collect and Send Data to Mozilla Servers?

If you are worried about telemetry and data collection by Firefox Suggest feature, here is some information to help you.

According to Mozilla, following data might be collected and shared by Firefox Suggest feature:

Search queries and suggest impressions: Firefox Suggest sends Mozilla search terms and information about engagement with Firefox Suggest, some of which may be shared with partners to provide and improve the suggested content.

Clicks on suggestions: When a user clicks on a suggestion, Mozilla receives notice that suggested links were clicked.

Location: Mozilla collects city-level location data along with searches, in order to properly serve location-sensitive queries.

Mozilla also mentions that before sharing any data with partners about which suggestions have been displayed or clicked, all personally identifying information is removed, and the data is sent through a Mozilla-owned proxy service rather than directly from your computer.

Should You Use Firefox Suggest Feature or Remove It?

Now the question comes should you use Firefox Suggest or disable it? If you are fine with websites suggestions in the address bar and you find those suggestions useful, you can keep using the feature.

On the other hand, if you are worried about privacy issues, you can safely disable Firefox Suggest feature. Firefox allows users to deactivate and disable Firefox Suggest.

How to Disable or Turn Off Firefox Suggest Feature?

Following steps will help you in disabling Firefox Suggest feature completely in Firefox and you’ll no longer see sponsored ads or suggestions in Firefox address bar:

1. Open Firefox and click on the Hamburger icon present at the right-side end of the toolbar to open the main menu. Now click on Settings menu to open Firefox settings page.

Alternatively, you can direct option this page using about:preferences command in address bar.

2. Now click on “Privacy & Security” tab present in left-side pane and in right-side pane scroll down to “Address Bar – Firefox Suggest” section.

IMPORTANT: If you only see “Address Bar” as the section name and Firefox Suggest is not displayed in the section heading, it means Firefox Suggest feature is not activated or enabled in your browser.

3. Now you need to disable following options to permanently turn off Firefox Suggest and other sponsored ads/suggestions in address bar:

• Suggestions from the web
• Suggestions from sponsors
• Improve the Firefox Suggest experience

First 2 options “Suggestions from the web” and “Suggestions from sponsors” are enabled by default. The 3rd option “Improve the Firefox Suggest experience” is only enabled if you explicitly selected “Allow” option on an opt-in modal notification prompt shown by the browser.

Turn off or disable all above mentioned options and it’ll disable Firefox Suggest feature in your web browser.

IMPORTANT TIP:

For some users if they are using older versions of Firefox or using testing versions such as Nightly build, Firefox may display following options under “Address Bar – Firefox Suggest” section instead of the above mentioned options:

• Personalized search suggestions
• Show sponsored suggestions
• Contextual suggestions
• Include occasional sponsored suggestions
• Show Firefox Suggest in the address bar (suggested and sponsored results)

If you see any of above mentioned options, disable them to turn off Firefox Suggest feature.

Turn Off Firefox Suggest Feature Using About:Config Method

Advanced or expert users can also modify a hidden secret preference/flag to disable Firefox Suggest feature as mentioned in following steps:

1. Open 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 labels in Search filter box and look for following preferences in the window:

3. To disable Firefox Suggest feature, double-click on the above mentioned preference and change its value to false. Alternatively, you can click on the Toggle icon given next to the preference name.

That’s it. It’ll immediately deactivate and disable sponsored suggestions and advertisements in Mozilla Firefox address bar.

PS: In future, if you decide to restore default behavior and enable Firefox Suggest feature, set above mentioned preference/flag to true again.

Also Check:

[Tip] How to Disable Ads on New Tab Page in Mozilla Firefox

[Tip] Disable Recommended Features Suggestions in Mozilla Firefox

[Tip] Disable Recommended Extensions Suggestions in Mozilla Firefox

[Firefox Tip] Remove Recommended Extensions, Themes from Add-ons Manager

[Tip] Disable Advertisements, Suggestions and Tips in Windows 10